Category Archives: Live Audience

Live Audience, Q&A, Season 17, Theory and Technique

17.52: The WXR 2022 Q&A

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Your Hosts: Brandon, Dan, Mary Robinette, and Howard

This Q&A session was recorded before a live audience aboard ship at WXR 2022,

Here are some paraphrasings of the questions our attendees asked:

  • How do you make your world feel big without infodumping?
  • How do you balance a sense of progress with an unreliable narrator?
  • How can I make two magic systems work in the same setting when one is underpowered, and the protagonist uses the weaker one?
  • Have you ever based characters on yourself, or on people you know?
  • What does the process of book adaptation look like
  • Do you have any good convention recommendations?
  • What are some methods for determining how much scientific detail you go into?
  • How do you interact with an audience in order to grow it?

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

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Write out a few questions. What are the things you need the most help on?

Bastille vs. the Evil Librarians, by Brandon Sanderson and Janci Patterson

Career and Lifestyle, Live Audience, Season 17

17.51: Feel The Burn

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Your Hosts: Dongwon Song, Piper J. Drake, Peng Shepherd, Marshall Carr, Jr., and Erin Roberts

Let’s talk about burnout. It’s been a long few years (with some of those years feeling like decades) so this may seem timely, but burnout can happen during otherwise ordinary times. Ignoring it or simply trying to “burn smarter, not harder” can have serious repercussions.

In this episode we talk about why we burn out, how we recognize it, how we deal with it, and how we (eventually) recover from it.

Credits: This episode was recorded by Matthew Drake, and mastered by Alex Jackson.

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Write a kind, delightful, helpful letter to your burnt-out future self.

Wings Once Cursed & Bound, by Piper J. Drake (coming in April, 2023)

Guest, Live Audience, Season 17, Theory and Technique

17.39: Writing Bodies and Intimacy, with K.M. Szpara

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Your Hosts: Mary Robinette Kowal, Dongwon Song, Piper J. Drake,  & Howard Tayler, with special guest K. M. Szpara

CONTENT WARNING: this episode is about adult acts and adult bodies, and we won’t be using euphemisms. 

K.M. Szpara joined us at WXR 2022 for this discussion of writing bodies and intimacy, with a particular focus on which kinds of words to use for things.

Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr. before a live audience aboard Liberty of the Seas. It was mastered by Alex Jackson.

 

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Write a scene in which a character is undressing, either alone or with others.

First Become Ashes, by K.M. Szpara

Career and Lifestyle, Live Audience, Season 17, Theory and Technique

17.19: Working in a Collaborative Environment

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Your Hosts: Dan Wells, Brandon Sanderson, and Megan Lloyd

Megan Lloyd returns to the podcast to talk us through the process of creating something in a collaborative environment, whether it’s a pair of authors working together, or a dozen people working to write, storyboard, and animate a television series.

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

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Find a buddy. Pull up a story idea of yours, and talk it over with your buddy to find out where you should go next.

Arcane, on Netflix

Guest, Live Audience, Season 17, Theory and Technique

17.18: How to be Funny, with Jody Lynn Nye

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Your Hosts: Dan Wells and Brandon Sanderson, with special guest Jody Lynn Nye

So, you’ve decided you want something to be funny. How do you go about making that happen? Jody Lynn Nye joined Dan and Brandon at LTUE, and pitched this topic to them. And yes, it’s much more than just “delivery, delivery, delivery.”

Liner Notes: “It’s always more funny when Howard’s not here.” —Brandon Sanderson at LTUE 2022 (posted here for posterity)

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

 

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Take a scene that you’ve written, and re-write it to be funny.

View from the Imperium, by Jody Lynn Nye

Career and Lifestyle, Guest, Live Audience, Season 17

17.17: Writing in the Public Domain

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Your Hosts: Dan Wells, Brandon Sanderson, and Gama Martinez

Did you know that there are some famous intellectual properties which have entered the public domain, and which you can therefore use to create your own stories? It’s true! Gama Martinez (whose God of Neverland novel features Peter Pan) joined Dan and Brandon at LTUE to talk about how cool this is, and (more importantly) what kinds of things authors need to do in order to make sure they’re only using the public domain bits of the properties in question.

Liner Notes: Need a list of things that entered the public domain in 2022? Here you go!

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

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Find something entering the public domain, and write a story about it.

God of Neverland by Gama Martinez, narrated by Simon Vance

Guest, Live Audience, Theory and Technique

15.30: Write What You Want To Know, with Laurell K. Hamilton

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Your Hosts: Brandon, Dan, and Howard, with special guest Laurell K. Hamilton

We’ve all heard the “write what you know” rule. Laurell K. Hamilton joined us to talk about how she got started by writing what she wanted to know. In this episode we discuss our various paths to learning the things that fascinate us, and which we want to be able to write about.

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

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I was walking home from work one day…

Noir Fatale, edited by Larry Correia and Kacey Ezell, with stories by Laurel K. Hamilton, David Weber, Griffin Barber, Steve Diamond, and more

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

15.29: Barbie Pre-Writing, with Janci Patterson and Megan Walker

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Your Hosts: Brandon, Dan, and Howard, with special guests Janci Patterson and Megan Walker

Janci Patterson and Megan Walker joined us to talk about their pre-writing process, which involves role-playing in a room full of dioramas with Barbie dolls.

As pre-writing processes go, this one was completely new to us, and we very quickly decided that we love it.

Credits: this episode was recorded live at NASFIC by Dan Thompson, and mastered by Alex Jackson

 

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 16:51 — 12.3MB)

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Role-play, with toys, a scene from something you’ve written.

The Extra, by Janci Patterson, and Megan Walker
Godfire, by Cara Witter