Category Archives: Archive Seasons 11-15

Archive Seasons 11-15, Guest, Season 15, Theory and Technique

15.52: Economy of Phrase, Being the Concentrated Concatenation of Complex Thoughts in Just a Very Few Words Which Must Fit In A Very Very Small Box, With Patrick Rothfuss

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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

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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

Archive Seasons 11-15, Guest, Season 15, Theory and Technique

15.51: Feedback—When to Listen, and When to Ignore, with special guest Mahtab Narsimhan

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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 fixing it. But prescriptive feedback—critiques that include suggestions for you how to might rewrite something—is an important part of the process.

In this episode we discuss how we curate our critique groups and filter their feedback to improve our writing, and our experiences with these groups.

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

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:15 — 15.4MB)

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The Random Critique Exercise: 
1) You and a writer friend each prepare a critique of a different thing.
2) File the serial numbers off (character names, locations, etc) and swap critiques.
3) Treat this critique from your friend as if it was for your manuscript. Discover what wrong advice looks like, and how often a broken watch might actually be correct.

What Unites Us, by Dan Rather

Archive Seasons 11-15, Season 15

15.50: Juggling Ensembles

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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 struggled with, and sometimes we’ve failed at it pretty spectacularly. In this episode we talk about how we turned our failures into learning, and what we do today to keep our ensembles in line and our stories on track.

Credits: This episode was recorded by Dan Thompson, and mastered by Alex Jackson

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 18:45 — 13.6MB)

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Take something you’ve written, something with a cast of at least three characters, and change the point-of-view and/or main character.

This is How You Lose The Time War, by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Archive Seasons 11-15, Career and Lifestyle, Guest, Season 15, Theory and Technique

15.49: Maintaining Passion for a Story, with special guest Mahtab Narsimhan

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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 on?” We talk about how we maintain our passion for the stories we’re working on, and how that’s not the same as being super excited to write every time we sit down at the keyboard

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

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 17:40 — 12.9MB)

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Return to your notes or your outline and look for the things that excited you about writing this story. Write those down.

Dust, by Arthur Slade

Archive Seasons 11-15, Season 15, Theory and Technique

15.48: Deliberate Discomfort, Part Two

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Your Hosts: Dan, Mahtab, Howard, and Brandon

We’ve talked about deliberately making our readers uncomfortable. In this episode we discuss writing things that make us uncomfortable. Maybe it’s writing strong language, or sex scenes. Perhaps it’s a personal narrative that is painful to relive. Whatever it might be, as writers we need to prepare ourselves to embrace that pain, soak up that discomfort, and put the words on the page.

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

Liner Notes:
“No, I’m Fine.” by Howard Tayler
Video Link for this episode, and two other episodes

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 22:33 — 16.3MB)

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Write every swear word you know, and then delete the file, or burn the sheet of paper.

Tales from the Loop (the role-playing game)

Archive Seasons 11-15, Guest, Season 15, Theory and Technique

15.47: Worldbuilding Science Fiction, with Cory Doctorow

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Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, Piper, and Howard, with Cory Doctorow

Worldbuilding is something you do to some degree in everything you write. Cory Doctorow  writes (among many other things) near-future SF, and he joins us for a discussion of extrapolative worldbuilding.

Credits: This episode was recorded by Bert Grimm, and mastered by Alex Jackson

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:58 — 15.9MB)

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Make a list of transactions in your life which have no reciprocity.

Walkaway: A Novel, by Cory Doctorow

Archive Seasons 11-15, Guest, Season 15, Theory and Technique

15.46: Crafting Chinese-American Characters

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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 discussion of language, food, and a whole raft of other cultural elements critical to crafting Chinese-American characters.

Credits: this episode was recorded by Ross Smith and mastered by Alex Jackson

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 17:39 — 12.9MB)

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Take a culture, and a character who is a descendent of immigrants from that culture, then write a scene where that character returns to the original culture

All Systems Red, by Martha Wells

Archive Seasons 11-15, Guest, Season 15, Theory and Technique

15.45: Worldbuilding Fantasy, with Patrick Rothfuss

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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 questions from readers. Here are the questions!

  • How do you create timeless urban fantasy?
  • How do you create a compelling secondary world fantasy without leaning on a complex magic system?

We ran a bit long with this one, but we have no regrets. Because compelling. And maybe timeless.

Credits: This episode was recorded by Bert Grimm, and mastered by Alex Jackson

 

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:25 — 22.3MB)

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Just change one thing, and then follow the permutations.

Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury