Fifteen minutes long, because you're in a hurry, and we're not that smart.
Howard, Dan, and guest Bob Defendi open this episode with some high literary humor. Bob fills in for Brandon as we discuss formulas writers use in crafting stories. But how do we prevent those stories from feeling formulaic? Can the formulas themselves help? We discuss (at a high level) the…
Episode 6, recorded live at Dragon’s Keep opens with monkey noises and greeting-card pith, and ends with… well, we’ll just let you listen. Is it a storybook ending? What IS a storybook ending? What is a whiz-bang ending? Is the ending the ending, or is the ending followed by a…
So you’ve got a fantastic idea for a book or a short story, but where do you go from there? Who can give the incentive to write, the support to keep going when it gets hard, and the tough love to let you know when it sucks? The answer: a…
Eric James Stone joins us for our final Mountain-Con episode. This Q&A covers writing part-time (and Dan disqualifies himself from answering this question in future episodes), setting deadlines for yourself, writing plot twists, and providing character description within that character’s viewpoint. Powered by RedCircle
No matter how grand your setting, how intense your conflicts, or how tight your plot, at some point you’re going to need characters. Join us as we discuss what makes a character interesting, memorable, and unique. Once again, the team is joined by Brandon Mull of “Fablehaven” fame. Brandon Mull’s…
Kids these days with their long hair and their love of reading. It’s like, get off my lawn, am I right? But in other news, kids (meaning anything from chapter books to mature YA) read a TON, and somebody has to write those books, and it might as well be…
We talk among ourselves about some episodes of this podcast being “crunchy” and others being “fluffy.” “Crunchy” episodes are the ones where we have hard advice about writing. “Fluffy” episodes are the ones where we talk a little more philosophically about the profession. This episode takes “fluffy” to a new,…
You didn’t think we’d just keep going with the same old stuff forever, did you? Well, actually we are, but now we’re calling it Season 2. This season begins with a series of episodes recorded at Mountain Con in Layton, UT, each of them rife with wisdom and wonder. This…
Everyone says you can’t teach style–each writer just has to figure it out on his or her own. Well, we here at Writing Excuses have never met an ultimatum we didn’t immediately challenge, so today we take it head on. Can you teach style? Can you learn tone? What makes…
Q: How can I possibly get even more Writing Excuses in my life? The podcast is right there, on the Internet, ready to be clicked and/or downloaded at any time of the day or night, as many times as I want, and yet still it is not enough. I must…
