Your Hosts: Howard, Mary Robinette, and Dan, with special guest Patrick Rothfuss
Did we have too much fun applying ironic humor to the title of this episode? Possibly! Patrick Rothfuss joins us to talk about economy of phrase, and the ways in which big ideas can be expressed with a few of the exactly-right words.
Credits: This episode was recorded by Bert Grimm, and mastered by Alex Jackson
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:01 — 16.6MB)
Subscribe: RSS
Take a scene from your prose work, and remove all the blocking and dialog tags. Now space out the dialog on the page, and attempt to convey the missing information with stick figures and smiley faces.
JimZub.com comic-writing tutorials
(Start here!)
Understanding Comics, by Scott McCloud
Not a comment but as a faithful listener I don’t think I’ve ever heard this trope discussed:
The usefulness of lost knowledge.
From Middle-Earth to Roshar many stories use lost knowledge or power or skills to drive the story, add wonder and delightful mystery.
What are the mechanisms of hinting at lost knowledge? What are the ways to dumb down the searchers but still keep empathy? What stories benefit most from this trope? What stories can’t tolerate lost knowledge?
I’ve heard this referred to as archaeology in fiction.
The archaeology in video games, for instance Skyrim’s abandoned caves, to paint in history, forgotten lore, and add wonder and depth to the greater story.
In this episode, Howard, Mary Robinette, and Dan spent some time talking about their experiences, in comics, children’s books, audio dramas, and even puppetry, with the compression and brevity of language that can be necessary and even useful when one combines writing prose with another medium. The boxes may vary, but the need to be concise stays the same. Read all about it, in the transcript available in the archives.
The transcript is also available over here.
https://wetranscripts.dreamwidth.org/178984.html
Thank you for this great resource! I have listened to the entire series twice. I just wanted to say thank you for all of the work that was put into this podcast. It has been tremendously helpful. Thank you!