Tag Archives: Ensemble

Season 17, Theory and Technique

17.27: Ensembles Behind the Scenes

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Your Hosts: Dan Wells, Zoraida Cordova, Kaela Rivera, and Howard Tayler

In this, our final “ensemble masterclass” episode, we discuss the nuts-and-bolts, the tips and tricks, the tools of the trade. In short, we talk very specifically about how we do it. Color-coded sticky notes, index cards, spreadsheets, and more…

Liner Notes: Howard’s guest story for Dave Kellet’s DRIVE compendium is now running online! It’s called “History and Haberdashery.“

Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson.

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Color-code your outline, and see if it’s helpful.

Into the Dark, by Claudia Gray

Season 17, Theory and Technique

17.26: Hanging Separately

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Your Hosts: Dan Wells, Zoraida Cordova, Kaela Rivera, and Howard Tayler

Our episode title comes to us across two and a half centuries:
“We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.” —Benjamin Franklin
We’ve already established that you’re planning to write an ensemble. This isn’t an episode about the pros and cons of ensembles. No, we’re here to talk about how an ensemble story can go wrong, leaving the characters to hang separately rather than hanging together.

Liner Notes: It happened again! We referenced the Ty Franck/Daniel Abraham episode, which we recorded at GenCon Indy several years ago, and again we can’t find a link to it.

Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson.

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Pick an ensemble story that failed for you. Find its failure mode, and write down the ways in which you’d fix it.

The Expanse (TV series, Amazon Prime)

Season 17, Theory and Technique

17.24: Ensembles and Genre

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Your Hosts: Dan Wells, Zoraida Cordova, Kaela Rivera, and Howard Tayler

This week we’re talking about how our genre choice influences the structure of our ensemble. How is a heist ensemble different from a superhero team? What happens when the superheroes need to do a heist?

Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson.

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Imagine your work-in-progress as a different genre. How would your cast or ensemble need to change?

Slow Horses (Apple TV)

Season 17, Theory and Technique

17.23: Are We Stronger Together?

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Your Hosts: Dan Wells, Zoraida Cordova, Kaela Rivera, and Howard Tayler

Sometimes we have to look at our ensemble of characters and ask ourselves what kind of story we’re trying to tell? If the story works with a single protagonist and one POV, maybe this isn’t an ensemble story after all. If, however, the plot requires a team effort from the heroes, then we need to make sure the necessary team members make it onto the page.

Liner Notes: The “I’m the tin dog” moment is from Doctor Who, S2 E3, “School Reunion.” Mickey is speaking. Howard couldn’t remember Mickey’s name because sometimes Howard is the tin dog.

Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson.

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Create a “connection” map for your characters that establishes what all the characters’ relationships are. Include at least one challenge in their relationship, and one way the relationship enhances each character.

Cece Rios and the King of Fears, by Kaela Rivera

Season 17, Theory and Technique

17.22: Establishing the Ensemble

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Your Hosts: Dan Wells, Zoraida Cordova, Kaela Rivera, and Howard Tayler

Every character in your ensemble needs to matter to the team, or they probably don’t belong in the ensemble. Zoraida Cordova leads us into this discussion of how we build our ensembles, how we introduce the characters, and how we ensure that all of them are important to the group.

Liner Notes: The article about Superman’s very first line of dialog is here.

Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson.

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Pick an ensemble work that you like. Identify each member of the ensemble and why they are important, and what they bring to the story.

Ghost Station, by Dan Wells

Season 17, Theory and Technique

17.21: Casting Your Story With Character Voice

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Your Hosts: Dan Wells, Zoraida Cordova, Kaela Rivera, and Howard Tayler

Every member of your ensemble has a reason to be there, but they also have their own voice. Zoraida Cordova joins us for a discussion of how we make our ensemble characters distinct from one another.

Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson.

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First: have each of your ensemble characters describe themselves. Second: have each of your ensemble characters describe each of the others.

Shafter’s Shifters & the Chassis of Chance (advance reader copy), by Howard Tayler, via the $5 tier of the Schlock Mercenary Patreon

Season 17, Theory and Technique

17.20: Basics of Ensemble Characterization

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Your Hosts: Dan Wells, Zoraida Cordova, Kaela Rivera, and Howard Tayler

What’s the difference between an ensemble story, and a story the has a lot of characters in it? Zoraida Cordova joins us for this episode, kicking off an eight-episode mini-master-class about ensembles. In this episode we discuss what makes ensembles work, and how we distinguish the “pro-protagonist” from the “co-protagonist” as we create character arcs.

Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson.

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Look at your pro-protagonist. Free-write a scene in which they’re applying for the job of being the protagonist in your story.

Valentina Salazar is Not a Monster Hunter, by Zoraida Cordova

Archive Seasons 11-15, Season 15

15.50: Juggling Ensembles

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Your Hosts: Brandon, Victoria, Dan, and Howard

Our listeners have asked about how we handle managing a large cast of characters. This is something we’ve all struggled with, and sometimes we’ve failed at it pretty spectacularly. In this episode we talk about how we turned our failures into learning, and what we do today to keep our ensembles in line and our stories on track.

Credits: This episode was recorded by Dan Thompson, and mastered by Alex Jackson

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Take something you’ve written, something with a cast of at least three characters, and change the point-of-view and/or main character.

This is How You Lose The Time War, by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone