Tag Archives: Narrative

Archive Seasons 11-15, Season 14, Theory and Technique

14.14: When To Tell

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Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Dan, and Howard

“Show, don’t tell,” they tell us. Except sometimes showing is not always the best thing to do. Or even the right thing to do. Sometimes we should be telling. In this episode we’ll tell you about telling. (We’d show you about telling, but we still don’t have a video feed.)

Credits: This episode was recorded by Rob Kimbro, and mastered by Alex Jackson

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Pick an important scene from your work. Cut it. Now have a character transition us across where that scene used to be.

The Hobbit: The Two Hour Fan Edit, by Fiona van Dahl (and MGM/New Line Cinema/Wingnut Films)

Archive Seasons 11-15, Season 13

13.45: Next Level Narration

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Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Amal, and Maurice

Narration is that stuff which tells your story, but isn’t dialog. It’s the voice of your narrator, and it might be multiple voices depending on how you’re handling point of view. In this episode we’ll talk about the things you can do to challenge yourself and level up your narration.

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Write a scene from several points of view. Each of these characters are experiencing the same scene differently, and some of them are lying about it.

The Usual Suspects, by Maurice Broaddus
(NOTE: currently available for preorder. Between the time this episode was recorded and its air date the book’s publication date got pushed into May of 2019)

Archive Seasons 7-10, Season 08

Writing Excuses 8.18: Blocking

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Blocking! What is it, why is it important, and how can you do it well?

We begin with a definition (blocking is the part of the narrative that tells the reader where the characters are, where the scenery is, and how these things are interacting) and then talk about why it’s important, especially how it applies to “show, don’t tell,” and how the needs of the story will dictate what actually needs to be shown.

Finally, we discuss how to block scenes effectively, and how each of us do it.

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Write a fight scene. Bonus points if it’s got four people in it. We don’t know what you’ll spend those points on.

Monster Hunter Alpha, by Larry Correia, narrated by Oliver Wyman

Archive Seasons 1-6, Season 03, Theory and Technique

Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 30: Unreliable Narrators

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This episode totally would have updated earlier if I’d only known sooner that it was ready to go. Jordo says he emailed me early this evening, but if he HAD then you’d have been listening to this by 8:00pm Sunday.

So… how much of that do you believe? Is the Narrator lying to you, or is he just wrong?  Maybe he is lying to himself, and thinks he’s being honest with you.

Most importantly, though, how does any of this apply to your writing? Well, that’s what the podcast is for…

Writing Prompt: Have an event occur, and then provide five different character perspectives on the event… none of which are completely accurate.

Note: this episode updated a little late because I wanted an object lesson in the write-up, not because I was relaxing on the couch until 11:15pm.  That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

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