Shows / Writing Excuses
Episodes
- Writing Excuses
15.51: Feedback—When to Listen, and When to Ignore, with special guest Mahtab Narsimhan
Your Hosts: Dan, Howard, Mahtab, and Brandon We're often taught that the best critique group feedback is reactions to the writing, rather than advice for…
- Writing Excuses
15.50: Juggling Ensembles
Your Hosts: Brandon, Victoria, Dan, and Howard Our listeners have asked about how we handle managing a large cast of characters. This is something we've all…
- Writing Excuses
15.49: Maintaining Passion for a Story, with special guest Mahtab Narsimhan
Your Hosts: Dan, Howard, Mahtab, and Brandon This episode comes from a question we're often asked: "how do you stay excited about a story you're working…
- Writing Excuses
15.48: Deliberate Discomfort, Part Two
Your Hosts: Dan, Mahtab, Howard, and Brandon We've talked about deliberately making our readers uncomfortable. In this episode we discuss writing things that…
- Writing Excuses
15.47: Worldbuilding Science Fiction, with Cory Doctorow
Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, Piper, and Howard, with Cory Doctorow Worldbuilding is something you do to some degree in everything you write. Cory Doctorow…
- Writing Excuses
15.46: Crafting Chinese-American Characters
Your Hosts: Dan, Piper, and Tempest, with special guest Yang Yang Wang Yang Yang Wang, an author, actor, and director (among many other things) joins us for a…
- Writing Excuses
15.45: Worldbuilding Fantasy, with Patrick Rothfuss
Your Hosts: Dan, Mary Robinette, and Howard, with Patrick Rothfuss Pat joins us for a discussion of worldbuilding, in which we field a couple of challenging…
- Writing Excuses
15.44: Rebooting a Career
Your Hosts: Dan, DongWon, Mary Robinette, and Howard What do you do when some of the key foundations of your authorial (or otherwise creative) livelihood are…
- Writing Excuses
15.43: Audiobook Narration, with Bruce D Richardson
Your Hosts: Brandon, Dan, Mary Robinette, and Howard, with special guest Bruce D Richardson Bruce D Richardson, who is often credited as BDR, or BD Richardson…
- Writing Excuses
15.42: Writing The End
Your Hosts: Brandon, Victoria, Dan, and Howard How do you decide what sort of event ends your story? How do you set the scale and the stakes for that event?…
- Writing Excuses
15.41: Researching the FCK out of Things, with Cory Doctorow
Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, Piper, and Howard, with special guest Cory Doctorow In journalism, that three-character string in our episode title means "Fact…
- Writing Excuses
15.40: Researching for Writing the Other
Your Hosts: Piper, Dan, and Tempest, with special guests Nisi Shawl and Silvia Moreno-Garcia Writing stories which feature people who are not like you is, in a…
- Writing Excuses
15.39: Translation, with special guest Alex Shvartsman
Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, Dan, and Lari, with guest Alex Shvartsman Translation is fantastically complex. In this episode Lari and Alex help us navigate…
- Writing Excuses
15.38: Depicting Religions That Are Not Your Own
Your Hosts: Piper, Dan, and Tempest, with special guest Nisi Shawl Whether you're writing about a real-world religion, or one you've created for your setting…
- Writing Excuses
15.37: Writing Under Deadlines
Your Hosts: Brandon, Victoria, Dan, and Howard What's it like to write under a deadline which has been set for your project by someone else? What strategies…
- Writing Excuses
15.36: Collaboration, with Shannon and Dean Hale
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, and Dan, with special guests Shannon and Dean Hale We've had several discussions about collaboration, and we've learned…
- Writing Excuses
15.35: Tools for Writing and Worldbuilding, with Erin Roberts
Your Hosts: Dan, Mary Robinette, Lari, and special guest Erin Roberts We've received a number of questions about the 'tools of the trade' for organizing our…
- Writing Excuses
15.34: Writing Deliberate Discomfort
Your Hosts: Dan, Mary Robinette, Lari, and Erin How do you proceed when the story you want to write includes elements that make you personally uncomfortable?…
- Writing Excuses
15.33: The Long, Dark Second Act of the Soul
Your Hosts: Brandon, Victoria, Dan, and Howard Many Writing Excuses listeners have asked us how we muscle through writing second acts, those big, chonky…
- Writing Excuses
15.32: Short Story Markets
Your Hosts: Dan, Mary Robinette, and Lari, with special guest Erin Roberts Erin Roberts joins us for a discussion of short story markets—a topic which is very…
- Writing Excuses
15.31: The Agent in the Room
Your Hosts: Dan, DongWon, Piper, and Howard You had questions for agents, Dongwon has answers! How do you go about becoming an agent? How do an agent and…
- Writing Excuses
15.30: Write What You Want To Know, with Laurell K. Hamilton
Your Hosts: Brandon, Dan, and Howard, with special guest Laurell K. Hamilton We've all heard the "write what you know" rule. Laurell K. Hamilton joined…
- Writing Excuses
15.29: Barbie Pre-Writing, with Janci Patterson and Megan Walker
Your Hosts: Brandon, Dan, and Howard, with special guests Janci Patterson and Megan Walker Janci Patterson and Megan Walker joined us to talk about their…
- Writing Excuses
15.28: Small Evils
Your Hosts: Brandon, Victoria, Dan, and Howard Small evils? Yes, please! This episode isn't about writing the big villainy of world domination, but about…
- Writing Excuses
15.27: Alternate History, with Eric Flint
Your Hosts: Brandon, Dan, and Howard, with special guest Eric Flint Eric Flint joined us at SpikeCon (host of the 2019 NASFIC) to talk about creating alternate…
- Writing Excuses
15.26: Taking the Chance, with David Weber
Your Hosts: Brandon, Howard, and Dan with special guest David Weber David Weber joined us at NASFIC to talk about the importance of risking failure on any path…
- Writing Excuses
15.25: Using the MICE Quotient for Conflict
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Dan, and Howard The MICE quotient is a tool for categorizing story elements—Milieu, Idea, Character, and Event—and we've…
- Writing Excuses
15.24: Keeping it Fresh, with Jim Butcher
Your Hosts: Brandon, Howard, and Dan, with special guest Jim Butcher Jim Butcher joined us at NASFIC for a discussion about how we can keep long-running…
- Writing Excuses
15.23: Serialization
Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, Lari, and Dan, with special guest Jenn Court Let's talk about serials. Jenn Court, whose work includes lots of writing for TV (IMDB…
- Writing Excuses
15.22 Writing For Children, with Shannon and Dean Hale
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, and Dan, with Shannon and Dean Hale Shannon and Dean Hale join us again, this time to discuss how to effectively and…
- Writing Excuses
15.21: Writing About Children, with Shannon and Dean Hale
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, and Dan, with Shannon and Dean Hale Shannon and Dean Hale join us to discuss how to effectively and convincingly write…
- Writing Excuses
15.20: Mental Wellness and Writing
Your Hosts: Brandon, Victoria, Dan, and Howard In this episode we'll be talking about the things we do to stay creative, productive, healthy, and happy. For…
- Writing Excuses
15.19: As You Know, This Episode Is About Exposition
Your Hosts: Brandon, Victoria, Dan, and Howard "As you know, Bob..." is the trope-tastic line we use to refer to expository dialog which has no…
- Writing Excuses
15.18: Finding a Community, with Shauna Hoffman
Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, Dan, and Lari¹, with special guest Shauna Hoffman Many Writing Excuses listeners (especially WXR alumni) already know Shauna…
- Writing Excuses
15.17: Asexual Representation
Your Hosts: Dan, Tempest, Mary Robinette, and Howard Generally speaking, asexuality is a sexual orientation or identity typified by the absence of a desire to…
- Writing Excuses
15.16: Balancing Plot and Character
Your Hosts: Brandon, Victoria, Dan, and Howard We're often asked how to balance character arcs with the intricacies of the plots we create. In this episode we…
- Writing Excuses
15.15: Dialog
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Dan, and Howard Listener questions drove this episode, and there are only two of them but they were pretty good drivers…
- Writing Excuses
15.14: Agent Query Trenches
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Dan, and Howard The title of this episode comes to us from listener questions along the lines of "what do you do when…
- Writing Excuses
15.13: Using Elections in Stories
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Dan, and Howard, with special guest Daniel Friend Daniel Friend, who edits SF/F, has worked in election offices, has run…
- Writing Excuses
15.12: Writing the Other—Being an Ally
Your Hosts: Piper, Tempest, DongWon, with special guest Erin Roberts What can we do to be allies to members of marginalized groups? Many of us want to find…
- Writing Excuses
15.11: Digital is Different, with Cory Doctorow
Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, Piper, Howard, and special guest Cory Doctorow "How do you break in?" is one of those questions we always get asked in some…
- Writing Excuses
15.10: Evaluating Ideas
Your Hosts: Brandon, Victoria, Dan, and Howard We've talked in the past about how ideas are cheap, and that it's execution upon those ideas which is what…
- Writing Excuses
15.09: Choose Your Own Adventurous Publishing Path
Your Hosts: Dan, DongWon, Piper, and Howard "Should I go self-pub? Should I go traditional? Can I do both? How do I decide where my book fits?" In this…
- Writing Excuses
15.08: Q&A on a Ship
Your Hosts: Dan, Mary Robinette, DongWon, and Howard At WXR 19 we recorded live, and took audience questions aboard the ship. Here they are! (You'll have to…
- Writing Excuses
15.07: Creating Chapters
Your Hosts: Brandon, Victoria, Dan, and Howard How do you create chapters? What are the rules for carving your manuscript into numbered chunks? Is chaptering…
- Writing Excuses
15.06: Prose and Cons, with Patrick Rothfuss
Your Hosts: Dan, Mary Robinette, Howard, with special guest Patrick Rothfuss How do you write beautiful prose? How do you set about telling a story with words…
- Writing Excuses
15.05: Setting Goals for Your Career
Your Hosts: Brandon, Victoria, Dan, and Howard What kind of career goal-setting do you do? We had a discussion in this vein with DongWon a few weeks ago, but…
- Writing Excuses
15.04: Revision, with Patrick Rothfuss
Your Hosts: Dan, Howard, and Mary Robinette, with special guest Patrick Rothfuss We begin our discussion of revision by addressing a question we hear a lot…
- Writing Excuses
15.03: Self Publishing
Your Hosts: Howard, with special guests Victorine Lieske, Tamie Dearen, Bridget E. Baker, and Nandi Taylor Howard leads this discussion with four guests who…
- Writing Excuses
15.02: Writing Between the Lines
Your Hosts: Brandon, Victoria, Dan, and Howard Victoria Schwab, who also writes as V.E. Schwab, joins us this year, and in this episode she helps us cover that…
- Writing Excuses
15.01: Evolution of a Career
Your Hosts: Dan, DongWon, Mary Robinette, and Howard Season 15 is going to be a bit broader than the previous seasons have, at least in the abstract. We're…
- Writing Excuses
14.52: Game Mastering and Collaborative Storytelling, with Natasha Ence
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Dan, and Howard, with special guest Natasha Ence Natasha Ence is a professional game master. (Yes, you read that…
- Writing Excuses
14.51: A Farewell to Worldbuilding
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Dan, and Howard We've spent all year focusing on worldbuilding, and it's time to move on. Almost. In this episode we try…
- Writing Excuses
14.50: Write What You… No.
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Margaret, and Howard We've all heard the adage "write what you know," and in this episode we set out to…
- Writing Excuses
14.49: Customs and Mores
Your Hosts: Brandon, Dan, Howard, and Mahtab In this episode we discuss how our customs and mores govern our own real-world interactions, and how our…
- Writing Excuses
14.48: How to Practice Worldbuilding
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Dan, and Howard The entire year has been about learning how to worldbuild, and we've learned a thing or two ourselves…
- Writing Excuses
14.47: Writing Characters With Physical Disabilities
Your Hosts: Piper, Dan, and Tempest, with special guest Nicola Griffith In this episode we discuss how to faithfully represent people with physical…
- Writing Excuses
14.46: Unusual Resources
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Margaret, and Howard Among science fiction and fantasy plot devices, the "uncommon resource" trope is common…
- Writing Excuses
14.45: Economics
Your Hosts: Brandon, Dan, Howard, and Mahtab Economists tend to see everything as economics, which is kind of how proponents of ANY discipline see their…
- Writing Excuses
14.44: Realism vs. Rule-of-Cool
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Dan, and Howard Where do you draw the line between what seems plausible, and what would be cool? If you pick…