In the first of our series on genres, we discuss why people write Sci-Fi, what you need to know to write Sci-Fi, and how much we all love unicorns.
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Writing Excuses Episode 8: Sci-Fi Genre
Category Archives: Theory and Technique
Writing Excuses Bonus Episode 2: Rules of Writing Excuses
If you’re new to Writing Excuses, or if you’re just curious about some of the terminology we use, let us break it down for you. These are the rules/tricks that we use to keep ourselves on task.
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Writing Excuses Episode 7: Villains
Are flaws necessary for villains? What traits make for a really good (err… evil?) villain? What’s the difference between Sauron and Gollum? (“That’s the LAST time I send you out shopping for Gollums, son…”)
Liner Notes: The Evil Overlord List, a handy reference for tropes to avoid (or, as the case may be, exploit…)
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Comment Moderation back on
They say it takes one person to ruin it for the rest of us and in this case it’s cheap pharmaceuticals to blame, we’ve been getting too much spam lately so I’m turning back on comment moderation.
If you’ve already got a comment on the site you should hopefully have your comments auto-published, I’m not sure how this works but it probably helps to have your e-mail and website in the form.
For the rest of you please bear with us. Even those of us WITHOUT real jobs (Brandon and Howard, represent!) are quite busy, which means that comment approval will probably come in bulk once or twice a day.
Writing Excuses Episode 6: Flaws vs Handicaps
Is there a difference between the two? How do you use each appropriately in your writing? And how lovable can a group of mercenaries be?
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Writing Excuses Episode 5: Heroes and Protagonists
What makes a good hero? Why is Dirk Pitt so cool? Why do people like Superman? And why does Howard-with-a-chest-cold start to sound like Barry White? Some of these questions are answered in this episode while others are better left unexplained.
LINER NOTES:
Howard repeatedly invoked John August’s blog post about heroes, protagonists, and main characters. Here it is.
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Writing Excuses Bonus Episode 1: Remembering Gary Gygax
Brandon, Howard and Dan talk about their first exposure to RPG games, Gary Gygax and the influence he had on them and the industry.
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On iTunes, Yahoo and Zune (finally!)
We’re finally on iTunes now (it can take several days for us to get listed in the browser but you should be able to find us via a search) so I’ve re-added the iTunes button on the left, as well as in Yahoo podcasts and we should be on the Zune Marketplace soon as well.
If you have a favorite podcast directory that we’re not on let us know in the comments and we’ll see what we can do.