Writing Excuses
889 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 1 month ago - ★★★★★ - 1.2K ratingsFifteen minutes long, because you're in a hurry, and we're not that smart.
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Episodes
17.29: The Job of Dialogue
July 17, 2022 22:00 - 20 minutes - 18.4 MBYour Hosts: Dan Wells, Mary Robinette Kowal, Maurice Broaddus, and Howard Tayler We're back with Maurice Broaddus for the second in our eight-episode mini-master-class on writing dialogue. This time around we're addressing the question of dialogue's "job." What's it for? Why is this particular bit of dialogue in this scene, this chapter, this book? Credits: This episode was recorded by Daniel Thompson, and mastered by Alex Jackson. Our Sponsors: * Check out rosettastone.com/today to get 50%...
17.28: Keys to Writing Dialog
July 10, 2022 22:00 - 18 minutes - 16.5 MBYour Hosts: Dan Wells, Mary Robinette Kowal, Maurice Broaddus, and Howard Tayler Writer, teacher, and community organizer Maurice Broaddus joins us for an eight-episode mini-master-class on writing dialogue. In this episode he walks us through his three keys: pay attention to how people speak, write in a way that evokes how they speak, and write dialogue that makes individual characters distinctive. Liner Notes: We mention Descript transcription software in this episode. Here's a link! Credi...
17.27: Ensembles Behind the Scenes
July 03, 2022 22:00 - 19 minutes - 18.3 MBYour Hosts: Dan Wells, Zoraida Cordova, Kaela Rivera, and Howard Tayler In this, our final "ensemble masterclass" episode, we discuss the nuts-and-bolts, the tips and tricks, the tools of the trade. In short, we talk very specifically about how we do it. Color-coded sticky notes, index cards, spreadsheets, and more... Liner Notes: Howard's guest story for Dave Kellet's DRIVE compendium is now running online! It's called "History and Haberdashery." Credits: This episode was recorded by Marsha...
17.26: Hanging Separately
June 26, 2022 22:00 - 18 minutes - 17 MBYour Hosts: Dan Wells, Zoraida Cordova, Kaela Rivera, and Howard Tayler Our episode title comes to us across two and a half centuries: "We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately." —Benjamin Franklin We've already established that you're planning to write an ensemble. This isn't an episode about the pros and cons of ensembles. No, we're here to talk about how an ensemble story can go wrong, leaving the characters to hang separately rather than hanging...
17.25: Archetypes, Ensembles, and Expectations
June 19, 2022 22:00 - 20 minutes - 18.6 MBYour Hosts: Dan Wells, Zoraida Cordova, Kaela Rivera, and Howard Tayler We've talked about making every member of the ensemble meaningful. In this episode we're discussing who, in archetype terms, everybody is. How can archetypes help us get started, how can they help us set reader expectations, and what are the archetype-related pitfalls we need to avoid? And finally, is 'archetype' even the correct term here? Liner Notes: Here's the "Black Superheroes with Electrical Powers" article. Credi...
17.24: Ensembles and Genre
June 12, 2022 22:00 - 17 minutes - 15.7 MBYour Hosts: Dan Wells, Zoraida Cordova, Kaela Rivera, and Howard Tayler This week we're talking about how our genre choice influences the structure of our ensemble. How is a heist ensemble different from a superhero team? What happens when the superheroes need to do a heist? Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson. Our Sponsors: * Check out rosettastone.com/today to get 50% off Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership! Use our code TODAY for a limit...
17.23: Are We Stronger Together?
June 05, 2022 22:00 - 21 minutes - 19.7 MBYour Hosts: Dan Wells, Zoraida Cordova, Kaela Rivera, and Howard Tayler Sometimes we have to look at our ensemble of characters and ask ourselves what kind of story we're trying to tell? If the story works with a single protagonist and one POV, maybe this isn't an ensemble story after all. If, however, the plot requires a team effort from the heroes, then we need to make sure the necessary team members make it onto the page. Liner Notes: The "I'm the tin dog" moment is from Doctor Who, S2 E3...
17.22: Establishing the Ensemble
May 29, 2022 22:00 - 17 minutes - 16.2 MBYour Hosts: Dan Wells, Zoraida Cordova, Kaela Rivera, and Howard Tayler Every character in your ensemble needs to matter to the team, or they probably don't belong in the ensemble. Zoraida Cordova leads us into this discussion of how we build our ensembles, how we introduce the characters, and how we ensure that all of them are important to the group. Liner Notes: The article about Superman's very first line of dialog is here. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mas...
17.21: Casting Your Story With Character Voice
May 22, 2022 22:00 - 21 minutes - 19.7 MBYour Hosts: Dan Wells, Zoraida Cordova, Kaela Rivera, and Howard Tayler Every member of your ensemble has a reason to be there, but they also have their own voice. Zoraida Cordova joins us for a discussion of how we make our ensemble characters distinct from one another. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson. Our Sponsors: * Check out rosettastone.com/today to get 50% off Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership! Use our code TODAY for a limited t...
17.20: Basics of Ensemble Characterization
May 15, 2022 22:00 - 15 minutes - 14.6 MBYour Hosts: Dan Wells, Zoraida Cordova, Kaela Rivera, and Howard Tayler What's the difference between an ensemble story, and a story the has a lot of characters in it? Zoraida Cordova joins us for this episode, kicking off an eight-episode mini-master-class about ensembles. In this episode we discuss what makes ensembles work, and how we distinguish the "pro-protagonist" from the "co-protagonist" as we create character arcs. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and maste...
17.19: Working in a Collaborative Environment
May 08, 2022 22:00 - 17 minutes - 15.7 MBYour Hosts: Dan Wells, Brandon Sanderson, and Megan Lloyd Megan Lloyd returns to the podcast to talk us through the process of creating something in a collaborative environment, whether it's a pair of authors working together, or a dozen people working to write, storyboard, and animate a television series. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Our Sponsors: * Check out rosettastone.com/today to get 50% off Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership!...
17.18: How to be Funny, with Jody Lynn Nye
May 01, 2022 22:00 - 17 minutes - 16.3 MBYour Hosts: Dan Wells and Brandon Sanderson, with special guest Jody Lynn Nye So, you've decided you want something to be funny. How do you go about making that happen? Jody Lynn Nye joined Dan and Brandon at LTUE, and pitched this topic to them. And yes, it's much more than just "delivery, delivery, delivery." Liner Notes: "It's always more funny when Howard's not here." —Brandon Sanderson at LTUE 2022 (posted here for posterity) Credits: This episode was recorded by Dan Thompson, and maste...
17.17: Writing in the Public Domain
April 24, 2022 22:00 - 13 minutes - 12.2 MBYour Hosts: Dan Wells, Brandon Sanderson, and Gama Martinez Did you know that there are some famous intellectual properties which have entered the public domain, and which you can therefore use to create your own stories? It's true! Gama Martinez (whose God of Neverland novel features Peter Pan) joined Dan and Brandon at LTUE to talk about how cool this is, and (more importantly) what kinds of things authors need to do in order to make sure they're only using the public domain bits of the pr...
17.16: Miscellaneous Structures
April 17, 2022 22:00 - 18 minutes - 17.2 MBYour Hosts: Dan Wells, Mary Robinette Kowal, Peng Shepherd, and Howard Tayler Thus far we've attempted to organize our discussion of sub-, micro-, and other alternative structures with specific categories, but this domain is a lot larger than that. This final episode with our guest host Peng Shepherd has been titled "Miscellaneous Structures" because, y'know, sometimes the last bucket in your row of carefully, taxonomically-labeled buckets needs to be "miscellaneous." Liner Notes: Howard men...
17.15: Storytelling in the Footnotes
April 10, 2022 22:00 - 21 minutes - 19.5 MBYour Hosts: Dan Wells, Mary Robinette Kowal, Peng Shepherd, and Howard Tayler You probably already know what footnotes are¹, but have you ever seen a story told through the footnotes²? It's similar to the story-within-a-story structure, but there's more to it than that. In this episode our guest host Peng Shepherd explores footnote storytelling³ with us. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson ——— ¹ This is an example of a footnote. ² This is no...
17.14: Structuring for Disordered or Order-less Reading Order
April 03, 2022 22:00 - 21 minutes - 19.5 MBYour Hosts: Dan Wells, Mary Robinette Kowal, Peng Shepherd, and Howard Tayler Guest host Peng Shepherd leads our discussion of "order-less reading order" (after we get past the business of "having too much fun with the episode title"). But what do we even mean by "order-less" or "disordered?" At one level, we mean you can just pick up the story anywhere and start reading. Kind of like TV series prior to the advent of the fully serial series. But kind of unlike it, because how does this work ...
17.13: Structuring Around a Thing
March 27, 2022 22:00 - 19 minutes - 17.9 MBYour Hosts: Dan Wells, Mary Robinette Kowal, Peng Shepherd, and Howard Tayler Our exploration of sub- and micro-structures continues with guest host Peng Shepherd. This week we're talking about how a story can be structured around a "thing." The simplest explanatory example would be structuring around a map, which is where we start the episode... kind of like how The Lord of the Rings starts in The Shire. This episode does not end with even one of us climbing a volcano. Liner Notes: Tower of...
17.12: Structuring a Story Within a Story
March 20, 2022 22:00 - 20 minutes - 19 MBYour Hosts: Dan Wells, Mary Robinette Kowal, Peng Shepherd, and Howard Tayler One common structure—both macro and micro—is the "story within a story," or "framing story" structure, and yet somehow we've never really explored it on Writing Excuses. Guest host Peng Shepherd is here to help us set things right. Liner Notes: Here are some examples of story-within-a-story structure... Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell Hyperion Cantos, by Dan Simmons Neverending ...
17.11: Structuring with Multiple Timelines
March 13, 2022 22:00 - 19 minutes - 18.3 MBYour Hosts: Dan Wells, Mary Robinette Kowal, Peng Shepherd, and Howard Tayler Guest host Peng Shepherd continues to lead our exploration of sub- and micro-structures by taking us into the scaffolding of in media res, flashbacks, and other tools for structuring a story by telling it out of chronological order. We also cover how to do this without breaking the flow of the story. Liner Notes: The "trousers of time" book Howard referenced was Jingo, by Terry Pratchett. Credits: This episode was ...
17.10: Structuring with Multiple POVs
March 06, 2022 23:00 - 18 minutes - 16.7 MBYour Hosts: Dan Wells, Mary Robinette Kowal, Peng Shepherd, and Howard Tayler In our second micro-structure episode, Peng Shepherd leads us into an exploration of the ways in which the use of multiple point-of-view characters can create a framework within the larger framework of the story. Liner Notes: In one example we contrasted the single POV Killing Floor, by Lee Childs with its multiple-POV TV adaptation in season 1 of Reacher. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., a...
17.9: Let’s Talk About Structure
February 27, 2022 23:00 - 17 minutes - 16.3 MBYour Hosts: Dan Wells, Mary Robinette Kowal, Peng Shepherd, and Howard Tayler We're beginning another eight-episode deep-dive series, and this time it's a fresh approach to story structure, led by our guest host Peng Shepherd. Join us as we zoom right through the overarching frameworks defined via things like the Hero's Journey, Freytag’s Triangle, Save The Cat, and Seven Point Story Structure to look at the microstructures which both define and obscure these general narrative shapes. Credit...
17.8: The Alchemy of Creativity
February 20, 2022 23:00 - 20 minutes - 18.6 MBYour Hosts: Howard Tayler, Kaela Rivera, Sandra Tayler, and Megan Lloyd How do you translate things from the spark of inspiration into a work that someone else can consume? Like, instead of turning a movie into a book, you're trying to create a book out of the movie in your head. And what if your "spark" isn't a movie in your head, but instead a suite of emotions? In this episode we discuss how we do it. That might not answer the question for you, but hopefully it's a good start. Alchemy is ...
17.7: Dissecting Influence
February 13, 2022 23:00 - 19 minutes - 18 MBYour Hosts: Howard Tayler, Kaela Rivera, Sandra Tayler, and Megan Lloyd What are your influences? What pieces of art, music, literature, or other media have inspired you? In this episode we'll talk about making that inspiration deliberate, and consciously learning from our influences. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Our Sponsors: * Check out rosettastone.com/today to get 50% off Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership! Use our code TODAY fo...
17.6: Hitting Reset Without Getting Hit Back
February 06, 2022 23:00 - 21 minutes - 19.3 MBYour Hosts: Howard Tayler, Kaela Rivera, Sandra Tayler, and Megan Lloyd Oh no! You're in the middle of a thing (a novel, a series, a career) and you suddenly realize that the expectations you set early on are not the expectations you'll be meeting. What do you do now? , We're talking about how go about resetting audience expectations, whether mid-story, mid-series, or mid-career, including some strategies for communicating “everything is changing now, forget what you know” without making the...
17.5: The Promise of the Brand
January 30, 2022 23:00 - 23 minutes - 21.9 MBYour Hosts: Howard Tayler, Kaela Rivera, Sandra Tayler, and Megan Lloyd Your brand—your name, the cover art for your book, and even the typeface for the title—set expectations for the book's contents. That advice about not judging a book by its cover? It's lovely in theory, but in practice, that's just not how it works. In this episode we'll talk about how your brand gets defined, and how you can work with those elements to correctly set expectations regarding your work. Liner Notes: We've d...
17.4: The Gun on the Mantel is Actually a Fish
January 23, 2022 23:00 - 20 minutes - 19.1 MBYour Hosts: Howard Tayler, Kaela Rivera, Sandra Tayler, and Megan Lloyd In the previous episode we discussed how to ensure that your surprise feels inevitable. In this episode we're covering how to make inevitability feel surprising. The title is a nod to the concept of the "red herring," which is arguably the most useful tool for setting up a good surprise. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Our Sponsors: * Check out rosettastone.com/toda...
17.3: Chekov’s Surprising Yet Inevitable Inverted Gun
January 16, 2022 23:00 - 20 minutes - 18.5 MBYour Hosts: Howard Tayler, Kaela Rivera, Sandra Tayler, and Megan Lloyd This week we're talking about giving inevitability to our intended surprise, and we open with a discussion of Chekov's Gun, which, as a writing rule, is mostly used in inversion. Next week we'll focus on making inevitable things surprising. Liner Notes: Art and Editing of Suicide Squad (YouTube) Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Our Sponsors: * Check out rosettastone....
17.2: It Was a Promise of Three Parts
January 09, 2022 23:00 - 20 minutes - 18.8 MBYour Hosts: Howard Tayler, Kaela Rivera, Sandra Tayler, and Megan Lloyd The title of this episode comes to us from the first paragraph of The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss—a novel which delights us with turns of phrase and evocative prose from beginning to end. We're continuing our exploration of "promises as a structure" by looking at the promises made by the prose of your first line, first paragraph, and first page. What does your first line say about the rest of your book? Did you...
17.1: Genre and Media are Promises
January 02, 2022 23:00 - 19 minutes - 17.5 MBYour Hosts: Howard Tayler, Kaela Rivera, Sandra Tayler, and Megan Lloyd The genre of your story is making promises to the reader, and the medium upon which your story is told makes promises too. In this episode we talk about the expectations set by various mediums and genres, and how we can leverage those to ensure that we deliver a satisfying story. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Liner Notes: The entirety of Season 11, The Elemental Ge...
16.52: Structure is a Promise
December 26, 2021 23:00 - 20 minutes - 18.4 MBYour Hosts: Howard Tayler, Kaela Rivera, Sandra Tayler, and Megan Lloyd The structure you're using for your story isn't just helping you organize your plotting. It's telling the audience what's going to happen. Story structures make promises to audiences, and these audience expectations are, in large measure, outside of our control. In this episode we talk about the expectations set by various story structures, and how we can make sure we use our structures to satisfy our audiences. Credits:...
16.51: Promises are a Structure
December 19, 2021 23:00 - 21 minutes - 19.6 MBYour Hosts: Howard Tayler, Kaela Rivera, Sandra Tayler, and Megan Lloyd Our next 8-episode intensive is all about promises and expectations. Our guest hosts are Kaela Rivera, Sandra Tayler, and Megan Lloyd. They're joining us to talk about how the promises we make to our audiences, and the expectations they bring with them, are a structural format. In this episode we introduce the topic, and talk about some apex examples of success and failure in this area. Credits: This episode was recorded...
16.50: Worldbuilding Finale: Making Deliberate Choices
December 12, 2021 23:01 - 18 minutes - 17.2 MBYour Hosts: Dan Wells, Fonda Lee, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Howard Tayler Here at the end of our 8-episode intensive series on Worldbuilding we discuss stepping away from the defaults, the clichés, and the tropes, and choosing every element deliberately. There's nothing inherently wrong with the tropes. We're just suggesting that they be included only after deciding we actually want them. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Our Sponsors: * ...
16.49: Magic and Technology: Two Sides of the Same Coin
December 05, 2021 23:00 - 20 minutes - 19.1 MBYour Hosts: Dan Wells, Fonda Lee, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Howard Tayler Magic and technology are tools that we, as writers, use to tell interesting stories, and they're very, very similar tools. In this episode we'll examine some ways in which both magical and technological elements can be used in our stories. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Our Sponsors: * Check out rosettastone.com/today to get 50% off Rosetta Stone's lifetime membe...
16.48: Believable Worlds Part 2: Creating Texture
November 28, 2021 23:00 - 18 minutes - 16.6 MBYour Hosts: Dan Wells, Fonda Lee, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Howard Tayler As we do our worldbuilding with similarity, specificity, and selective depth (per the previous episode), we should take care to apply these things throughout our stories. In this episode we discuss how these elements we've world-built can become "textures." Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Our Sponsors: * Check out rosettastone.com/today to get 50% off Rosetta Ston...
16.47: Believable Worlds Part 2: Creating Texture
November 28, 2021 23:00 - 18 minutes - 13.4 MBYour Hosts: Dan Wells, Fonda Lee, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Howard Tayler As we do our worldbuilding with similarity, specificity, and selective depth (per the previous episode), we should take care to apply these things throughout our stories. In this episode we discuss how these elements we've world-built can become "textures." Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson
16.47: Believable Worlds Part 1: The Illusion of Real
November 21, 2021 23:00 - 19 minutes - 17.4 MBYour Hosts: Dan Wells, Fonda Lee, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Howard Tayler Writers are illusionists, and worldbuilding requires no small mastery of that particular magic. In this episode we'll explore the creation of believable illusions through the techniques of similarity, specificity, and selective depth. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Our Sponsors: * Check out rosettastone.com/today to get 50% off Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership...
16.46: World and Plot: The Only Constant is Change
November 14, 2021 23:00 - 21 minutes - 20 MBYour Hosts: Dan Wells, Fonda Lee, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Howard Tayler In our world, the ostensibly "real" one (simulation theory notwithstanding), stuff is changing all the time. Why, then, do we see so many fantasy worlds whose once-upon-a-times seem timeless? A more important question: how might we, as writers cognizant of the ubiquity of change, work that understanding into our writing? Can we make our fictional worlds more believable while retaining the elements of those worlds which...
16.45: World and Character Part 2: Moral Frame
November 07, 2021 23:00 - 18 minutes - 17 MBYour Hosts: Dan Wells, Fonda Lee, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Howard Tayler Let's follow up on character biases with an exploration of moral frame. When we say someone is "morally gray" or "morally ambiguous," what we're really talking about is the way they fit into the moral frame defined by society. In this episode we talk about that frame, and how we can apply it, through our characters, to our worldbuilding. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jac...
16.44: World and Character Part 1: All Your Characters Are Biased
October 31, 2021 22:00 - 17 minutes - 15.8 MBYour Hosts: Dan Wells, Fonda Lee, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Howard Tayler The world of your book is most often shown to us through the eyes of the characters who live in that world. In this episode we discuss the fact that those characters have biases which will distort the reader's perception of the world. Knowing this, we can use it to our advantage. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Our Sponsors: * Check out rosettastone.com/today to g...
16.43: The Narrative Holy Trinity of World, Character, and Plot, with Fonda Lee
October 24, 2021 22:00 - 20 minutes - 19.2 MBYour Hosts: Dan Wells, Fonda Lee, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Howard Tayler We're beginning another master class, another deep dive series of episodes, and this time around we'll be led into the realms of good worldbuilding by Fonda Lee. In this episode Fonda talks about her process, which includes plotting and character creation along with the worldbuilding. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Our Sponsors: * Check out rosettastone.com/today...
16.42: M.I.C.E. Quotient, After the Fact
October 17, 2021 22:00 - 17 minutes - 16.3 MBYour Hosts: Dan Wells, C.L. Polk, Charlotte Forfieh, and Mary Robinette Kowal Our eighth and final M.I.C.E. Quotient discussion will explore using M.I.C.E. as a diagnostic tool. So... your manuscript is done, but something isn't working. How do you figure out where the problem is? If the ending isn't satisfying, M.I.C.E. can tell you whether the ending itself is actually at fault, and in this episode we'll show you how. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered b...
16.41: Middles and Conflicts with M.I.C.E. Structure
October 10, 2021 22:00 - 21 minutes - 19.9 MBYour Hosts: Dan Wells, C.L. Polk, Charlotte Forfieh, and Mary Robinette Kowal With the M.I.C.E. elements (Milieu, Inquiry, Character, and Event) explained, and the concept of nesting, or braiding the M.I.C.E. threads, we're ready to dive into that most difficult part of the story: the middle. Enough of us dread (or at least struggle with) middle-of-story writing that the promise of a structural tool to make it easier is kind of glorious. Our seventh installment in M.I.C.E. Quotient discussio...
16.40: Nesting Threads in the M.I.C.E. Quotient
October 03, 2021 22:00 - 19 minutes - 17.8 MBYour Hosts: Dan Wells, C.L. Polk, Charlotte Forfieh, and Mary Robinette Kowal Now that we've drilled down into each of the M.I.C.E. elements (Milieu, Inquiry, Character, and Event) it's time to explore nesting them. This sixth installment in our M.I.C.E. Quotient series focuses on the "FILO" (first-in, last-out) or "nested parentheses" method for symmetrically creating a story using M.I.C.E. elements. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Our...
16.39: Deep Dive into “Event”
September 26, 2021 22:00 - 20 minutes - 18.4 MBYour Hosts: Dan Wells, C.L. Polk, Charlotte Forfieh, and Mary Robinette Kowal Our fifth M.I.C.E. Quotient episode focuses on the “Event” element, and explores how to use disruption of the status quo as the driving element for story. From plumbing problems to alien invasions, event stories are often structured by telling how difficult it is to return to normal, whether you're getting the aliens off the planet, or the water back into the pipes. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Ca...
16.38: Deep Dive into “Character”
September 19, 2021 22:00 - 19 minutes - 17.6 MBYour Hosts: Dan Wells, C.L. Polk, Charlotte Forfieh, and Mary Robinette Kowal Our fourth M.I.C.E. Quotient episode explores the “Character” element, and how these angsty, navel-gazing voyages of self-examination can serve either as complete stories or as elements in other stories. Also, we talk about how to do this in ways that don't result in readers complaining about "navel-gazing" or "angsty." Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Our Spon...
16.37: Deep Dive Into “Inquiry”
September 12, 2021 22:00 - 22 minutes - 20.2 MBYour Hosts: Dan Wells, C.L. Polk, Charlotte Forfieh, and Mary Robinette Kowal Our third M.I.C.E. Quotient episode asks about the "Inquiry" element, and the ways in which we can use this element to structure our stories—whether we're writing murder mysteries, thrillers, or anything else in which the turning of pages asks and eventually answers questions. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Our Sponsors: * Check out rosettastone.com/today to ...
16.36: Deep Dive into “Milieu”
September 05, 2021 22:00 - 20 minutes - 18.7 MBYour Hosts: Dan Wells, C.L. Polk, Charlotte Forfieh, and Mary Robinette Kowal The M.I.C.E. Quotient is an organizational tool which categorizes story elements as Milieu, Inquiry, Character, or Event. In this second episode we cover "Milieu," and how stories can be driven by a sense of place. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Our Sponsors: * Check out rosettastone.com/today to get 50% off Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership! Use our code T...
16.35: What is the M.I.C.E. Quotient?
August 29, 2021 22:00 - 22 minutes - 20.3 MBYour Hosts: Dan Wells, C.L. Polk, Charlotte Forfieh, and Mary Robinette Kowal The next eight episodes are a deep dive into the M.I.C.E. Quotient, so we'll begin with a definition. M.I.C.E. is an organizational tool which categorizes story elements as Milieu, Inquiry, Character, or Event. It helps authors know which elements are in play, and how to work with these elements effectively. Obviously there's a lot more to M.I.C.E. than that, and in this episode we'll lay it out in a way that makes...
16.34: Novels Are Layer Cakes
August 22, 2021 22:00 - 20 minutes - 18.7 MBYour Hosts: DongWon Song, Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler Novels deliver a lot of information, and it's helpful to consider that delivery in terms of layers. Novels are layer cakes, and we're not talking about a three-layer birthday cake. We're talking about a dobosh torte, or a mille crepe cake. And if we've made you hungry for stratified pastry, that's okay, because we made ourselves hungry, too. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by A...
16.33: Tell, Don’t Show
August 15, 2021 22:00 - 18 minutes - 17 MBYour Hosts: DongWon Song, Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler Few pieces of writing advice get repeated as much as that old saw "show, don't tell." We're here to show tell you that it's not only not universally applicable, much of the time it's wrong¹. Tell, don't show, especially in the early pages of the book when so very, very much information needs to be delivered² quickly. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson ¹ Fun fact: t...