Tag Archives: First Person

Demonstration, Season 16, Theory and Technique

16.31: First Page Fundamentals—MOBY DICK

August 1, 2021 Howard Tayler 10 Comments

Your Hosts: DongWon Song, Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler

In this episode we explore the first page of Moby Dick, by Herman Melville, with the goal of learning how to build good first pages for own own work.

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

Liner Notes: here is the 1st paragraph of Moby Dick, for reference.

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time tozz get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.

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Homework: Write an introduction that is purely internal to the character’s mental state.

Killing Floor: Jack Reacher, Book 1, by Lee Child

Archive Seasons 11-15, Season 12, Theory and Technique

12.4: Hybrid Viewpoints

January 22, 2017 Howard Tayler 10 Comments

Your Hosts: Brandon, Piper, Dan, and Howard, with Sandra Tayler

Piper J. Drake joins the cast for our week-four episodes, of which this is the first. This week we’ll be drilling down into hybrid viewpoints—blending 1st and 3rd person, framing stories, stories-within-stories, and unreliable narration—and how to best serve our work with these techniques.

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Put a framing story around something you’ve already written.

Absolute Trust, by Piper J. Drake

Archive Seasons 11-15, Season 12, Theory and Technique

12.2: How to Nail Character Voice in First Person

January 8, 2017 Howard Tayler 15 Comments

Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary, Mary Anne, and Wesley

This week we talk about character voice, and how to get it right in First Person. This POV is a strong tool for developing memorable characters. We cover sentence structure, linguistic tweaks, accents, and much more, as well as some exercises you can try out to develop these tools.

This week is also your introduction to our Chicago cast. You’ve already heard from Brandon and Mary; the new voices belong to Mary Anne Mohanraj and Wesley Chu.

Credits: This episode was recorded by Andrew Twiss, and mastered by Alex Jackson.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:27 — 14.8MB)

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Write a page or two of first-person POV in which the character is trying to complete a task. Now write that same task-completion scene from the POV of someone else who is attempting the task.

Perennial, by Mary Anne Mohanraj

Archive Seasons 11-15, Season 12, Theory and Technique

12.1: Variations on First Person

January 1, 2017 Howard Tayler 25 Comments

Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary, Dan, and Howard

We’re beginning a new season, and during 2017 we will be focusing our topics on structure. We are also going to shake things by expanding our cast a bit. You’ll be hearing some new voices soon! They belong to:

Wesley Chu
Piper J. Drake
Mary Anne Mohanraj

We’ll post more on that in a few days, but we’ve already begun updating our “About” page.

This week your hosts are Brandon Sanderson, Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler. We spend a few minutes on the administrative stuff above before jumping into January’s structural topic, the first person voice, with a discussion of the variations in how that POV is presented. We cover some of the different first person POV styles, what sorts of stories they’re often best-suited for, and how we go about writing them well.

Spoiler Alert: Episode 12.3 will feature Sandra Tayler, and is a Project In Depth on her story, “Risk Assessment,” which was illustrated by Natalie Barahona and Howard Tayler. It appears in Force Multiplication: Schlock Mercenary Book 12, available direct from Hypernode Media, or through Amazon.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:49 — 16.4MB)

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Take something you’ve written, and put it in the three different forms of 1st person — reflective, epistolary, and immediate.

The Star-Touched Queen, by Roshani Chokshi, narrated by Priya Ayyar

Archive Seasons 7-10, Guest, Live Audience, Q&A, Season 08, Theory and Technique

Writing Excuses 8.45: Gencon Q&A With Wesley Chu

November 10, 2013 Writing Excuses 12 Comments

Wesley Chu again joins Brandon, Mary, Howard, and a live audience at GenCon Indy, this time for a Q&A. The audience handed us the following questions:

How do you write 1st-person POV from a gender other than your own?
Do you have a set schedule for writing time?
How do you boost your word count without padding, AND without adding characters?
How can prose be used to convey emotion without stating character feelings outright?

Those are the questions. Listen to the episode for the answers!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 16:56 — 11.6MB)

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Revoke your right to use “thought” verbs, then communicate thoughts, knowledge, and awareness in your POV character. The original challenge for this prompt came from this blog post by Chuck Palahniuk.

Chimes at Midnight, by Seanan McGuire, narrated by Mary Robinette Kowal

Archive Seasons 1-6, Season 05, Theory and Technique

Writing Excuses 5.3: First Person Viewpoint

September 19, 2010 Writing Excuses 16 Comments

Bree Despain joins us for a discussion of writing the first-person viewpoint. We talk about “method writing” and get briefly creeped out by Dan. We discuss some key aspects of this particular POV, including the unreliable narrator, the over-the-shoulder vs. the memoir perspective, and the presence or absence of a framing story.

We cover a few pitfalls, including the clichéd “mirror scene,” and then offer advice to new writers who are looking for ways to get first person right the first time.

Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: Beastly, by Alex Finn

Writing Prompt: The main character has a secret. Write from that character’s point of view, but keep the secret from the reader.

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Archive Seasons 1-6, Season 05, Theory and Technique

WE 5.1: Third Person Limited

September 7, 2010 Writing Excuses 33 Comments

We’ve talked about point of view before, but only in general terms: this time we delve into third-person limited in detail, explaining how to use it and when to use it and why.

We apologize for the lateness of the post, and the lameness of this episode description: this is what happens when all three of us go to conventions on the same weekend. Expect a cooler update soon.

[ONE WEEK LATER]

So… yeah, that original post pretty much sums it up. Why should you employ third-person limited, as opposed to first-person, or third-person omniscient, or third-person cinematic? What are the pitfalls, and how can you avoid them?

Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: Soulless by Gail Carriger. Vampires, werewolves, and parasols in a steamy, punky, bodice-rippy, alternate-history London.

Writing Prompt: Brandon, Dan, Howard, and Producer Jordo all walk through a room, and each of us sees the room differently.

This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by Audible.

Visit http://AudiblePodcast.com/excuse for a free trial membership*.

*Note: From the Audible website, here are the terms of the free membership. Read the fine print, please!

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Archive Seasons 1-6, Season 03, Uncategorized

Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 20: Plot- vs. Character-Driven Fiction

October 11, 2009 Writing Excuses 43 Comments

Larry Correia, whose debut novel Monster Hunter International hit the market this summer, joins us for a discussion of plot-driven vs. character driven fiction. We start with a definition of terms and a discussion of the battlefield. Then we dive into the nuts and bolts of how to write what it is you want to be writing.

This week’s Writing Excuses is brought to you by Audible. Head over to Audiblepodcast.com/excuse for a free audio book and a 14-day trial. And at our recommendation, try out Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.

Writing Prompt: Come up with a plot-driven story, and then try to make it good with boring characters.

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