Writing Excuses

We talk about characters a lot, which is fitting since characters are what make things go in most of our favorite books. Brandon introduces a new model for examining characters in which three primary ...

30 Mars 201420min

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 no...

24 Mars 201418min

Microcasting! It's what we call our Q&A episodes, because they're like multiple mini-casts. Eric James Stone joins us to help out. Here are the questions we field: * Should a pantser rewrite their b...

17 Mars 201420min

Nancy Fulda joins us for a discussion of engaging characters. We begin by explaining how engaging characters don't need to be sympathetic, but certainly can be, and then we head into why we find parti...

10 Mars 201418min

Nancy Fulda is back this week to talk with us about the truth, and what do to when it's stranger than fiction. Sometimes real people's names are just too cool, and if you were to put them in a book no...

3 Mars 201417min

Eric James Stone and the Wilhelm Scream join us for a talk about "handwavium," that stuff that you use instead of through-and-through hard science. It's that part where you wave your hand and say "don...

24 Feb 201415min

Revision, revision, revision. It's easy to tell when you're in the thick of it, but how do you know when you're at the end of it? What does the last pass of revisions look like? Eric James Stone join...

16 Feb 201418min

Mette Ivie Harrison joins us again for a fun discussion of how we experience time. This episode runs a little differently. Howard shares an experience he had driving on black ice, Mette shares an expe...

10 Feb 201420min