20.25: Writing Confrontation (LIVE Aboard the WX Cruise)

20.25: Writing Confrontation (LIVE Aboard the WX Cruise)

Author: Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler June 22, 2025 Duration: 21:13

Our hosts explore how to write compelling confrontations—whether physical fights or emotional arguments—in a live episode recorded on the Writing Excuses Cruise. Building off Dan Wells' class Why Your Fight Scene Is Boring, our hosts break down reactions into four elements: focus, physicality, thought, and action. The discussion dives into how newness, character history, and anticipation shape these moments, and how effective confrontations reveal both character and motivation. Plus: sword fighting, puppetry, and driving on black ice. 

Thing of the Week: Death and Other Details (on Hulu)

Homework: Watch an action scene in a movie—something that you really like. Then, to underline how different books are as a medium, transcribe it— blow for blow, step for step, and see how long you can get into that before you tear your own hair out because it becomes incredibly boring. Then, after you've proven that the blocking and the blow-by-blow doesn't work, rewrite that scene in a way that does, in a way that translates to and uses the medium of prose.  

P.S. Our 2025 writing retreat (on a cruise! In Mexico!) is over 50% sold out! Learn more and sign up here

Credits: Your hosts for this episode were Dan Wells, Mary Robinette Kowal, 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: 100

Writing Excuses
Podcast Episodes
20.07: Motivation and Goals [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 21:11
Do you know what your characters want? And is there a deeper desire underneath that one? A character's motivations can help make them "relatable," drive the story's momentum, and create obstacles. Additionally, character…
20.06: History and Community [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 25:54
Have you ever wondered how much you need to know about a specific character before you start your story? Do you need to have an entire outline of their childhood before you can start writing in depth about them? We don’t…
20.05: The Lens of Who [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 25:10
Today we are introducing the “lens of who” – which means talking about characters. We try to break big character ideas down into their elements. For instance, what do terms like "relatability" or "depth" of character rea…
20.04: Puppetry as a Writing Metaphor [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 33:24
For our 20th season, we are focusing on this belief: that the lived experience that we all have affects the way we think about writing. We’ve all heard Mary Robinette talk about puppetry for seventeen (or so) seasons. To…
20.03: Polishing Your Writing Lens [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 21:55
One of the most important tools that a writer brings to their work is their own personal lens. This is shaped by your hobbies, your job, your history, and your experiences. In this season, we're going to be looking at pe…
20.01: Welcome to 2025! [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 23:18
For our 20th season, we are focusing on your toolbox. We’re going to be thinking about tools in terms of the lenses that we use to approach a story. We’re going to focus on the four lenses of: who, where, when, and why (…
19.52: End of Year Reflections: Navigating Speedbumps [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 29:41
Today, we’re reflecting on 2024. Individually, all of us went through a lot throughout the year—we encountered myriad speed bumps that slowed us down in different ways.. How do you balance your workload with your own per…
19.51: And That Was That [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 24:19
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 o…