Writing Excuses

As 2014 draws to a close we say goodbye to Season 9, and talk a bit about what we've each learned this year. * Howard explained the surprising changes that came with a change in his work space * Ma...

29 Dec 201429min

You know what's fun? WRITING! Writing is fun. And that, more than anything else, is why we do it. Or at least it's why we decided to do it. Making sure that it is still fun is kind of tricky. Also tr...

22 Dec 201415min

Allison W. Hill and C. Austin Hill joined us at the Out of Excuses Retreat to talk about turning A Night of Blacker Darkness, by Dan Wells, into a stage play. "From the page to the stage" is a thing t...

15 Dec 201420min

If there's a crowd with good questions, it's the Out of Excuses Workshop and Retreat attendees. * Given the trend toward moral ambiguity, is there still a place for an unquestionably evil character?...

8 Dec 201419min

Recorded live in front of the Out of Excuses students, a crowd of savvy readers if ever there was one, we talk about how to effectively write for readers who are familiar with the genre or story struc...

4 Dec 201418min

As authors we spend a lot of time trying to make our readers care about the characters we create. We have a wide variety of techniques at our disposal to accomplish this. But do we ever ask ourselves ...

1 Dec 201419min

So, you're planning to kill somebody, but you don't want anyone to see it coming. How do you make that happen? We begin by talking about the hints that writers inadvertently drop, and why they drop t...

24 Nov 201418min

Bookseller Sara Glassman joined us at the Out of Excuses Workshop and Retreat to talk to us about her perspective on this industry, with an eye to the things that make it easy for her to put a book in...

18 Nov 201416min