How do you know which bits of your story have to come first?
Tools, not rules. For writers, by writers.
Any discussion of story structure must necessarily take a look at that big, long bit between the beginning and the end, that piece where almost everything actually happens. In this episode we talk about the middles of stories, and how formulaic structures will help you get them to do all of…
This month’s syllabus topic is story structure, and we’ll be starting with the part we start with. And that part usually isn’t the beginning — that’s where the story starts for the reader. We’re going to talk about where the story starts for you. It’s the answer to questions like…
It’s time for a Q&A on characters! The questions for this episode were provided by the attendees at the 2014 Out of Excuses Workshop and Retreat: How do you have a character grow in power and/or expertise without needing to ridiculously overpower the villains? How do you give a flawed…
In which we discuss adjusting how competent our characters appear…
We answer questions on tropes, narrative styles, editing, rule-breaking and more.
A Q&A episode with Eric James Stone
Joel Shepherd joins Brandon, Mary, and Howard to talk about hard social science.
E.J. Patten joins us to talk about pre-writing — all that work that gets done before the prose happens.
Brandon, Dan, Mary, and Howard loved “The Avengers,” and would like to tell you what they think the film did right.