Fifteen minutes long, because you're in a hurry, and we're not that smart.

Writing Excuses Episode 25: Viewpoint and Tense Part 2

We are pleased to present the second half of “Viewpoint and Tense,”  which, as we all know, is Tense. Part 1 was Viewpoint. It’s not two podcasts that both talk about tense and viewpoint, it’s two totally different podcasts that share a title for some reason. Why didn’t we just…

Writing Excuses Episode 22: Doing The Unpopular

As a writer it’s sometimes difficult to decide between doing things the readers want, and things that are right for the story. But as Dan says, writers can get away with doing things to readers that readers would never do to themselves. Beware! This podcast contains spoilers for The Lord…

Writing Excuses Episode 20: More Q&A from Conduit

Writer Eric James Stone joins the Writing Excuses crew for our third Conduit installment. We tackle questions from the audience again (except for when Brandon throws a question AT the audience, which still had Mike Stackpole in it.) Are plot twists necessary? How does the web change the market for…

Writing Excuses Episode 17: This Sucks and I’m a Horrible Writer

The Writing Excuses crew tackles writer’s block again, this time approaching the “This Sucks And I’m A Horrible Writer” mindset. Dan relates his Neil Gaiman anecdote, Brandon explains why he’d written so many books before getting published, and Howard throws down the gauntlet on neverending Chapter One revisions. If you’re…

Writing Excuses Episode 16: Butt In Chair, Hands On Keyboard

Howard kicks this off with his own sure-fire cure for Writers’ Block, “BIC HOK:” Butt In Chair, Hands On Keyboard. The Writing Excuses team takes off from there, discussing the different kinds of Writers’ Block, and how to overcome each of them. We cover free-writing, re-reading and reviewing, and focusing…

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…

Brandon Sanderson

Brandon Sanderson was born in 1975 in Lincoln, Nebraska. By junior high he had lost interest in the novels suggested to him, and he never cracked a book if he could help it. Then an eighth grade teacher, Mrs. Reader, gave him Dragonsbane by Barbara Hambly. Brandon was finishing his…