Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler discuss writing techniques in a fast-paced format. A weekly podcast about the craft and business of writing.
https://redcircle.com/shows/writing-excuses2130
Gesamtlänge aller Episoden: 11 days 20 hours 7 minutes
episode 45: 18.45: NaNoWriMo Week 2 - Inciting Incident
Welcome to the first official week of National Novel Writing Month (or, almost the end of this week)! In this episode, we dive into how to write an inciting incident.
What is an inciting incident? It is often the thing that goes wrong in your story. Within the first page, writers should have something go wrong. But what should this thing be? Our writers have some advice for questions you can ask yourself in order to understand your novel’s inciting incident...
episode 49: 18.49: Giving Your Story A Voice
What does it mean if your writing is voice-y? How do you give your character a natural voice? We approach this question from the high-level perspective of craft, and the granular level of word choice and sentence structure. Erin talks about the research she did about Appalachian English for her short story Wolfy Things. And Mary Robinette Kowal tells us what it’s like to be an audiobook narrator, and how this helps her bring characters to life on the page...
episode 50: 18.50: The Unreliable Narrator
All unreliable narrators aren't unreliable in the same way. How do they differ and how does that change the way that we write them? Erin shares her unified theory (look at the graphic below!) of unreliable narrators.
Homework:
Take an event that you're familiar with, and write about it as truthfully as possible...
episode 51: 18.51: So You Wanna Play With Format?
Are you interested in experimenting with different writing forms? Do you want to try an unusual or different way of writing? Well this week, we have an episode dedicated to non-traditional formats for writing.
In this episode, we think about experimental short fiction from the point of view of publishing and writing. DongWon shares about the incredible success of their publishing of .. Why short stories might be the perfect place for new ideas...
episode 52: 18.52: Writing Inside The Box
"Your short story should definitely be a novel." It's something writers are often told when they write short stories. What tips and tricks can you use to keep your idea within the length of the story you're trying to tell? We dive into worldbuilding in miniature, pacing, and character development. We also think about where you can edit your writing down—whether it’s words, plot threads, or characters...