20.31: Framing the Lens

20.31: Framing the Lens

Author: Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler August 3, 2025 Duration: 26:04
This year, we’ve been looking at writing through various different lenses. In two weeks, on August 24th, we’ll begin a 5-part deep dive into these lenses through a specific book: All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders. There will be many spoilers in these episodes, so please read the book if you haven’t already! Now, we’re talking about choosing what your lens is focused on. How do you choose what’s in your story—and what’s not? In this episode, we talk about how to make this choice, and how this informs all the other choices you’ll make. After we talk about how to decide where to draw the box around your story, we dive into the exterior framing of your story (AKA stories may exist in their own world, but they still have to be read in ours). Homework: Take a story you’re working on and think about what happens if you shift the frame just a little. The easiest way to do this is to ask yourself, is there a scene I could take out that would change the way that the lens or the story is focused? What new scene would you add in to re-balance your story? Then, go and write that scene. And have fun with it! 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 Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, and Erin Roberts. It was produced by Emma Reynolds, recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson. Join Our Writing Community! Writing Retreats Newsletter Patreon Instagram Threads Bluesky TikTok YouTube Facebook 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
16.36: Deep Dive into “Milieu” [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 20:26
Your Hosts: Dan Wells, C.L. Polk, Charlotte Forfieh, and Mary Robinette Kowal The M.I.C.E. Quotient is an organizational tool which categorizes story elements as Milieu, Inquiry, Character, or Event. In this second episo…
16.35: What is the M.I.C.E. Quotient? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 22:12
Your Hosts: Dan Wells, C.L. Polk, Charlotte Forfieh, and Mary Robinette Kowal The next eight episodes are a deep dive into the M.I.C.E. Quotient, so we'll begin with a definition. M.I.C.E. is an organizational tool which…
16.34: Novels Are Layer Cakes [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 20:23
Your Hosts: DongWon Song, Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler Novels deliver a lot of information, and it's helpful to consider that delivery in terms of layers. Novels are layer cakes, and we're not talki…
16.33: Tell, Don’t Show [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 18:37
Your Hosts: DongWon Song, Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler Few pieces of writing advice get repeated as much as that old saw "show, don't tell." We're here to show tell you that it's not only not univer…
16.32: First Page Fundamentals—THE KILLING FLOOR, by Lee Childs [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 21:11
Your Hosts: DongWon Song, Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler In this episode we explore the first page of The Killing Floor, by Lee Childs, with the goal of learning how to build good first pages for own…
16.31: First Page Fundamentals—MOBY DICK [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 20:49
Your Hosts: DongWon Song, Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler In this episode we explore the first page of Moby Dick, by Herman Melville, with the goal of learning how to build good first pages for own own…
16.30: First Page Fundamentals—THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 21:56
Your Hosts: DongWon Song, Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler In this episode we explore the first page of The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson, with the goal of learning how to build good first…
16.29: Building Trust [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 17:03
Your Hosts: DongWon Song, Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler How do we build trust with our readers? What does that even mean? In this episode we discuss ways in which we let our readers know what they ca…
16.28: Common First-Page Mistakes [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 18:16
Your Hosts: DongWon Song, Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler Let's have a frank, and possibly painful discussion about the ways in which the first page can go wrong. It may seem like hackneyed writing adv…
16.27: Nobody Wants to Read a Book [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 18:36
Your Hosts: DongWon Song, Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler Our controversial episode title comes to us via John Schwarzwelder, and it points up nicely the importance of today's topic, which is first lin…