Writing Excuses

By Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler

Arts Business Careers

What's Writing Excuses about?

Fifteen minutes long, because you're in a hurry, and we're not that smart.

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18.39: How To Write An Ending

09.24.2023

Deep Dive: Sergeant In Motion How do you write an ending to a book? How do you finish something you’ve been writing for over 20 years? Howard Tayler talks to us about writing the ending to his serialized webcomic and ...

Writing Excuses episodes:

09.24.2023 18.39: How To Write An Ending Deep Dive: Sergeant In Motion How do you write an ending to a book? How do you finish something you’ve been writing for over 20 years? Howard Tayler talks to us about writing the ending to his serialized webcomic and ...
09.17.2023 18.38: How Do You Write A Series With Books That Stand Alone? Deep Dive: A Function of Firepower How do you write the middle of a book? How do you write an ending to a story? For this week’s episode about writing, we focus on Book 19 of Schlock Mercenary, the penultimate ...
09.10.2023 18.37: Mandatory Failure We talk with Howard Tayler about the story structure of a story with a BIG disaster in the middle - one which we don't recover from until the next book. We also talk about the weight of world-building, how to ...
09.03.2023 18.36: The Soggy Middle Pays the Rent (or, "Stand Alone With Series Potential") How do you write the middle of a book? How do you end your book? How do you know what to write next? This week, our hosts —who all work as a writers and publishers (and are sometimes teachers and ...
08.27.2023 18.35: How to Organize Your Writing, or Managing the Mega-Arc Let’s talk about organization! This week, we’re talking about how and what to keep track of— characters, places, names, etc. How do you organize a book? How do you outline a novel? And don’t worry, we dive into the messy ...
08.20.2023 18.34: Seventeen Years of Foreshadowing 18.34: 17 Years of Foreshadowing What can Normal Gossip teach us about foreshadowing and artful storytelling? Thinking about the 20 books that make up Howard Tayler’s Schlock Mercenary, our hosts discuss foreshadowing—our favorite examples, and our go-to tricks for structuring ...
08.16.2023 18.33.5: State Of The Podcast Bonus Episode! Our first ever half-numbered episode! We are making some changes here on the podcast, and we wanted to talk to you about them. We hired a producer (Emma Reynolds), we have new interactive offerings on Patreon (office hours, ...
08.13.2023 18.33: Deep Dive: The Schlock Mercenary Finale The first episode in our eight-episode Deep Dive into Howard’s weekly webcomic strip, Schlock Mercenary. We grill Howard on how he taught himself to draw, why he decided to self-publish (hint: his wife, Sandra Tayler, helped him), and how he ...
08.06.2023 18.32: The Kirsten Vangsness Expansion Pack We have a special guest episode! Kirsten Vangsness, Criminal Minds star, joins us to talk about her experience as a writer, actor, and playwright. She taught us how she deals with imposter syndrome, and how she uses performance as a ...
07.30.2023 18.31: Getting Personal: Mining Your Life for Themes 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 ...
07.23.2023 18.30: Planting Supernatural Seeds How do you slowly reveal the supernatural in an obviously supernatural story? How can you prepare your audience for a reveal without disclosing it too quickly? If someone is familiar with your writing, they know the genre and what to ...
07.16.2023 18.29: Collaboration And Partnership What are the best practices for collaboration? How do you write in an established intellectual property (IP)? How do you write a new story in an established world? We dive into working with an individual or a group. We hear ...
07.09.2023 18.28: Writing Conversational Dialogue How do you write dialogue that sounds natural? We have some things to keep in mind when you write conversations between characters. When people converse, they do so with more than just words. Body language, tone of voice, and societal ...
07.02.2023 18.27: Framing Stories Have you ever framed a story within a story? Are you looking for a way to add structure or tension to your story? In this episode, we contemplate the value that can be added to your writing by putting it ...
06.25.2023 18.26: Broadening Your Writing Wheelhouse: Video Game Dialogue, RPG Adventures, & More Let’s talk about the things you can write that are not typically what we talk about—formats that aren't novels and short stories. In this episode, we’re thinking about scripts, RPG adventures, video game dialogue, etc. What other forms are out ...
06.18.2023 18.25: To Narrator or Not to Narrator In our second episode on Dan Wells’ audio-only book, “Dark One: Forgotten,” we provide you with tools and advice to consider when deciding whether or not to have a narrator. We also talk about location-aware dialogue, or how you can ...
06.11.2023 18.24: “Dark One: Forgotten” Deep Dive The team grills Dan on his audio-only book “Dark One: Forgotten,” which he co-wrote with Brandon Sanderson. We find out how he wrote a book that became a six-part audio series, and why exactly that form is important. *Please listen ...
06.04.2023 18.23: Our Advice on Giving Advice “Show don’t tell” is probably the most famous advice given to writers. But. . . we don’t necessarily agree. In our final episode of our deep dive into publishing, we tackle advice: How do you give it? When do you ...
05.28.2023 18.22: On Mentorship: Sending the Elevator Back Down Mentorship, education, and how to support marginalized creators and professionals Homework: What's one thing that you can do to make someone else's path easier? Can you take a step towards doing this this week? Thing of the Week: After Five ...
05.21.2023 18.21: The Empathy Gap: How to Understand What Your Publisher is Telling You The relationship between a writer and a publisher is… one that isn’t talked about enough. So we made an episode about rejection letters, email etiquette, and empathy. As a writer, how do you talk with a publisher? Well, luckily we ...
05.14.2023 18.20: So You Want To Work In Publishing? Have you ever thought of being a publisher, but don't know if it's the right choice for you? In this episode, DongWon (an agent at Howard Morhaim Literary Agency) walks you through this world and gives you some tips for ...
05.07.2023 18.19: What is Publishing For, Anyway? In this episode, we unpack what the publishing industry is, what exactly it does, and why it does it. We also outline the first steps for preparing to talk to an agent or publisher. Homework: If you had to sit ...
04.30.2023 18.18: Launching an Author Newsletter Through all the tumultuous evolution of various social media platforms one thing has remained stable: email. In this episode we talk about how to design and deploy author newsletters. Credits: Your hosts for this episode were Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon ...
04.23.2023 18.17: Build Your Author Brand, 2023 Edition Dolly Parton once said "figure out who you are, and then do it on purpose." One of DongWon Song's newsletter installments riffs on this, and in this episode we riff further, exploring good principles of author branding and the state ...
04.16.2023 18.16: Deep Dive: Publishing is Hard, by DongWon Song Publishing is hard. Also, Publishing is Hard is a newsletter from DongWon Song. They launched it in 2019 as an outlet for their experiences in the publishing industry. In this episode we explore this outlet, and grill DongWon about their ...
04.09.2023 18.15: Building a Mystery, Now With More Tools Back in February, with Episode 18.8, we began exploring the process of writing a mystery story. That episode led us into a series of six episodes about tension, and the tools we use to create and manage it. And now, ...
04.02.2023 18.14: Heavy Lifting with Microtension Let's take all our tension tools and apply them in tiny ways. A big application of tension might be an argument between two characters about a course of plot-important action. Microtension might be those characters arguing about how long to ...
03.26.2023 18.13: Finding the Core Conflict In our ongoing exploration of tension, the time has come to examine conflict. It can be shaped and delivered in numerous ways, but you have to know the core conflict before you can make anybody feel tense about it. Credits: ...
03.19.2023 18.12: The Long Shadow of Unanswered Questions Our continuing exploration of tension has taken us to a favorite technique: unanswered questions. Sure, this obviously applies to mysteries, but consider the question posed in romances: “will they get together?” In its simplest form, the unanswered question that forces ...
03.12.2023 18.11: Turning Up the Contrast With Juxtaposition Our deconstruction and categorization of tension continues this week with an exploration of Juxtaposition, which is a contrast between two elements that supplies tension by allowing the reader to insert themselves. Credits: Your hosts for this episode were Mary Robinette ...
03.05.2023 18.10: Anticipation is More Than Just Making Us Wait Last week we talked about tension, and promised that we'd be breaking it down into more pieces. This week we're discussing one of those pieces: Anticipation. We sub-divided it as follows: * Surprise * Suspense * Humor * Promises We ...
02.26.2023 18.09: Unpacking the Tension For the next several episodes we'll be talking about tension. That may seem like a lot of time to spend on just one word, but as we unpack that word we see that there's plenty of material to work with, ...
02.19.2023 18.08: Building a Mystery After last week's deep dive into The Spare Man we're ready to talk more generally about mysteries, and the tools we use to write them. Obviously we can't cover all of that in just one episode, but don't worry. In ...
02.12.2023 18.07: Deep Dive into THE SPARE MAN Spoiler Alert! This week is our deep dive into Mary Robinette Kowal's The Spare Man. It's a sci-fi mystery novel often described as "The Thin Man in space." Deep dive episodes are necessarily full of spoilers because we ask all ...
02.05.2023 18.06: An Interview With Howard Tayler Your Hosts: Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler In this episode we interview Howard Tayler, one of the founding members of the podcast, and the creator of Schlock Mercenary. The first question: how did ...
01.29.2023 18.05: An Interview with Mary Robinette Kowal Your Hosts: Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler In this episode Howard Tayler conducts our interview with Mary Robinette Kowal, leading with a wide-open question: "Where did you even?" Mary Robinette talks to us ...
01.22.2023 18.04: An Interview With Dan Wells Your Hosts: Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler In this episode Erin Roberts very enthusiastically launches our interview with "OG" Dan Wells with a delightfully difficult question, paraphrased thusly: "is there advice you gave ...
01.15.2023 18.03: An Interview With Erin Roberts Your Hosts: Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler As we announced in the first episode of the year (and in this press release), DongWon Song and Erin Roberts are joining us as permanent cast ...
01.08.2023 18.02: An Interview with DongWon Song Your Hosts: Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler As we announced in last week's episode (and in this press release), DongWon Song and Erin Roberts are joining us as permanent cast members. In this ...
01.01.2023 18.01: Twenty Twenty-Three, By Way of Introduction Your Hosts: Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler We begin 2023 with some big changes, and in this episode we'll discuss those, starting with some changes to the core cast. DongWon Song and Erin ...
12.25.2022 17.52: The WXR 2022 Q&A Your Hosts: Brandon, Dan, Mary Robinette, and Howard This Q&A; session was recorded before a live audience aboard ship at WXR 2022, Here are some paraphrasings of the questions our attendees asked: * How do you make your world feel ...
12.18.2022 17.51: Feel The Burn Your Hosts: Dongwon Song, Piper J. Drake, Peng Shepherd, Marshall Carr, Jr., and Erin Roberts Let's talk about burnout. It's been a long few years (with some of those years feeling like decades) so this may seem timely, but burnout ...
12.11.2022 17.50: Consistency, Inconsistency, and the Crushing Weight of Expectations Your Hosts: Howard Tayler, Dongwon Song, and Dan Wells Thanks to some last-minute schedule changes, we almost didn't have an episode for today. Only three cast members were able to make it to the session, and none of those three ...
12.04.2022 17.49: Bodies Are Magical Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, C.L. Polk, Fran Wilde, and Howard Tayler Let's put a stake in the ground here: disabilities do not grant magical powers. And yet that exact trope can be found in multiple genres, across multiple mediums. In ...
11.27.2022 17.48: Bodies, Why? (Part III) Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, C.L. Polk, Fran Wilde, and Howard Tayler Let's talk about pain. It hurts, yes, but we all experience it, so writing about it can be a great point of connection between the writer and the reader. ...
11.20.2022 17.47: The Linguistics of Disability Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, C.L. Polk, Fran Wilde, and Howard Tayler This is the "talking about how to talk about" talk. We begin by reviewing the difference between the medical model and the social model of disability. Liner Notes: This ...
11.13.2022 17.46: Monstrous Awakening Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, C.L. Polk, Fran Wilde, and Howard Tayler Okay, before we start, you have homework: Please take a few minutes to read this essay by Fran Wilde entitled "You Wake Up Monstrous." That will give you context ...
11.06.2022 17.45: Bodies, Tech, and Character Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, C.L. Polk, Fran Wilde, and Howard Tayler Let's talk about technological body-modification! It's a common element in science fiction, but it's also an increasingly important part of the world we're living in right now. Liner Notes: ...
10.30.2022 17.44: Bodies, Why? (Part II: Working Through Disability) Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, Fran Wilde, C.L. Polk, and Howard Tayler Let's talk for a bit about writing while disabled. This can mean anything from scheduling your craft around doctor's appointments, to learning to operate on a limited budget as ...
10.23.2022 17.43: Bodies. Why? (Depicting Disability) Your Hosts: Mary Robinette and Howard Tayler, with special guests Fran Wilde, C.L. Polk, and William Alexander Whether or not you're writing from your own experience, depicting disability in fiction is fraught. In this episode we'll talk about some of ...

Older episodes

Writing Excuses

What's Writing Excuses about?

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Writing Excuses episodes:

18.39: How To Write An Ending

18.38: How Do You Write A Series With Books That Stand Alone?

18.37: Mandatory Failure

18.36: The Soggy Middle Pays the Rent (or, "Stand Alone With Series Potential")

18.35: How to Organize Your Writing, or Managing the Mega-Arc

18.34: Seventeen Years of Foreshadowing

18.33.5: State Of The Podcast

18.33: Deep Dive: The Schlock Mercenary Finale

18.32: The Kirsten Vangsness Expansion Pack

18.31: Getting Personal: Mining Your Life for Themes

18.30: Planting Supernatural Seeds

18.29: Collaboration And Partnership

18.28: Writing Conversational Dialogue

18.27: Framing Stories

18.26: Broadening Your Writing Wheelhouse: Video Game Dialogue, RPG Adventures, & More

18.25: To Narrator or Not to Narrator

18.24: “Dark One: Forgotten” Deep Dive

18.23: Our Advice on Giving Advice

18.22: On Mentorship: Sending the Elevator Back Down

18.21: The Empathy Gap: How to Understand What Your Publisher is Telling You

18.20: So You Want To Work In Publishing?

18.19: What is Publishing For, Anyway?

18.18: Launching an Author Newsletter

18.17: Build Your Author Brand, 2023 Edition

18.16: Deep Dive: Publishing is Hard, by DongWon Song

18.15: Building a Mystery, Now With More Tools

18.14: Heavy Lifting with Microtension

18.13: Finding the Core Conflict

18.12: The Long Shadow of Unanswered Questions

18.11: Turning Up the Contrast With Juxtaposition

18.10: Anticipation is More Than Just Making Us Wait

18.09: Unpacking the Tension

18.08: Building a Mystery

18.07: Deep Dive into THE SPARE MAN

18.06: An Interview With Howard Tayler

18.05: An Interview with Mary Robinette Kowal

18.04: An Interview With Dan Wells

18.03: An Interview With Erin Roberts

18.02: An Interview with DongWon Song

18.01: Twenty Twenty-Three, By Way of Introduction

17.52: The WXR 2022 Q&A

17.51: Feel The Burn

17.50: Consistency, Inconsistency, and the Crushing Weight of Expectations

17.49: Bodies Are Magical

17.48: Bodies, Why? (Part III)

17.47: The Linguistics of Disability

17.46: Monstrous Awakening

17.45: Bodies, Tech, and Character

17.44: Bodies, Why? (Part II: Working Through Disability)

17.43: Bodies. Why? (Depicting Disability)

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