Your Hosts: Dan, DongWon, Mary Robinette, and Howard Season 15 is going to be a bit broader than the previous seasons have, at least in the abstract. We’re going to focus on your questions. In this episode we tackle the topic that dominates our collection of these questions: CAREER. Liner Notes: It hasn’t actually been … Continue reading 15.01: Evolution of a Career →

• Writing Career

Your Hosts: Brandon, Victoria, Dan, and Howard Victoria Schwab, who also writes as V.E. Schwab, joins us this year, and in this episode she helps us cover that deep concept of “theme,” and how we as authors can state our themes without coming straight out and stating them—writing our themes “between the lines.” Credits: This episode … Continue reading 15.02: Writing Between the Lines →

• Context, 
• Motif, 
• Theme

Your Hosts: Howard, with special guests Victorine Lieske, Tamie Dearen, Bridget E. Baker, and Nandi Taylor Howard leads this discussion with four guests who are doing well with self publishing. They share some numbers with us, and talk about their strategies for reaching their audience, and making the most of their market. Liner Notes: Given, … Continue reading 15.03: Self Publishing →

• Kindle Unlimited, 
• Romance, 
• Self-Publishing, 
• Wattpad, 
• WXR

Your Hosts: Dan, Howard, and Mary Robinette, with special guest Patrick Rothfuss We begin our discussion of revision by addressing a question we hear a lot: How do you know what needs to be changed? We talk about our various techniques for getting distance from our work, incorporating feedback, and breaking the process down into … Continue reading 15.04: Revision, with Patrick Rothfuss →

• A Plot/B Plot, 
• French Scene, 
• Revision

Your Hosts: Brandon, Victoria, Dan, and Howard What kind of career goal-setting do you do? We had a discussion in this vein with DongWon a few weeks ago, but neither Brandon nor Victoria participated then, so it’s worth revisiting. Credits: This episode was recorded by Dan Thompson, and mastered by Alex Jackson

• Word Count, 
• Writing Career, 
• YA

Your Hosts: Dan, Mary Robinette, Howard, with special guest Patrick Rothfuss How do you write beautiful prose? How do you set about telling a story with words that sing (and dance, and tell jokes) instead of just conveying information in word-sized chunks? In this episode we talk about how we do it, and how writers … Continue reading 15.06: Prose and Cons, with Patrick Rothfuss →

Your Hosts: Brandon, Victoria, Dan, and Howard How do you create chapters? What are the rules for carving your manuscript into numbered chunks? Is chaptering part of your outline, is it something you discover while you write, or is it something else entirely? In this episode we talk about how we do it, and how we … Continue reading 15.07: Creating Chapters →

• Chapter breaks, 
• Chapter Bumps, 
• First Lines, 
• First Paragraphs, 
• Outlining

Your Hosts: Dan, Mary Robinette, DongWon, and Howard At WXR 19 we recorded live, and took audience questions aboard the ship. Here they are! (You’ll have to listen to the episode for the answers.) What have you learned in the past year that has improved your craft? When you’re having trouble, how do you know … Continue reading 15.08: Q&A on a Ship →

• Depression, 
• Fight Scenes, 
• Mental Health, 
• POV, 
• Time Management, 
• Writing Career

Your Hosts: Dan, DongWon, Piper, and Howard “Should I go self-pub? Should I go traditional? Can I do both? How do I decide where my book fits?” In this episode we’ll cover these, and many more questions as best we’re able. Credits: This episode was recorded by Bert Grimm, and mastered by Alex Jackson Liner Notes: … Continue reading 15.09: Choose Your Own Adventurous Publishing Path →

• Agents, 
• Awards, 
• Editors, 
• Paranormal Romance, 
• Romance, 
• Self-Publishing

Your Hosts: Brandon, Victoria, Dan, and Howard We’ve talked in the past about how ideas are cheap, and that it’s execution upon those ideas which is what really matters. In this episode we’ll talk about how we evaluate things over there on the side of the equation where things are cheap and plentiful. Because while … Continue reading 15.10: Evaluating Ideas →

• Ideas, 
• Outlining

Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, Piper, Howard, and special guest Cory Doctorow “How do you break in?” is one of those questions we always get asked in some form or another, and it’s also one for which those of us who “broke in” more than a couple of years ago are increasingly unqualified to answer. The … Continue reading 15.11: Digital is Different, with Cory Doctorow →

• Branding, 
• Marketing, 
• Pen Names, 
• Social Media

Your Hosts: Piper, Tempest, DongWon, with special guest Erin Roberts What can we do to be allies to members of marginalized groups? Many of us want to find ways to help others have safe, comfortable places within our communities, but worry about coming across the wrong way. In this episode, our hosts talk about how … Continue reading 15.12: Writing the Other—Being an Ally →

• Ally, 
• OwnVoices, 
• Writing the Other

Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Dan, and Howard, with special guest Daniel Friend Daniel Friend, who edits SF/F, has worked in election offices, has run for office, and has participated in campaigns. In this episode we talk about the ways elections can be worked into our stories. Credits: This episode was recorded by Joseph Meacham, … Continue reading 15.13: Using Elections in Stories →

• character flaws, 
• Characters, 
• Climax, 
• Plot, 
• Politics

Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Dan, and Howard The title of this episode comes to us from listener questions along the lines of “what do you do when you’re ‘in the trenches’ querying agents?” Our answers, predictably, have almost nothing to do with actual trenches. Credits: This episode was recorded by Joseph Meacham, and mastered by … Continue reading 15.14: Agent Query Trenches →

• Agents, 
• Query Letters, 
• Validation

Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Dan, and Howard Listener questions drove this episode, and there are only two of them but they were pretty good drivers.  Here they are: Is it a problem that all my dialog ends up as logic-based debates between characters? What can I do to create more variety in my dialog … Continue reading 15.15: Dialog →

• Dialog, 
• MICE Quotient

I don’t like to call them winners, because a) you’re ALL winners, and b) they didn’t “win” this, they “earned” this. But (drum roll please) I am delighted to announce that the 2020 Scholarship Recipients have been chosen: 2020 Out of Excuses Scholarships Isadora Helena Prospero Salinee Goldenberg 2020 Carl Brandon Scholarships: Kritika HubkaRao Lorena … Continue reading Writing Excuses Scholarship Recipients! →

Your Hosts: Brandon, Victoria, Dan, and Howard We’re often asked how to balance character arcs with the intricacies of the plots we create. In this episode we talk about the various ways in which we do this. Credits: This episode was recorded by Dan Thompson, and mastered by Alex Jackson

• Character, 
• Plot

Your Hosts: Dan, Tempest, Mary Robinette, and Howard Generally speaking, asexuality is a sexual orientation or identity typified by the absence of a desire to have sex. It’s *way* more complicated than that, however, and in this episode Tempest helps us unpack it so that asexual characters can be written more effectively. Liner Notes: Want to … Continue reading 15.17: Asexual Representation →

• Asexuality, 
• Gender Roles, 
• Non-binary gender

Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, Dan, and Lari¹, with special guest Shauna Hoffman Many Writing Excuses listeners (especially WXR alumni) already know Shauna Hoffman. She joins us to talk about how to deal with the fact that we, as authors, often feel isolated. The listener question that sparked this episode: “How do you keep the pressure … Continue reading 15.18: Finding a Community, with Shauna Hoffman →

• Networking, 
• Productivity, 
• sparkling isolation

Your Hosts: Brandon, Victoria, Dan, and Howard “As you know, Bob…” is the trope-tastic line we use to refer to expository dialog which has no function beyond exposition. We get lots of listener questions about how to use dialog for exposition without making it feel like we’re using dialog for exposition. And as Bob already … Continue reading 15.19: As You Know, This Episode Is About Exposition →

• Description, 
• Dialog, 
• Dialog Tags, 
• Exposition

Your Hosts: Brandon, Victoria, Dan, and Howard In this episode we’ll be talking about the things we do to stay creative, productive, healthy, and happy. For the purposes of this discussion, “mental wellness” is not about coping with mental illness, it’s about self-care. Liner Notes: Here’s the gridded lifestyle tracker for the homework, lifted directly from … Continue reading 15.20: Mental Wellness and Writing →

• Creativity, 
• Health, 
• Productivity

Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, and Dan, with Shannon and Dean Hale Shannon and Dean Hale join us to discuss how to effectively and convincingly write about¹ children. We cover dialog tools, point-of-view elements, stakes, and character ‘quirks’ that can help signal to the reader that a character is a child. Credits: This episode was recorded … Continue reading 15.21: Writing About Children, with Shannon and Dean Hale →

• Character and Viewpoint, 
• Children, 
• Dialog, 
• Stakes

Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, and Dan, with Shannon and Dean Hale Shannon and Dean Hale join us again, this time to discuss how to effectively and convincingly write for¹ children. Children have their own unique sets of expectations for the books they read (as do their parents), and in this episode we talk about … Continue reading 15.22 Writing For Children, with Shannon and Dean Hale →

• Children, 
• Middle Grade

Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, Lari, and Dan, with special guest Jenn Court Let’s talk about serials. Jenn Court, whose work includes lots of  writing for TV (IMDB link), joins us for the discussion. What are the elements that get us, as readers or viewers, to come back for episode after episode, and how do we, … Continue reading 15.23: Serialization →

• Character, 
• Character Arc, 
• Plot, 
• Serials, 
• Writing for TV

Your Hosts: Brandon, Howard, and Dan, with special guest Jim Butcher Jim Butcher joined us at NASFIC for a discussion about how we can keep long-running serials engaging after numerous books. Credits: this episode was recorded before a live audience by Dan Thompson, and mastered by Alex Jackson

• Dialog, 
• Series

Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Dan, and Howard The MICE quotient is a tool for categorizing story elements—Milieu, Idea, Character, and Event—and we’ve talked about it quite a bit in the past. When a listener asked how we might use the MICE quotient to create, inform, manage, and otherwise help us “do” conflict in our stories, … Continue reading 15.25: Using the MICE Quotient for Conflict →

• Conflict, 
• MICE Quotient

For a number of reasons (most prominently “we don’t want to run you through two airports and then lock you on a cruise ship in the middle of a global pandemic”), we have canceled our cruise and are taking it online! This is really good news for a lot of you, because it is way … Continue reading The Writing Excuses Retreat Goes Virtual! →

Your Hosts: Brandon, Howard, and Dan with special guest David Weber David Weber joined us at NASFIC to talk about the importance of risking failure on any path (especially a writer’s path) to success–whether you’re risking rejection in the submission process, or the possibility that the book you write won’t be the amazing thing you’ve … Continue reading 15.26: Taking the Chance, with David Weber →

• Character, 
• Submitting

Your Hosts: Brandon, Dan, and Howard, with special guest Eric Flint Eric Flint joined us at SpikeCon (host of the 2019 NASFIC) to talk about creating  alternate histories. His Ring of Fire book series is enormous in scope, and has many, many more people working on it than just Eric Flint. We get a bit … Continue reading 15.27: Alternate History, with Eric Flint →

• Alternate History, 
• Crowdsourcing, 
• Research

Your Hosts: Brandon, Victoria, Dan, and Howard Small evils? Yes, please! This episode isn’t about writing the big villainy of world domination, but about focusing on the more relatable villainy of small evils—the little crimes, the minor antagonisms—which can be the key to connecting the reader to the book. Liner Notes: The deadly nightshade incident Howard … Continue reading 15.28: Small Evils →

• Antagonist, 
• Deadly Nightshade, 
• External Cost, 
• Plotting, 
• POV, 
• Sympathetic Villain, 
• Villains

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 … Continue reading 15.29: Barbie Pre-Writing, with Janci Patterson and Megan Walker →

• Collaboration, 
• Outlining, 
• pre-writing, 
• role-play, 
• RPGs

Your Hosts: Dan, DongWon, Piper, and Howard You had questions for agents, Dongwon has answers! How do you go about becoming an agent? How do an agent and author work together? At what point do agent and author talk about the “sticky stuff?” Credits: This episode was recorded by Bert Grimm, and mastered by Alex Jackson

• Agents, 
• Submitting, 
• Writing Career

Your Hosts: Dan, Mary Robinette, and Lari, with special guest Erin Roberts Erin Roberts joins us for a discussion of short story markets—a topic which is very susceptible to “churn” because of the way short story markets come and go. We cover how to research and evaluate the various markets based on what you need from … Continue reading 15.32: Short Story Markets →

• Getting Published, 
• Novelette, 
• Novella, 
• Short Story

Your Hosts: Brandon, Victoria, Dan, and Howard Many Writing Excuses listeners have asked us how we muscle through writing second acts, those big, chonky “middles” of our stories. In this episode we attempt to provide answers. Credits: This episode was recorded by Dan Thompson, and mastered by Alex Jackson. The title of this episode is … Continue reading 15.33: The Long, Dark Second Act of the Soul →

• Act II, 
• Three-Act Format

Your Hosts: Dan, Mary Robinette, Lari, and Erin How do you proceed when the story you want to write includes elements that make you personally uncomfortable?  In this episode we step out of our own comfort zones to examine this challenge, and to offer some strategies to you. Credits: This episode was recorded remotely, and … Continue reading 15.34: Writing Deliberate Discomfort →

Your Hosts: Dan, Mary Robinette, Lari, and special guest Erin Roberts We’ve received a number of questions about the ‘tools of the trade’ for organizing our work, especially with regard to worldbuilding. In this episode we talk about what we use, including some old-school analog tools like sticky notes and ballpoint pens. Credits: this episode … Continue reading 15.35: Tools for Writing and Worldbuilding, with Erin Roberts →

• Scrivener, 
• Word Processor, 
• Worldbuilding

Your Hosts: Brandon, Victoria, Dan, and Howard What’s it like to write under a deadline which has been set for your project by someone else? What strategies might help you bring the writing in under the deadline?  Can you train yourself to be ready for this? Those are all good questions. Hopefully we won’t run … Continue reading 15.37: Writing Under Deadlines →

• commercial publishing, 
• Deadlines, 
• Editors, 
• New Level New Devil, 
• pomodoro, 
• Time Management

Your Hosts: Piper, Dan, and Tempest, with special guest Nisi Shawl Whether you’re writing about a real-world religion, or one you’ve created for your setting, there are numerous factors to be aware of. In this episode we discuss a few good and bad examples of depictions of religions, and the ways in which these examples … Continue reading 15.38: Depicting Religions That Are Not Your Own →

• Religion, 
• Writing the Other

Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, Dan, and Lari, with guest Alex Shvartsman Translation is fantastically complex. In this episode Lari and Alex help us navigate those complexities, both from the standpoint of the translator, and from the standpoint of the author seeking to have their work translated. Credits: This episode was mastered by Alex Jackson

• Culture, 
• Ken Liu, 
• Three-Body Problem, 
• Translation

Your Hosts: Piper, Dan, and Tempest, with special guests Nisi Shawl and Silvia Moreno-Garcia Writing stories which feature people who are not like you is, in a word, difficult. In another word? Fraught. But good writers do difficult things, and in this episode Nisi Shawl and Silvia Moreno-Garcia join us to discuss how research can … Continue reading 15.40: Researching for Writing the Other →

• Culture, 
• Research, 
• Writing the Other

Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, Piper, and Howard, with special guest Cory Doctorow In journalism, that three-character string in our episode title means “Fact Check.” Those three characters are a great way to drop a note to yourself, reminding you to get some answers later. In this episode Cory joins us to discuss when we drop … Continue reading 15.41: Researching the FCK out of Things, with Cory Doctorow →

• Research, 
• Worldbuilder's Disease, 
• WXR

Your Hosts: Brandon, Victoria, Dan, and Howard How do you decide what sort of event ends your story? How do you set the scale and the stakes for that event? And once you’ve made these decisions, how do you set about writing the best possible ending? Credits: This episode was recorded by Dan Thompson, and … Continue reading 15.42: Writing The End →

• Character Arc, 
• Discovery Writing, 
• Endings, 
• Outlining

Your Hosts: Brandon, Dan, Mary Robinette, and Howard, with special guest Bruce D Richardson Bruce D Richardson, who is often credited as BDR, or BD Richardson, is a voice-over actor and audiobook narrator. He joins us for a discussion of reading out loud for an audience, including some mic techniques and best practices for recording. … Continue reading 15.43: Audiobook Narration, with Bruce D Richardson →

• Audiobooks, 
• Narration, 
• Voice Acting

Your Hosts: Dan, DongWon, Mary Robinette, and Howard What do you do when some of the key foundations of your authorial (or otherwise creative) livelihood are kicked away? How do you go about repairing, rebuilding, or rebooting your career? Credits: This episode was recorded by Bert Grimm, and mastered by Alex Jackson  

• Agents, 
• Daniel Abraham, 
• Editors, 
• Self-Publishing, 
• Writing Career

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 … Continue reading 15.45: Worldbuilding Fantasy, with Patrick Rothfuss →

• Fantasy, 
• Geography, 
• Magic Systems, 
• Urban Fantasy, 
• Worldbuilding

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 … Continue reading 15.46: Crafting Chinese-American Characters →

• Asian Diaspora, 
• Writing the Other

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

• Hard Science Fiction, 
• Science Fiction, 
• Worldbuilding

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 … Continue reading 15.48: Deliberate Discomfort, Part Two →

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 … Continue reading 15.49: Maintaining Passion for a Story, with special guest Mahtab Narsimhan →

• Beginnings, 
• creative process, 
• Endings, 
• Hooks, 
• Middles, 
• Outlining

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 … Continue reading 15.50: Juggling Ensembles →

• Characters, 
• Ensemble, 
• POV

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 … Continue reading 15.51: Feedback—When to Listen, and When to Ignore, with special guest Mahtab Narsimhan →

• Critique Groups, 
• Rewriting, 
• sensitivity reader, 
• Subject Matter Expert

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. … Continue reading 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 →

• Economy of Words, 
• Line-editing, 
• Prose, 
• Purple Prose