Brandon, Dan, and Howard critique some tagless dialog submissions.
Fifteen minutes long, because you're in a hurry, and we're not that smart.
John Brown joins Brandon, Dan, and Howard for a discussion of second novels, sequels, and the trick to doing it again.
The now cancer-free John Brown joins us again, this time for a discussion of the creative process. John has presented a seminar on this subject in the past, the focus of which is to teach people to unlock their creativity. At the core of this is the problem-solving we all engage…
John Brown joins us this week for a discussion of plot threads specific to characters. These can be the main plot thread, interesting sub-plots, or just things that shape characters. Sometimes they’re things we do deliberately, and sometimes we discovery-write our way into these arcs. We talk about how we…
Melodrama. What is it? What do people mean when they say something is too melodramatic? Usually they do NOT mean “it’s too much like a classical melodrama,” but it helps if we start with that definition: a melodrama is a story in which each character only expresses one emotion, and/or…
The last of our three recorded-live episodes is also the last episode of Writing Excuses Season 4. We took questions from the audience, and answered them with ABSOLUTE APLOMB. Questions asked include: How did we, as beginning writers, manage to write while holding down day-jobs and/or going to school? What…
Recorded live at Dragons & Fairy Tales in Eagle Mountain, Utah, this episode features the work of several brave souls who submitted their first paragraphs to us for critique. We are not American Idol — we’re not out to rip these to shreds. We offer constructive criticism, highlight the good…
Brandon, Dan, and Howard demonstrate line-editing on an ancient manuscript.
What do you do when, halfway through the book you’re writing, you realize it needs to be completely rebuilt? More importantly, how do you figure this out in the first place? This podcast came about as a result of a question from a listener, but the question was specific to…
James Dashner and Julie Wright talk covers, titles, and first lines with Brandon and Dan.