Tag Archives: Mental Illness

Career and Lifestyle, Season 17, Theory and Technique

17.48: Bodies, Why? (Part III)

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Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, C.L. Polk, Fran Wilde, and Howard Tayler 

Let’s talk about pain. It hurts, yes, but we all experience it, so writing about it can be a great point of connection between the writer and the reader.

Also, writing about it can hurt.

Liner Notes: We referenced  “No, I’m Fine,” by Howard Tayler, and “The Visions Take Their Toll: Disability and the Cost of Magic,” by Dominic Parisien

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

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This is a creative non-fiction assignment: write about the worst physical pain you’ve experienced. Use all your best prose tools, and explore as many senses as you can.

D.I.Y, by John Wiswell

Archive Seasons 11-15, Career and Lifestyle, Guest, Season 13, Theory and Technique

13.39: What Writers Get Wrong, With Wendy Tolliver

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Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary, Dan, and Howard, with special guest Wendy Tolliver

Wendy skis, and snowboards, and  writes YA novels. She is also the parent of three, one of whom suffers from mental illness. She joined us to talk about how writers can do a better job of depicting it, and how to avoid the pitfalls and the harmful cliches.

Credits: This episode was recorded live at Salt Lake Fan X by Dan Thompson, and mastered by Alex Jackson

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Pick a mental disorder that you think pop culture has informed you about. Study up on it. Then write a scene in which that disorder informs the character’s behavior without actually naming the disorder.

 

Life Inside My Mind, by Maureen Johnson, Robison Wells, Wendy Tolliver, and 28 others.

Archive Seasons 11-15, Season 13, Theory and Technique

13.23: Internal Conflicts

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Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary, Amal, and Maurice

Internal conflicts, simply put, are problems your characters have with themselves. In this episode we address the ways in which writers can build stories and subplots around internal conflicts, and how we can tell when it’s not working.

Notes: the MICE quotient is Milieu, Idea, Character, and Event. Mary’s relationship axes are Role, Relationship, Status, and Competence.

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

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Use the Role, Relationship, Status, and Competence axes to define one of your characters. Then determine how each of these creates conflict with the one following it in the list.

An Unkindness of Ghosts, by Rivers Solomon