Writing Excuses

This week's episode covers the perjoratively-named sub-genre, space opera. These are adventure stories in which the setting is futuristic, but in which the science is secondary. The lines are blurry, ...

30 Jun 201320min

Eric Patten joins us for a cast on Middle Grade fiction. His series, The Hunter Chronicles (Return to Exile and The Legend Thief have both been released) is delightful. As Dan points out, there's no ...

23 Jun 201318min

Mary's story "Kiss Me Twice," is a murder mystery featuring an artificial intelligence using Mae West as an avatar. It appeared on the ballot for the 2012 Hugo Awards in the Best Novella category (our...

16 Jun 201322min

Microcasting! It's what we've taken to calling a Q&A. Eric Patten joins us for this one. Here are the questions: * What's your first step in the rewriting process? * How do you write Artificial Int...

9 Jun 201316min

E.J. "Eric" Patten joins us for a discussion of pre-writing. His first book, Return to Exile, came out in 2011, and The Legend Thief released in March of 2013. What is pre-writing? Eric walks us thro...

2 Jun 201318min

We here at Writing Excuses enjoyed Marvel's The Avengers. This isn't a movie review, though. This is a discussion of what the movie did right from a writer's standpoint. The things we focus on? * Di...

26 Mai 201320min

The number one request we got when we asked you what you'd like us to talk about? Short story writing. Mary is our resident expert, and if she weren't already a member of the cast, she'd our go-to exp...

19 Mai 201317min

There are numerous local cultures surrounding writers, writing groups, and the conventions that writers attend. These cultural peculiarities influence the writing that emerges from those areas. As wr...

12 Mai 201317min