Fifteen minutes long, because you're in a hurry, and we're not that smart.

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 have sex. It’s *way* more complicated than that, however, and in this episode Tempest helps us unpack it so that asexual characters can be written more…

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 talk about the various ways in which we do this. Credits: This episode was recorded by Dan Thompson, and mastered by Alex Jackson. Homework:…

Writing Excuses Scholarship Recipients!

I don’t like to call them winners, because a) you’re ALL winners, and b) they didn’t “win” this, they “earned” this. But (drum roll please) I am delighted to announce that the 2020 Scholarship Recipients have been chosen: 2020 Out of Excuses Scholarships Isadora Helena Prospero Salinee Goldenberg 2020 Carl…

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.  Here they are: Is it a problem that all my dialog ends up as logic-based debates between characters? What can I do to create…

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 you’re ‘in the trenches’ querying agents?” Our answers, predictably, have almost nothing to do with actual trenches. Credits: This episode was recorded by…