Tag Archives: Flashbacks

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

12.49: Non-linear Narratives

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We begin the final month of our year on structure with a discussion of non-linear structures. These include flashbacks, POVs that are out of chronological order,  and a host of other storytelling techniques.

Credits: this episode was recorded in Cosmere House Studios by Dan Dan the Audioman Thompson, and mastered by Alex Jackson

 

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Watch fan edits of non-linear stories that put them in order. Also, put your outline on index cards, then shuffle them randomly.

The Butcher of Khardov, by Dan Wells

The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries (defaced edition), by Howard Tayler

Your Mama’s Adventures in Parenting, by Mary Robinette Kowal

Mulholland Homebrews Sinister Shop of Secret Pets, which will have been written by Brandon Sanderson

Archive Seasons 7-10, Career and Lifestyle, Q&A, Season 07, Theory and Technique

Writing Excuses 7.22: Microcasting

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A microcast is our word for an asynchronous Q&A episode: you ask us tons of questions online, either through twitter or facebook or our listenermail account (on the sidebar), and we want to answer as many of them as we can. Not every answer can fill an entire episode, though, so we take the smaller ones and cover a bunch of them at once in a microcast. This week we take a brief, pithy look at the following:

  • Prologues and epilogues
  • Using drawings to get across settings
  • Simple tricks for naming things
  • Would you self publish if you had a do over?
  • How do you keep a powerful character interesting?
  • Foreshadowing
  • Trimming
  • Flashbacks
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Write a flashback, in a prologue, with a mirror scene. Yes.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, by Alan Bradley