A discussion of art and design elements and how they work with the stories we write.
Fifteen minutes long, because you're in a hurry, and we're not that smart.
Roll for initiative, folks! Brandon, Dan, and Howard all play tabletop role-playing games, and sometimes even play together. The question of the hour (well… quarter-hour) is “how can these games help your world building, storytelling, and anything else having to do with good writing?” If this ‘cast doesn’t make you…
This episode was recorded live at CONduit in Salt Lake City with special guest Aprilynne Pike. Our topic: How do we “keep it real” when writing speculative fiction? What does that even mean? (Okay, it means making the stuff that exists in real life seem real.) Short answer: Research. We…
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…
The Writing Excuses crew returns to world-building, this time to discuss the creation of non-human races. Why do genre-fiction writers use aliens and monsters, short folk, tusked folk, or any other variation on “people” who aren’t human? Can new writers successfully recycle the classic Tolkien races and use dwarves, elves,…
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…
This week the Writing Excuses team discusses magic again, this time focusing on the cost of magic. Whether or not your magic system has internally-consistent rules your readers can follow (per Sanderson’s First Law and last week’s ‘cast) you need to consider the ramifications of using magic in the worlds…
Does magic need rules? Sometimes yes and sometimes no; our intrepid podcasters talk about how to know which situation is which, and explore the pros and cons of each method. We’ll also yak for a while about the differences between Superman and Gandalf, which makes us, if nothing else, huge…
Howard Tayler is the writer and illustrator behind Schlock Mercenary, the Hugo-nominated science fiction comic strip. He has written SF horror for the Space Eldritch anthologies and Shadows Beneath, and full-metal fantasy tie-in fiction for Privateer Press. With Alan Bahr and Sandra Tayler, Howard created The Planet Mercenary Role Playing Game, which included well over 100,000 words of world building. His most…
Erin describes her own writing process as “a bunch of random practices thrown into a bag and shaken up.” And maybe this approach reminds you of your own writing practice! Nevertheless, for today’s episode, Erin managed to organize her processes into four categories: getting work, getting in, getting done, getting…