19.50: All Systems Go

19.50: All Systems Go

Author: Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler December 15, 2024 Duration: 20:56

As the end of Season 19 approaches, we want to help you integrate what you’ve learned over the year. For December, we’ll be releasing episodes designed to help you make measurable progress on a writing project. So dust off your current work-in-progress, or pull out your brainstorming documents—we’re here to help you finish the year strong.

How do you have multiple plot threads moving at the same time? Today, we’re talking about complex plot structures—focusing on space opera and epic fantasy. Some of the questions we’re tackling are: how do you escalate existing problems, how do you juggle multiple climaxes at once, and what are the cascading effects of each? We ask each host about their unique approaches to writing larger projects. We talk about the utility of multiple POVs and what fast food can teach you about escalating problems (somebody’s gonna get burnt buns). 


Thing of the Week: Laboratory Conditions 


Homework: Take a piece of technology you’ve already introduced to your work. Find out a new, cool way you can use it in the next scene that you’re writing. 


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Credits: Your hosts for this episode were Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, 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
12.40: Structuring a Novel [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 18:54
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary, Dan, and Howard What makes something a novel, rather than just a serialized collection of stuff that happens? How do we use structure to turn collections of stuff into something more cohesive?…
12.39: Q&A on Short(er) Fiction [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 20:03
Your Hosts: Brandon, Piper, Dan, and Howard Our listeners sent us some questions about writing shorter fiction. Here are the questions: * How do you market short stories today? * Has ebook self-publishing made novellas m…
12.38: What Do Editors Really Want, with Toni Weisskopf and Cat Rambo [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 17:14
Your Hosts: Dan and Howard Toni Weisskopf and Cat Rambo joined Dan and Howard to discuss what it is that editors "really want." Question To Help You Decide Whether Or Not To Send Your Editor Bad News: "Will this news get…
12.37: Subplots [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 20:33
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary, Mary Anne, and Wesley What makes a plot a subplot? Must subplots and main plots be linked by something more binding than the actual binding of the book? In this episode we answer these question…
12.36: Structuring a Mid-Length Piece [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 19:51
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary, Dan, and Howard Larger than a short story, smaller than a novel... there's quite a bit of space between those two thresholds, and in this episode we discuss the ways in which we go about fillin…
12.34: Fulfilling the Reader’s Fantasy, with Brian McClellan [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 20:10
Your Hosts: Brandon, Piper, Dan, and Howard Brian McClellan joins us for a discussion on fulfilling the promises we make to our readers—specifically the genre-specific promises made by the simple fact of where the book i…
12.33: How to be Brief, Yet Powerful [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 20:36
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary, Mary Anne, and Wesley We've talked about some of the structural guidelines for short stories. In this episode we'll discuss how to write in the short form while still putting down enough words…
12.32: Structuring a Short Piece [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 22:05
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary, Dan, and Howard We begin our exploration of short story structure with a re-cap of the MACE quotient (Milieu, Ask/Answer, Character, Event). Then we apply that tool to how we structure the piec…
12.31: What Makes a Good Monster, with Courtney Alameda [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 17:49
Your Hosts: Howard, Mary, and Dan, with guest host Susan Chang Courtney Alameda joined us at LTUE 2017 to talk monsters, and what makes the best ones so good. We discuss some of our favorites, and how the criteria we app…