16.14: Poetic Language

16.14: Poetic Language

Author: Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler April 5, 2021 Duration: 20:35
Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, Dan, Amal, and Howard

We might begin with description.

Or we might begin by deconstructing the act of describing.

Wait. No, not there.

Let's jump in AFTER the deconstruction.

Let's leap beyond a statement of topic, let's hurdle clear of mundane declarations of the audio file's length, and together plunge headlong into metaphor, the icy water perhaps calling to mind Archimedes, as we describe our episode (or any other thing) not in terms of its intrinsic attributes, but by taking account of what it has displaced into the spaces it doesn't occupy.

How long does the displacement remain? How might one apply paint to the emptiness after the thing has left?

What color is silence that follows the end of the episode?

(An end which follows twenty minutes and thirty-three seconds in which the four of us discuss the kinds of words we imagine when we say "poetic language.")

Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, 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
14.11: Magic Without Rules [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 20:19
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Margaret, and Howard When we say "without rules" we're talking about stories whose magic is not held under logical scrutiny for the reader. There are lots of reasons why you might do…
14.10: Magic Systems [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 18:29
Your Hosts: Brandon, Dan, Howard, and Mahtab Let's design magic systems! We talk about how we do it, and how the principles of magic system design apply to the science fiction systems we create, and vice-versa. NOTE: In…
14.9: Showing Off [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 23:42
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Dan, and Howard Let's infodump without infodumping. Let's deliver lots of exposition without sounding expository. Let's talk with the maid and the butler without having maid-and-butle…
14.8: Worldbuilding Q&A #1 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 25:20
Your Hosts: Howard, Mary Robinette, Dan, and DongWon We invited attendees at WXR 2018 to ask us some general worldbuilding questions. Here's what they asked: * What cultural stuff do you need to know during the writing p…
14.7: How Weird is Too Weird? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 15:56
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Margaret, and Howard How weird, how far outside the realm of what the reader feels to be familiar, is too weird? Where is the line beyond which the fantasy is too fantastic, the unrea…
14.6: Fantasy and Science Fiction Races [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 16:38
Your Hosts: Brandon, Dan, Howard, and Mahtab Let's talk about race, sort-of. Let's talk about creating races—species of people, really—which is a critically important activity in much of our worldbuilding. In this episod…
14.5: Viewpoint as Worldbuilding [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 17:32
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Dan, and Howard When you're defining your world for the reader, some voice in the text must speak those definitions. This episode is about how we use character voices—their dialog and…
14.04: Writing the Other—Bisexual Characters [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 18:36
Your Hosts: Dan, Tempest, DongWon, and TJ This is the first of our Writing The Other episodes, in which we set out to help writers portray people who are unlike them. In this episode we're joined by T.J. Berry. She walks…
14.03: World of Hats [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 17:57
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Margaret, and Howard Margaret Dunlap joins us during season 14 to talk about worldbuilding. In this, her first episode with us, we talk about worlds in which a monolithic culture (lik…
14.02: Geography and Biomes [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 18:48
Your Hosts: Brandon, Dan, Howard, and Mahtab Mahtab Narsimhan joins us this year for a dozen episodes on worldbuilding, and this week we're talking about geography and biomes. These pieces of our settings can be central…