Monthly Archives: October 2022

Career and Lifestyle, Season 17

17.44: Bodies, Why? (Part II: Working Through Disability)

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Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, Fran Wilde, C.L. Polk, and Howard Tayler

Let’s talk for a bit about writing while disabled. This can mean anything from scheduling your craft around doctor’s appointments, to learning to operate on a limited budget as defined by your body.

You might be asking “I’m not disabled, so how does this pertain to me?” Well… you’re not disabled currently. Eventually, as we age, we all experience disability.

Liner Notes: Howard tweeted about his experience at the hand clinic.

Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson

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This is a process homework. Explore your writing space and schedule. Take stock of the tools you have in place to take care of your physical needs while you work—the lighting, your chair, how often you stretch, eat, and hydrate. Then make a list of what you think might be missing.

One for All, by Lillie Lainhoff

Career and Lifestyle, Guest, Theory and Technique

17.43: Bodies. Why? (Depicting Disability)

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Your Hosts: Mary Robinette and Howard Tayler, with special guests Fran Wilde, C.L. Polk, and William Alexander

Whether or not you’re writing from your own experience, depicting disability in fiction is fraught. In this episode we’ll talk about some of the dos and don’ts in order to provide you with guidelines for disability depiction.

Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson

 

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Write a scene with two characters – one abled, one disabled. Write two versions, each from the POV of a different character.

Air, by Monica Roe

Career and Lifestyle, Guest, Season 17, Theory and Technique

17.42: Eight Embodied Episodes About Disability

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Your Hosts: Mary Robinette and Howard Tayler, with special guests Fran Wilde, C.L. Polk, and William Alexander

For the next eight episodes we’ll be talking about bodies, and how they don’t all work the same way, and how this can be applied to our writing.

Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson

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Identify an aspect of yourself which might be non-problematic in one society, yet very problematic in another.

INVISIBLE, a series of anthologies ed. Jim C. Hines and Mary Anne Mohanraj

Career and Lifestyle, Guest, Season 17, Theory and Technique

17.41: Picture Books are Books Too, with Special Guest Seth Fishman

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Your Hosts: Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, Brandon Sanderson, and Howard Tayler, with special guest Seth Fishman

Seth Fishman, author of seven picture books (as well as lots of longer-form stuff), joins us to talk about writing picture books, including some of the business and publication aspects.

No-Context Pull Quote: “Your art is so bad we’re going to hire someone to draw badly for you.”

Credits: This episode was recorded live by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson

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Explore the picture book area in your local bookstore. See how it’s laid out, and have a look at some classic picture books. Then write a 500-word SF/F picture book.

BAD DRAWER, by Seth Fishman (and friends), illustrated by Jessixa Bagley , Armand Baltazar, Anna Bond, Travis Foster), Jessica Hische, Tillie Walden, and Ethan Young, (with a pair of trees drawn by the author.)

Guest, Q&A, Season 17, Theory and Technique

17.40: Questions & Answers About Structure, with Special Guest Peng Shepherd

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Your Hosts: Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, Brandon Sanderson, and Howard Tayler, with special guest Peng Shepherd

Peng Shepherd joined us aboard Liberty of the Seas for WXR 2022, and returned with us to the topic of story structures. In this episode we answer questions from our live audience. The questions include:

  1. How do you make sure you’ve got the right number of plot threads?
  2. How do you spread the structure of a given plot line across multiple books?
  3. How do you avoiding having subplots distract readers from the main plot?
  4. What are some strategies you can use to better align character goals with the overall problem of the story?
  5. Are there clear dos and don’ts with regard to story structure?
  6. How do you prepare or color-code bits for running a role-playing game? More broadly: what organizational tools do you use for story structure?

For the answers, you’ll have to give the episode a listen…

Credits: This episode was recorded live by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson

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Write a piece of fiction (or an outline) outside your usual length. See how that changes your structural choices.

The Spare Man, by Mary Robinette Kowal
(pre-order now! It releases on October 11th!)