Writing Excuses

In which we discuss adjusting how sympathetic the reader is toward a particular character...

Side quests come in a couple of forms -- they may be something inside the book that takes the characters away from the main plotline, or they may be adventures that take place outside of the book itself. We talk about the first type, and how to make sure they're in the book for the right reasons, citing examples from The Wizard of Oz, The Hobbit, Redshirts, The Way of Kings, and The Hollow City among other stories. In covering the second type, we talk about how ebooks have made ancillary, side-quest releases more common, and we cite the book trailers for the Partials series, the Glamourist Histories Christmas Stories, Steelheart, and the Schlock Mercenary Bonus Stories.

How do you describe water from the point of view of a fish?

Prologues, motivations, and research, oh my!

When building your world, go deep rather than going wide.

How do we interact with readers who find meaning in our works that we don't recall putting in there?

How to go about showing a character's emotions without them seeming emo.

We answer questions on tropes, narrative styles, editing, rule-breaking and more.

A Q&A episode with Eric James Stone

What to do when you discover your planned ending isn't actually going to work...

Brandon, Mary, Dan, and Howard talk about the unpleasant surprises their careers dropped on them.

We talk about expressing controversial opinions on the Internet. And just talking about it might be controversial...

We explore a three-value model for troubleshooting characters: Competence, Proactivity, and Sympathy

A Q&A covering editing, rule-breaking, writing the other, gift-giving, and more.

Eric James Stone joins us to answer questions about editors, pitching, pantsing, and encouragement.

What makes characters engaging, and how is that different from them being sympathetic?

How do you put true stuff in your books when the truth is just too strange?

What is handwavium? How does it work? What happens when it doesn't work?

Eric James Stone joins us for a discussion of revision, and what the final pass process looks like.

Time passes, and we have lots of ways to tell readers how quickly that's happening.