Writing Excuses

Howard Tayler and Dan Wells interview literary agent Sara Crowe about what agents do for authors, and why having an agent might be the right thing for your career.

Brandon, Dan, Howard, and Mary brainstorm a cyberpunk story using concepts pulled at random from a mythology textbook.

Brandon, Dan, Mary, and Howard take a high-level look at cyberpunk (the literary genre) for writers considering creating something along those lines.

Sara Crowe, literary agent with Harvey Klinger, joins Dan and Howard for a discussion of query letters.

Brandon, Dan, Mary, and Howard field questions from the Twitterverse -- commercial publishing, finding balance, structuring stories, defining moments, and more.

Brandon, Dan, Mary, and Howard talk about SFWA, NCS, and other professional organizations for writers and creators.

Brandon, Mary, Dan, & Howard discuss putting character motivations on the page in support of plot, character arcs, and the story in general.

Brandon, Mary, Dan, and Howard discuss creativity -- how to learn it, how to teach it, and how to get better at it.

Tom Smith joins Howard and Brandon at Penguicon for a discussion of Filk and some delightfully improvised music.

John Scalzi joins Brandon and Howard for a discussion of dialog and how genre fiction writers can learn to do a better job with it.

Jim Hines suffers abuse from Howard and Brandon as the three of them discuss parody, satire, and humor in front of a live audience at Penguicon.

Saladin Ahmed, Nebula- and Campbell-award nominee joins Brandon and Howard for a discussion of setting -- specifically, setting an epic fantasy in something besides the traditional, Western European middle ages.

Brandon, Dan, and Howard brainstorm an urban fantasy set in a big-box store in Park City, Utah.

Let's talk about bibles. Specifically, story bibles. What are they, why do we use them, why might we NOT use them, and what tools are working for us? Howard again plugs wikidpad, which he converted Brandon to, and which Dan Wells just couldn't bring himself to love. Dan uses several different Open Office files. The important thing, though, is that when we need to store information about the book in someplace besides the book itself, we write it down in our story bibles. Dan talks about his new project, how important the story bible was for that, and what sorts of things absolutely have to go in there. Howard talks about the sorts of Schlock-tech that often end up Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: Freakonomics, by Steven D. Leavitt and Stephen J. Dubner, narrated by Stephen J. Dubner. Writing Prompt: Someone is a were-animal. Pick an animal that hasn't been done. Were-banana-slug, perhaps? 9:40 through 10:10: Yes, we went kind of quiet there. Somebody kicked a cable, maybe? This episode of Writing

Writing Excuses Season 4 has been nominated for a "Best Related Work" Hugo.

Brandon, Dan, and Howard discuss what an alpha reader is, is not, and where one might find these marvelous creatures.

We begin our discussion of Urban Fantasy with a discussion of definitions, which quickly devolves into an argument over what we are actually supposed to be talking about. Moving right along, we explore what sorts of things we find in an Urban Fantasy, and what sorts of rules these stories usually abide by. Dan tells us how he set about writing the John Cleaver books, which certainly qualify as Urban Fantasy, Howard tackles the burning question of where one might start in the project of building a mythos, and Brandon explains his own Urban Fantasy projects, including one failure from which we can all learn an important lesson. Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: The Dresden Files Book One: Storm Front, by Jim Butcher, narrated by James Marsters. Writing Prompt: . Give us an Urban Fantasy in which the point of origin for your crossover is big box store retail spaces which somehow breach the boundary between our world and the magical one. This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by Audible. Visit http

Sarah Eden and Robison Wells join Dan and Howard at LTUE to talk about writing romance. Sarah writes in the romance genre, but we're not focusing on the genre -- we're talking about writing romance within the context of whatever else we might happen to be putting on the page. We lead with how to do it wrong, because nothing is as much fun to talk about as bad romance. It's also educational. More importantly (and more usefully) we talk about formulas for doing romance correctly. One of the most practical is to pair characters up by finding emotional needs that these characters can meet for each other. We look at examples from each of our work: Sarah's The Kiss of a Stranger, Dan's I Don't Want To Kill You, Howard's The Sharp End of the Stick, and Rob's Variant. Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: I Don't Want To Kill You, by Dan Wells, narrated by Kirby Heyborne. It's true, this book has some great romance in it. Also, murder. Writing Prompt: Create a character, and then cre

Dan and Howard are joined by Larry Correia and Robison Wells, and with the enthusiastic support of a live audience at LTUE they discuss writing action.

We were fortunate enough to record two episodes with Tracy Hickman and Dave Wolverton at Life, The Universe, and Everything XXIX. In this second installment these masters of the craft school us on the subject of rewrites.