Tag Archives: Narrator

13.45: Next Level Narration

November 11, 2018 Howard Tayler 4 Comments

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, Guest, Season 09, Theory and Technique, Uncategorized

Writing Excuses 9.3: Character Perception vs. Narrative Perception with Nancy Fulda

January 19, 2014 Writing Excuses 18 Comments

Nancy Fulda, who was a guest on the cast clear back in Season 2, joins us to talk about using the narrative to call out or offset character perceptions. Sometimes the POV character “knows” a thing which is not just incorrect, it is something the reader will recognize as incorrect, and if this isn’t written correctly the reader may get knocked out of the story by the concern that the author might have his or her information wrong.

For instance, one character might refer to a small-arm magazine as a “clip,” while other characters in the story, those more experienced with firearms, know that the word is “magazine.”

Mary talks about the historical fantasy novel she’s writing, set in Regency-era Antigua, and which steps squarely into issues of race. Nancy talks to us a bit about language drift, and about how our understanding about lots of things will change. Brandon then raises the question of using “author’s notes.”

Speaking Of Things The Characters Got Wrong: One of those episodes Nancy was in back in 2009? Yeah, we all got it wrong.

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Take something that you believe to be false, and write a character with the opposite belief.

Movement, by Nancy Fulda, narrated by Marguerite Kenner

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

WE 5.2: Character Quirks

September 12, 2010 Writing Excuses 19 Comments

Special guest Bree Despain of the Dark Divine trilogy joins us for a ‘cast on character quirks.

A character quirk, avoiding the tautological definition, is something that makes your character memorable. We talk about good quirks, bad quirks, and how to tell the difference. We also laugh a lot because it was late and we were punchy.

We also discuss ways in which stereotype-breaking quirks can be employed without delivering humor, and reasons why we might do this.

Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: The Dark Divine by Bree Despain

Regarding That “No Spoilers” Shouting-Match: If you haven’t seen Avatar: The Last Airbender (animated) in its entirety yet, it’s possible Bree gave something away in the last two minutes of the ‘cast.

Writing Prompt: A physical attribute that in some way influences the character’s religion

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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.

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Archive Seasons 1-6, Season 04, Uncategorized

Writing Excuses 4.16: Breaking the Fourth Wall

April 25, 2010 Writing Excuses 27 Comments

Isaac Stewart, interior artist for the Mistborn books and Rocket Road-Tripper joins us again for a discussion of the fourth wall, and the breaking thereof. We talk about the theatrical origins of the term, and how the technique it represents might be used by authors and others. We talk about why Howard broke the fourth wall a lot more in early Schlock Mercenary strips than he does now, and why Isaac broke the fourth wall in some video game writing he did. We also talk about when it would be absolutely, inarguably inappropriate to break the fourth wall.

Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: Alcatraz vs. The Evil Librarians, by Brandon Sanderson, in which the 1st-person narrator, Alcatraz, breaks the fourth wall a lot.

Writing Prompt: Write something in which somebody is literally the son of a shark, and in which you break the fourth wall. Oh, and the fourth wall is the glass wall of an aquarium.

Audio Glitch We Hate at 3:13: For some reason we lost one channel of audio for about 20 seconds. That’s why this episode is monaural, and why between 3:13 and 3:34 the volume drops off a bit.

Related Linkage: Here’s a link to the article about the HBO Game of Thrones adaptation Isaac mentioned.

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

Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 30: Unreliable Narrators

December 13, 2009 Writing Excuses 35 Comments

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