Fifteen minutes long, because you're in a hurry, and we're not that smart.

17.24: Ensembles and Genre

Your Hosts: Dan Wells, Zoraida Cordova, Kaela Rivera, and Howard Tayler This week we’re talking about how our genre choice influences the structure of our ensemble. How is a heist ensemble different from a superhero team? What happens when the superheroes need to do a heist? Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr,…

17.23: Are We Stronger Together?

Your Hosts: Dan Wells, Zoraida Cordova, Kaela Rivera, and Howard Tayler Sometimes we have to look at our ensemble of characters and ask ourselves what kind of story we’re trying to tell? If the story works with a single protagonist and one POV, maybe this isn’t an ensemble story after all. If, however,…

17.22: Establishing the Ensemble

Your Hosts: Dan Wells, Zoraida Cordova, Kaela Rivera, and Howard Tayler Every character in your ensemble needs to matter to the team, or they probably don’t belong in the ensemble. Zoraida Cordova leads us into this discussion of how we build our ensembles, how we introduce the characters, and how we ensure that…

17.21: Casting Your Story With Character Voice

Your Hosts: Dan Wells, Zoraida Cordova, Kaela Rivera, and Howard Tayler Every member of your ensemble has a reason to be there, but they also have their own voice. Zoraida Cordova joins us for a discussion of how we make our ensemble characters distinct from one another. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall…

17.20: Basics of Ensemble Characterization

Your Hosts: Dan Wells, Zoraida Cordova, Kaela Rivera, and Howard Tayler What’s the difference between an ensemble story, and a story the has a lot of characters in it? Zoraida Cordova joins us for this episode, kicking off an eight-episode mini-master-class about ensembles. In this episode we discuss what makes…

17.19: Working in a Collaborative Environment

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…

17.16: Miscellaneous Structures

Your Hosts: Dan Wells, Mary Robinette Kowal, Peng Shepherd, and Howard Tayler Thus far we’ve attempted to organize our discussion of sub-, micro-, and other alternative structures  with specific categories, but this domain is a lot larger than that. This final episode with our guest host Peng Shepherd has been…

17.15: Storytelling in the Footnotes

Your Hosts: Dan Wells, Mary Robinette Kowal, Peng Shepherd, and Howard Tayler You probably already know what footnotes are¹, but have you ever seen a story told through the footnotes²?  It’s similar to the story-within-a-story structure, but there’s more to it than that. In this episode our guest host Peng…