Eric James Stone joins us to talk about the book deal chronology for UNFORGETTABLE.

• Agents, 
• Awards, 
• Book deals, 
• Business, 
• career, 
• Conventions, 
• Eric James Stone, 
• Publishing, 
• Submitting, 
• Unforgettable

Eric James Stone joins us for a discussion of hard science fiction — what it is, what it isn’t, and how to do it well.

• Eric James Stone, 
• genre, 
• Hard Science Fiction, 
• Hard SF, 
• Research

Nancy Fulda joins the cast for a discussion of narrative versus character perceptions

• Character, 
• Character and Viewpoint, 
• Characters, 
• Nancy Fulda, 
• Narrator, 
• POV, 
• Race, 
• science

Nancy Fulda talks Artificial Intelligence with Brandon, Mary, and Howard.

• Artificial Intelligence, 
• Hard Science Fiction, 
• Nancy Fulda, 
• Research, 
• science

Mette Ivie Harrison joins us to talk about how to “hijack” the knowledge you already have in order to make you a better writer.

• Alternate History, 
• career, 
• Characters, 
• Ideas, 
• Lifestyle, 
• Research

Time passes, and we have lots of ways to tell readers how quickly that’s happening.

• Demonstration, 
• Mette Ivie Harrison, 
• time compression, 
• time dilation, 
• time slowed down, 
• Training montage

Eric James Stone joins us for a discussion of revision, and what the final pass process looks like.

• Editing, 
• Eric James Stone, 
• Revision

What is handwavium? How does it work? What happens when it doesn’t work?

• handwavium, 
• Setting, 
• technobabble

How do you put true stuff in your books when the truth is just too strange?

• Hang a Lantern on it, 
• Research, 
• science

What makes characters engaging, and how is that different from them being sympathetic?

• Antihero, 
• Characters, 
• Nancy Fulda

Eric James Stone joins us to answer questions about editors, pitching, pantsing, and encouragement.

• Bad Advice, 
• Discouragement, 
• Discovery Writing, 
• Editing, 
• Editors, 
• Eric James Stone, 
• Pitching, 
• Q&A

A Q&A covering editing, rule-breaking, writing the other, gift-giving, and more.

• career, 
• Editing, 
• Eric James Stone, 
• Gender, 
• killing characters, 
• Prose, 
• Q&A, 
• Race, 
• Writing the Other

We explore a three-value model for troubleshooting characters: Competence, Proactivity, and Sympathy

• Characters, 
• Protagging, 
• Protagonist, 
• Three Sliders

We talk about expressing controversial opinions on the Internet. And just talking about it might be controversial…

• Business, 
• Gender, 
• Opinions, 
• Politics, 
• Race, 
• Social Media

Brandon, Mary, Dan, and Howard talk about the unpleasant surprises their careers dropped on them.

• Bad Reviews, 
• career, 
• Physical Pain

What to do when you discover your planned ending isn’t actually going to work…

• Alpha Readers, 
• Beta Readers, 
• Discovery Writing, 
• Editing, 
• Endings, 
• Fulfilling Promises, 
• Outlining, 
• Plot, 
• Writing Groups

A Q&A episode with Eric James Stone

• Business, 
• Eric James Stone, 
• Pacing, 
• Passive Voice, 
• Q&A, 
• Scene and Sequel, 
• Submitting

We answer questions on tropes, narrative styles, editing, rule-breaking and more.

• career, 
• creative process, 
• Dialog, 
• Editing, 
• Fantasy, 
• Politics, 
• pre-writing, 
• World Building, 
• Worldbuilding

How to go about showing a character’s emotions without them seeming emo.

• Character Arc, 
• Characters, 
• Emotion, 
• Show-don't-Tell

How do we interact with readers who find meaning in our works that we don’t recall putting in there?

• career, 
• Fan Mail, 
• Fanfiction, 
• Star Wars

When building your world, go deep rather than going wide.

• Magic Systems, 
• Sanderson's 3rd Law, 
• World Building

Prologues, motivations, and research, oh my!

• career, 
• Characters, 
• Lifestyle, 
• Prologues, 
• Protagonist, 
• Q&A, 
• Submitting

How do you describe water from the point of view of a fish?

• Extraordinary Zoology, 
• Glamourist Histories, 
• POV, 
• Stormlight Archive, 
• World Building, 
• Worldbuilding

Side quests come in a couple of forms — they may be something inside the book that takes the characters away from the main plotline, or they may be adventures that take place outside of the book itself. We talk about the first type, and how to make sure they’re in the book for the … Continue reading Writing Excuses 9.24: Side Quests →

• Characters, 
• Publishing, 
• Side Quests, 
• Story Purpose, 
• XP

In which we discuss adjusting how sympathetic the reader is toward a particular character…

• Characters, 
• George R.R. Martin, 
• GRRM, 
• Sympathetic Villain, 
• Sympathy Slider, 
• Three Sliders

In which we discuss adjusting how competent our characters appear…

• Characters, 
• Competence Slider, 
• Dancing With the Stars, 
• Indiana Jones, 
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, 
• Samwise Gamgee, 
• Sneakers, 
• The Matrix, 
• Three Sliders

Pre-writing: It’s like pre-cooking, only with more abandoned prologues and fewer refried beans.

• Outlining, 
• pre-writing, 
• Research, 
• Site News, 
• World Building

The first of the SHADOWS BENEATH critique episodes, in which we thrash on a new Cosmere story from Brandon Sanderson so that he can fix it. Part 1 of 2.

• Collaboration, 
• Criticism, 
• Demonstration, 
• Editing, 
• Live Audience, 
• Out of Excuses, 
• SHADOWS BENEATH, 
• World Building, 
• Writing Groups

The second of the SHADOWS BENEATH critique episodes, in which we thrash on a new Cosmere story from Brandon Sanderson so that he can fix it. Part 2 of 2.

• Collaboration, 
• Criticism, 
• Demonstration, 
• Out of Excuses, 
• SHADOWS BENEATH, 
• World Building, 
• Writing Groups

The third of the SHADOWS BENEATH critique episodes, in which Mary schools us with Milford…

• Collaboration, 
• Criticism, 
• Demonstration, 
• Out of Excuses, 
• SHADOWS BENEATH, 
• World Building, 
• Writing Groups

The fourth of the SHADOWS BENEATH critique episodes, in which Howard is stuck…

• Characters, 
• Collaboration, 
• Criticism, 
• Demonstration, 
• Editing, 
• Endings, 
• Eric James Stone, 
• Pacing, 
• Plot, 
• POV, 
• SHADOWS BENEATH, 
• Writing Groups

We talk about how to make characters more or less proactive in the stories we tell.

• A Brief History of Time, 
• Batman The Dark Knight, 
• Characters, 
• MICE Quotient, 
• Plot, 
• Protagging, 
• The Martian, 
• Three Sliders, 
• Try/Fail Cycles

Q&A in which we cover proofreading, writing time, career stuff, and no, you can’t have any of our DNA.

• Editing, 
• Foreshadowing, 
• MICE Quotient, 
• Q&A, 
• Schlock Mercenary, 
• Setting, 
• Shades of Milk and Honey, 
• Submitting, 
• World Building, 
• Writing Career

Brad “Doctor Zombie” Voytek talks to us about making science accessible and attractive through science fiction.

• Conventions, 
• Do Zombies Dream of Undead Sheep, 
• Elegantly Incorrect, 
• Foundation, 
• Isaac Asimov, 
• Live Audience, 
• Oliver Sacks, 
• Research, 
• The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, 
• Westercon 67

Peter Orullian joins us to discuss managing the author-editor relationship when things go wrong.

• Business, 
• career, 
• Editors, 
• Live Audience, 
• Peter ORullian, 
• Publishing, 
• Westercon 67

David Farland joins, along with a live audience at Westercon 67, for a discussion on writing instruction.

• career, 
• Dave Farland, 
• Dave Wolverton, 
• Education

Kathleen Dalton Woodbury, the forum moderator at the Hatrack River writers group joined us at Westercon 67 to talk about critique groups. We cover how critiques should be offered, as well as importance of receiving critiques graciously and without defense, and we reflect on lots of the good and bad writing groups and critique groups we’ve … Continue reading 9.37: Training A Critique Group, with Kathleen Dalton Woodbury →

• Alpha Readers, 
• Collaboration, 
• Critique Groups, 
• Writing Groups

Peter Orullian joins us in front of a live audience at Westercon 67 for a Q&A. The questions include: As a writer, how do you handle reviewing other people’s books? How do you compartmentalize your writing to prevent that obsession from displacing everything else? (Here are the signs we talked about) How do you create frightening, … Continue reading Writing Excuses 9.38: Q&A at Westercon →

• career, 
• Conventions, 
• Horror, 
• Ideas, 
• Peter ORullian, 
• Q&A, 
• Reviewing, 
• World Building

Patty Garcia, Director of Publicity at Tor, joins us to discuss publicizing books

• Blog Tour, 
• Business, 
• Patty Garcia, 
• Publicity, 
• Publishing, 
• Reviewers

Paul Stevens, an editor at Tor, joined us in front of a live audience at Westercon 67 to talk about royalties.

• Advances, 
• Audiobooks, 
• career, 
• ebooks, 
• Live Audience, 
• Paul Stevens, 
• Publishing, 
• Royalties, 
• Tor

Christopher J. Garcia, publisher and editor of The Drink Tank, joins us for a discussion of fan writing.

• Best Fan Writer, 
• Christopher J. Garcia, 
• Fan Writing, 
• Fanzines, 
• Live Audience, 
• The Drink Tank

Deirdre Saoirse Moen, who organizes fan-run literary cons and schedules programs for them, joins us to talk about programming from the convention’s point of view.

• career, 
• Conventions, 
• Dierdre Saoise Moen, 
• Live Audience, 
• Moderating, 
• Panels, 
• Programming

Live from Westercon 67 and Fantasy Con, Mette Ivie Harrison and J.R. Johannson join us to talk about writing for the mystery genre. We begin by talking about the key differences between thrillers and mysteries, and then move into how this understanding can drive our story structures. We discuss how characters with arcs and iconic characters … Continue reading Writing Excuses 9.43: Writing Mysteries →

• Agatha Christie, 
• genre, 
• Hercule Poirot, 
• Live Audience, 
• Mystery, 
• Pacing, 
• Thriller, 
• YA

We were thrilled to have Peter Beagle join us for an episode, recorded live at Westercon 67. We talked about the writer’s mindset, and how to get into it. Peter schooled Brandon before the episode even began, and then proceeded to school all the rest of us. Peter is an absolute delight to listen to. We hope you … Continue reading Writing Excuses 9.44: Getting in the Writer’s Mindset with Peter Beagle →

• Business, 
• career, 
• Live Audience, 
• Peter S. Beagle, 
• Professional Mindset, 
• Writing Career

M. Todd Gallowglas is a writer and a storyteller who has spent years doing traditional oral storytelling at renaissance fairs. He joined us at FantasyCon/Westercon 67 before a live audience and talked to us about how this tradition has informed his writing, and how these principles can inform our writing as well. He also schools us (okay, … Continue reading Writing Excuses 9.45: Tools for Writing from Oral Storytelling →

• Breath, 
• career, 
• Conventions, 
• Hat Pitch, 
• Movement, 
• Oral Storytelling, 
• Plot, 
• reading aloud

Charlie Harmon, one of the luminaries of Utah area fandom, joined us to talk about disability in narrative. She’s been going blind gradually since she was a child, and these days while she can see some colored blurs, she cannot read, or recognize faces. We talk about some of the nuances of disability that many … Continue reading Writing Excuses 9.46: Disability in Narrative →

• Characters, 
• Disability, 
• Handicap, 
• Live Audience

Sara Glassman joins us to talk about back cover copy, covers, query letters, signings, and what booksellers look for on page one.

• Back Cover Copy, 
• Bookstores, 
• Business, 
• Catalog Copy, 
• Signings

So, you’re planning to kill somebody, but you don’t want anyone to see it coming. How do you make that happen? We begin by talking about the hints that writers inadvertently drop, and why they drop those hints. Then we look at how to write without sending those cues, and how to get away with … Continue reading Writing Excuses 9.49: Hiding the Open Grave →

• Character Arc, 
• Characters, 
• killing characters

As authors we spend a lot of time trying to make our readers care about the characters we create. We have a wide variety of techniques at our disposal to accomplish this. But do we ever ask ourselves why any of this is possible in the first place? What is it about our brains that makes us … Continue reading Writing Excuses 9.48: Neurobolics of Characters →

• Characters, 
• Confirmation Bias, 
• Cory Doctorow, 
• Fanfic, 
• Prejudice, 
• Stereotypes

Recorded live in front of the Out of Excuses students, a crowd of savvy readers if ever there was one, we talk about how to effectively write for readers who are familiar with the genre or story structure in which we’re writing. It’s a tricky problem, since genre fiction is supported in large part by … Continue reading Writing Excuses 9.50: Writing for the Enfranchised Reader →

• Agents of Shield, 
• Enfranchised Readers, 
• Eragon, 
• genre, 
• Meet The Croods, 
• Partials, 
• The Hero's Journey, 
• The Wheel of Time, 
• Tropes

If there’s a crowd with good questions, it’s the Out of Excuses Workshop and Retreat attendees. Given the trend toward moral ambiguity, is there still a place for an unquestionably evil character? Should you publish a first book that isn’t in the style or genre that you’re ultimately interested in? Is it possible to write … Continue reading Writing Excuses 9.51: Q&A At The Retreat →

• Borderlands 2, 
• career, 
• Characters, 
• Discovery Writing, 
• Foreshadowing, 
• Handsome Jack, 
• POV, 
• Q&A, 
• Villains

Allison W. Hill and C. Austin Hill joined us at the Out of Excuses Retreat to talk about turning A Night of Blacker Darkness, by Dan Wells, into a stage play. “From the page to the stage” is a thing that theater people actually say to describe this, so the process is one that has … Continue reading Writing Excuses Season 9.52: From the Page to the Stage →

• Adaptations, 
• Collaboration, 
• Peter Brook, 
• Playwright, 
• Screenwriting, 
• The Empty Space

You know what’s fun? WRITING! Writing is fun. And that, more than anything else, is why we do it. Or at least it’s why we decided to do it. Making sure that it is still fun is kind of tricky. Also tricky? Writing for nothing more than the fun of it. And this episode is … Continue reading Writing Excuses 9.53: Writing For Fun →

• Borderlands 2, 
• career, 
• Deadlines, 
• Fanfic, 
• Gearbox, 
• Hobby Writing, 
• The Hollow City

As 2014 draws to a close we say goodbye to Season 9, and talk a bit about what we’ve each learned this year. Howard explained the surprising changes that came with a change in his work space Mary told us how she reached a new understanding of pacing Brandon talked about how recent time pressures have informed his … Continue reading Writing Excuses 9.54: Capstone to Season 9 →

• career, 
• Motivation, 
• Pacing, 
• Productivity, 
• Time Management