Tag Archives: Prose

16.11: What is Poetry?

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

This is how we begin our master class
on poetry, with Amal El-Mohtar:
With not one question, but two.

  • What is poetry?
  • What is prose?

Yes, both questions are a trap.
Or maybe two traps.
But definitely a beginning.

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

Play

Join a poem-a-day subscription service like poets.org/poem-a-day, or follow poetryisnotaluxury on Instagram

A Map to the Sun, by Sloane Leong

15.52: Economy of Phrase, Being the Concentrated Concatenation of Complex Thoughts in Just a Very Few Words Which Must Fit In A Very Very Small Box, With Patrick Rothfuss

Your Hosts: Howard, Mary Robinette, and Dan, with special guest Patrick Rothfuss

Did we have too much fun applying ironic humor to the title of this episode? Possibly! Patrick Rothfuss joins us to talk about economy of phrase, and the ways in which big ideas can be expressed with a few of the exactly-right words.

Credits: This episode was recorded by Bert Grimm, and mastered by Alex Jackson

Play

Take a scene from your prose work, and remove all the blocking and dialog tags. Now space out the dialog on the page, and attempt to convey the missing information with stick figures and smiley faces.

JimZub.com comic-writing tutorials
(Start here!)
Understanding Comics, by Scott McCloud

12.11: Diction

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

Let’s talk about word choice. And when we say “let’s” we mean “we’re going to talk to you about it. You don’t actually get to talk back.” So maybe “let’s” wasn’t the best of the possible openers.

Our discussion covers what we want to say, how specific we need to be, and what we want to evoke in the reader. Sometimes the wrong word is the right one, and the right word is the wrong one.

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

Play

Exercise 1: Take some dialog you’ve written recently. Replace the dialog with dialog that uses completely different words (except for articles, prepositions, and names.)

Exercise 2:  Write a scene in sentences no longer than seven words, then rewrite it in a single long sentence.

Sins of Empire by Brian McCellan

Writing Excuses 9.12: Microcasting! Twice in a row!

Aaand we’re microcasting again! A Q&A episode by any other name would sound as neat. Also neat? Eric James Stone joins us again!

  • What writing rule do you break the most?
  • When you review your novel do you print it out and mark it up, or do you edit on the computer?
  • How long do you wait between finishing a novel and starting the editing process?
  • What is the number-one issue that you have to overcome each day in order to put words to paper?
  • How do you feel with the fear of screwing up when you’re writing the other?
  • When giving a book as a gift, how do you decide on a book to give?
  • Any advice for people wanting to write a grand, universal story for their fantasy novel?
  • Is there a place you go to be inspired to write?
  • Do you ever have trouble writing characters out of the story (you know, by killing them)?
  • How do you strike the balance between too little description and too much?

A Note Regarding The Audio: Brandon’s microphone died just before we started, and we didn’t catch it, so if he sounds echoey it’s because we had to get his track from the other three microphones in the room.

 

 

 

Play

The word “sesquipedalian” means 18 inches long, and is usually only used to describe words that are too long. Find a way to work it into a scene so that it fits.

Between Two Thorns: The Split Worlds Series Book 1, by Emma Newman, narrated by the author

Writing Excuses 8.51: Creative non-fiction with Mette Ivie Harrison

Mette Ivie Harrison joins us to discuss creative non-fiction, the genre in which the tools of creative writing are applied to factually accurate narratives. Her latest book, Iron Mom, tells the story of how and why Mette  became a triathlete. We talk about how those tools are applied, and where the line between fiction and non-fiction might be drawn.

Play

Try your hand at creative non-fiction. Takes something that is ordinary to you, but which may be unusual or extraordinary for other people, and write about it in a way that evokes wonder.

Steelheart, by Brandon Sanderson, narrated by Macleod Andrews

Writing Excuses 8.31: Combining Dialogue, Blocking, and Description

The combination of dialogue, blocking, and description, can be considered from a couple of directions. The first is the idea that we’re really talking about making every element do double or triple duty. Dialogue, blocking, and description work together for exposition, answering questions the reader is asking.

The second is the “pyramid of abstraction.” The bottom of the pyramid, the scene setting, is the concrete foundation. The layers atop it can be more and more abstract, like tagless dialog without concrete descriptions, if that original foundation is firm enough.

In this ‘cast we take both approaches, and offer some tips, tricks, and examples so that you can learn to do this well.

Play

(Which is Actually Homework) Write description for half an hour. A full half hour. Set a timer! Try to use all five senses. Now write a single paragraph in which we establish a single character in that setting. Finally, write three sentences that convey the character, the description, and the character’s emotional state. Want more exercises like this one? Here you go! (courtesy of Mary.)

Bloody Jack, by L.A. Meyer, narrated by Katherine Kellgren

Writing Excuses 8.18: Blocking

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.

Play

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

Writing Excuses 8.2: Hero’s Journey

Beowulf didn’t kill Grendel on a day trip, Luke didn’t overthrow Emperor Palpatine in just one season, and here at Writing Excuses, we didn’t get around to properly discussing the Hero’s Journey until we were well into the second decade of this century.

Sorry about that.

The Campbellian Monomyth, as defined in Joseph Campbell’s Hero With a Thousand Faces, is a system of comparative mythology that, for better or for worse, gets used a lot by writers. We talk about some of our favorite examples, and immediately begin arguing over terms. Hopefully this is delightful to you, and educational for everyone. Especially since the monomyth is not a checklist, and it should not be taken that way.

Play

Take Goldilocks and the Three Bears, apply the Campbellian Monomyth, and give us a short story.

At the time we recorded this, Hero With a Thousand Faces was available on Audible. It’s not anymore. So… go find something else educational?