Brandon, Dan, and Howard discuss avoiding unnecessary offense as writers.
Fifteen minutes long, because you're in a hurry, and we're not that smart.
Late last season we took a look at Brandon’s first novel and did some line-editing and critiquing. It was so much fun we decided that Dan needed to take a turn in the dunking booth. He totally gets wet. In the course of dunking Dan we cover beginnings, descriptions, character…
Brandon, Dan, and Howard field questions about doing bad things to characters, soliciting feedback, creature design, and outlining.
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…
Special guest Bree Despain of the Dark Divine trilogy joins us for a ‘cast on character quirks. A character quirk, avoiding the tautological definition, is something that makes your character memorable. We talk about good quirks, bad quirks, and how to tell the difference. We also laugh a lot because it…
Brandon, Dan, and Howard start at the ending and work their way backwards for your enjoyment.
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 join Brandon and Dan at CONduit in Salt Lake City, and may end up wishing they hadn’t. Brandon throws sets of story concepts at the crew, and asks them to quickly frame serious stories with a solid settings and cool characters. The first set of…
Live from CONduit in Salt Lake City, L.E. Modessit Jr. and the Writing Excuses crew answer questions from the audience.
How to approach discovery writing, with your hosts Brandon, Dan, and Howard