15.08: Q&A on a Ship

15.08: Q&A on a Ship

Author: Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler February 24, 2020 Duration: 26:39
Your Hosts: Dan, Mary Robinette, DongWon, and Howard

At WXR 19 we recorded live, and took audience questions aboard the ship. Here they are! (You'll have to listen to the episode for the answers.)

* What have you learned in the past year that has improved your craft?
* When you're having trouble, how do you know if it's "I don't feel like writing" or "there's a problem with the manuscript?"
* How far ahead do you plan your careers?
* How do you tell when a fight/battle/showdown is going on for too long?
* How do you continue to learn and improve on your craft?
* How do you manage and prioritize your time when you're working on multiple projects?
* How do you feel about multiple first-person POVs in a single book?
* What are the most important elements to include on the last page of your book?
* What are some things we can do to strengthen our voice when writing in third person?
* How do you decide who to have as alpha and beta readers?
* In secondary world stories, how do you decide whether to call a horse a horse?
* How much leeway will an editor or agent give a story when it's not ready, but it shows promise?

Liner Notes: "Sometimes Writer's Block is Really Depression"
Credits: This episode was recorded by Bert Grimm, and mastered by Alex Jackson Our Sponsors: * Check out HomeServe and use my code homeserve.com/excuses for a great deal: https://www.homeserve.com * Check out Talkiatry and use my code Talkiatry.com/WX for a great deal: https://www.talkiatry.com Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/writing-excuses2130/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

It’s a common piece of advice: if you want to be a writer, you should write. But what happens when you’re staring at the blank page, or when the business side of publishing feels like a maze? That’s where Writing Excuses comes in. Each week, hosts Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler gather not just to talk about writing, but to dissect it. They move quickly, respecting your time while packing episodes with actionable discussions on technique, from character voice to plot structure. But this podcast understands that a writing life isn’t just about craft-it’s also a career. So conversations naturally pivot to the practicalities of the business, navigating careers, and sustaining creativity in a demanding field. You’ll hear five distinct professional perspectives blending into a single, focused conversation designed to get you past excuses and back to your work. It’s like a regular, invigorating workshop session delivered directly to you, meant to equip you with tools for both your manuscript and your professional path.
Author: Language: en-us Episodes: 500

Writing Excuses
Podcast Episodes
17.5: The Promise of the Brand [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 23:56
Your 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 n…
17.4: The Gun on the Mantel is Actually a Fish [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 20:54
Your 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 fee…
17.3: Chekov’s Surprising Yet Inevitable Inverted Gun [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 20:10
Your 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…
17.2: It Was a Promise of Three Parts [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 20:33
Your 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…
17.1: Genre and Media are Promises [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 19:08
Your 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 a…
16.52: Structure is a Promise [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 20:03
Your 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 str…
16.51: Promises are a Structure [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 21:23
Your 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 joini…
16.50: Worldbuilding Finale: Making Deliberate Choices [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 18:46
Your 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 ch…
16.49: Magic and Technology: Two Sides of the Same Coin [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 20:52
Your 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 e…
16.48: Believable Worlds Part 2: Creating Texture [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 18:08
Your 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…