18.31: Getting Personal: Mining Your Life for Themes

18.31: Getting Personal: Mining Your Life for Themes

Author: Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler July 30, 2023 Duration: 24:10

In our final episode diving into how and why Dan wrote “Dark One: Forgotten,” talk about how you can take something personal and mine it for fiction. We also tackle the complicated question—Why should you be the one to tell your story?  We think about the personal touches that you can add to your writing, and how people can hear when your story is personal. 

Homework:

2 things! 

1. Have you watched Criminal Minds? If you haven’t, you should! Next week, we have a special guest—Kirsten Vangsness who plays Penelope Garcia! Explore her other stuff (like her web series and podcast), and get ready for an INCREDIBLE conversation with her. 


2. What's the thing in your real life that you keep thinking about when you aren't writing? Can you give that feeling or theme to a character? ALSO, prepare for our next Deep Dive, by reading through Howard Tayler's Schlock Mercenary. And feel free to re-listen to our interview with Howard earlier this year, 

Thing of the Week:

Everything Everywhere all at Once 

Credits: Your hosts for this episode were Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler. It was produced by Emma Reynolds, recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson.

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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
12.10: Developing Your Own, Personal Style [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 19:14
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary, Dan, and Howard We're not talking about character voice here. We're talking about your voice as a writer, your authorial style, and the aesthetics you employ, and how this is an expression uniq…
12.9: Q&A on Viewpoint [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 25:04
Your Hosts: Brandon, Piper, Dan, and Howard You had questions about viewpoint. Here they are! * Do you have tips and tricks for making 3rd-person omniscient compelling? * How do you make 3rd-person limited compelling? *…
12.8 Short Stories as Exploration, with Tananarive Due [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 14:27
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary, Dan, and Howard Tananrive Due, whose short-fiction expertise is exemplified in her collection, Ghost Summer, joined us on the Oasis of the Seas to talk about how to use short stories to explore…
12.7: Description Through the Third Person Lens [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 20:29
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary, Mary Anne, and Wesley The third-person POV lens can be used for simultaneously describing the world to the reader and describing the character. In this episode we'll talk about where we deploy…
12.6: Variations on Third Person [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 19:15
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary, Dan, and Howard This episode focuses on the third person POV, and some variations on them, like omniscient and limited, and some sub-variants like cinematic and head-hopping. Credits: This epis…
12.5: Literary Fiction [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 20:20
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary, Mary Anne, and Wesley This week we talk about the genre of Literary Fiction. Our first hurdle is the word "literary" whose use in this context can imply that all other genres are somehow not li…
12.4: Hybrid Viewpoints [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 19:12
Your Hosts: Brandon, Piper, Dan, and Howard, with Sandra Tayler Piper J. Drake joins the cast for our week-four episodes, of which this is the first. This week we'll be drilling down into hybrid viewpoints—blending 1st a…
12.3: Project in Depth, “Risk Assessment,” by Sandra Tayler [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 23:45
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary, Dan, and Howard, with Sandra Tayler This Project in Depth episode contains spoilers for "Risk Assessment," which is included in Force Multiplication: Schlock Mercenary Book 12. The story was wr…
12.2: How to Nail Character Voice in First Person [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 21:29
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary, Mary Anne, and Wesley This week we talk about character voice, and how to get it right in First Person. This POV is a strong tool for developing memorable characters. We cover sentence structur…