Fifteen minutes long, because you're in a hurry, and we're not that smart.
Don’t you just hate it when things unfold out of order? Why do writers do that? We explain why they do it, and how they do it, and then we discuss how to avoid some common mistakes. Non-linear storytelling is inherently risky, after all. Maybe not as risky as jumping…
Welcome to Season 3 of Writing Excuses! With eighteen hours and fourteen months of podcasting history behind us, it seems appropriate for us to talk about history, and how to write it. We talk about the iceberg principle — 90% of the history stuff you write never gets seen by…
This the third in our series of retrospective episodes. The most important thing Dan learned this year? Being a full-time author is a lot different than he thought it would be. How different? What was Dan expecting? Was he really imagining silk pajamas and a notebook computer on the beach?…
Here’s the second part of our three-part “what we learned this year” series. This time around Brandon tells us the most important thing he learned this year. Summed up? Gimmicks cannot compensate for bad writing. So… what’s a gimmick? We begin with hooks and pitches, but gimmicks can include things…
Let’s talk about failure… but let’s talk about it so that we can avoid it. How do you know if your ending has flopped? What kind of approaches to ending a story should you be avoiding? How can you recognize these approaches in time to avoid them? The best approach?…
Last week we talked about reading critically, reading as writers. This week we decided to apply that critical reading skill to Watchmen, the Hugo award-winning graphic novel by Alan Moore, illustrated by Dave Gibbons and colorist John Higgins. We start (once we get past the donuts in our mouths) by…
Tracy Hickman joins us again at “Life, The Universe, and Everything,” and in this episode we let Brandon ask him random questions while Dan and Howard chime in with comments that hopefully don’t detract from the discussion. During the interview Tracy mentions his latest project, XDM: Extreme Dungeon Mastery, but…
Rob Wells joins the Writing Excuses crew for a second ‘cast, this time dealing with fight scenes. We talk about good blocking versus a bad blow-by-blow, and cover a few of the factors that may dictate the right style of description for that wicked-cool fight you’ve pictured in your head.…
Brandon and Dan met during a creative writing class at Brigham Young University, and Brandon went on to get a Master’s Degree in the field. Howard has no formal training in the field. This begs the question… do creative writing classes help? Are they worth the time? Short answer: Yes,…
When do you know when you’re ready to begin? What does that question even mean? Apparently Brandon gets asked it a lot, though, so he posed it for the group. How do you know when that story in your head is ready for you to start writing it? Or maybe,…
