Writing Excuses

By Brandon Sanderson, Mary Robinette Kowal, 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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Writing Excuses episodes:

10.10.2011
Writing Excuses 6.19: Pitching
Pitching your work... authors often have difficulty with it. Even authors who have no trouble spinning a fantastic story may find themselves at a loss telling people ABOUT that story in a way that makes it compelling. We cover three kinds...
09.25.2011
Writing Excuses 6.17: Writing Assistants
Peter Ahlstrom, assistant to Brandon Sanderson, and Valerie Dowbenko, assistant to Pat Rothfuss, join Brandon and Dan to talk about what they do for "their authors." While this may seem like an incredible luxury -- most of you listeners aren't going...
07.31.2011
Writing Excuses 6.9: Microcasting 2 Electric Boogaloo
Microcasting again! The questions we fielded from the Twitterverse include: * How do you hold the whole story in your head when it's a thousand pages long? * What steps do you use when creating a character? * As an outliner, when do...
07.18.2011
Writing Excuses 6.7: Brainstorming a Cyberpunk Story
Here's a brainstorming episode in which Brandon throws random concepts from a textbook of his on gods and goddesses, and we attempt to brainstorm a cyberpunk story from these elements. The elements thrown at us include clay, Sanskrit, fire god, and Buddhism. If you've...
07.11.2011
Writing Excuses 6.6: Cyberpunk
Cyberpunk: What is it? Why is it? We've mentioned it before, but we've never attempted to tackle it. We begin with an attempt to define cyberpunk (the literary genre), which is typically near-future SF, anti-establishment, early dystopian fiction featuring connectivity, body...
06.27.2011
Writing Excuses 6.4: Microcasting
Microcasting! It's our high-speed Q&A;! Here are the Q's, listen to the 'cast for the A's. * Is it still safe to go the commercial publishing route? * How do you find the balance when writing serious stories with silliness in them? *...
05.30.2011
Writing Excuses 5.39: Filking and Writing Music with Tom Smith
Filk. It sounds like a bad word. Okay, what it actually sounds like, provided you've fallen in among actual filkers, is AWESOME. It's music named after a typo, and sung around subjects near and dear to genre fans. Tom Smith, filker extraordinaire and...
05.23.2011
Writing Excuses 5.38: Dialog with John Scalzi
John Scalzi joins Brandon and Howard at Penguicon for a discussion of writing dialog. John's advice begins thusly: "start reading outside Science Fiction and Fantasy." It's good advice regardless, but John's justification for it is fascinating. Dialog in prose is not...
05.09.2011
Writing Excuses 5.36: Non-Traditional Settings with Saladin Ahmed
Saladin Ahmed, Nebula- and Campbell-award nominee joins Brandon and Howard at Penguicon 9.0 in Troy, Michigan for a discussion of setting -- specifically, setting an epic fantasy in something besides the traditional, Western European middle ages. We talk about the importance...
05.02.2011
Writing Excuses 5.35: Brainstorming Urban Fantasy
Okay, let's have some fun. Not that we weren't having fun for the previous 150+ episodes, mind you. But this is extra-fun. Brandon, Dan, and Howard take the urban fantasy writing prompt about big-box stores and decide to brainstorm a story...
04.24.2011
Writing Excuses 5.34: Story Bibles
Let's talk about bibles. Specifically, story bibles. What are they, why do we use them, why might we NOT use them, and what tools are working for us? Howard again plugs wikidpad, which he converted Brandon to, and which Dan Wells...
04.17.2011
Writing Excuses 5.33: Alpha Readers
It's time to talk about alpha readers, and we start with a caveat from Howard: "I don't want to read your book." Let's face it, we here at Writing Excuses might be great alpha readers, but we're not YOUR alpha readers....
04.10.2011
Writing Excuses 5.32: Urban Fantasy
We begin our discussion of Urban Fantasy with a discussion of definitions, which quickly devolves into an argument over what we are actually supposed to be talking about. Moving right along, we explore what sorts of things we find in...
03.07.2011
Writing Excuses 5.27: Perseverance, with Sherrilyn Kenyon
We're joined again by Sherrilyn Kenyon for a discussion of perseverence, at her request no less. Sherri tells us about how the struggles she's had, even after having bestsellers and 98% sell-throughs. And many of us have heard stories like...
02.21.2011
Writing Excuses 5.25: Writing in Other People’s Universes
Kevin J. Anderson joins us for a discussion of writing in other people's universes. After the opening shots (and an obligatory Jar-Jar joke), we tackle the question "how do you get to write a Star Wars book?" Our discussion ranges from...
02.14.2011
Writing Excuses 5.24: The Author’s Responsibility to the Reader
Kevin J. Anderson, multiple New York Times bestseller, joins us for a discussion of becoming productive, and how this is a reflection of our commitment to our readers. He starts by telling us about his work day, and it's pretty obvious...
02.07.2011
Writing Excuses 5.23: Life Day!
Mary Robinette Kowal and Dave Wolverton again join Dan and Howard, and this time we're talking about holidays in fantasy and science-fiction. This 'cast was recorded at Superstars Writing Seminars, and Moses Siregar III of Adventures in Sci-Fi Publishing captured...
01.31.2011
Writing Excuses 5.22: Film Considerations
Mary Robinette Kowal and Dave Wolverton join Dan and Howard for a discussion of movie considerations and formulas. Dave explains the three-act structure to us, and we talk about how this applies for transitioning stories to the screen. And on the...
01.24.2011
Writing Excuses 5.21: Alternate History
Mary Robinette Kowal and Eric Flint join Howard and Dan for a discussion of writing Alternate History. Eric divides the sub-genre into two categories for us. Dan adds a third category for us later. Summing up: * Our history, but with...
01.03.2011
Writing Excuses 5.18: Offending Your Readers
Send your angry emails to Howard, because this was totally his idea. This is a discussion of avoiding unnecessary offense. Sometimes, especially in humorous works, offense is a required risk, so that's not where we're going here. We're going to talk...
12.28.2010
Writing Excuses 5.17: Dialog Exercises
This week's episode, a day later than usual because of extended eggnogging*, features the submissions of a few brave souls who participated in Brandon's tagless, unnarrated dialog exercise. The rules were simple: Write a scene featuring nothing but dialog between two...
12.20.2010
Writing Excuses 5.16: Critiquing Dan’s First Novel
Late last season we took a look at Brandon's first novel and did some line-editing and critiquing. It was so much fun we decided that Dan needed to take a turn in the dunking booth. He totally gets wet. In the course...
12.06.2010
Writing Excuses 5.15: Steampunk with Scott Westerfeld
Brandon and Howard are again joined by Scott Westerfeld, again in a boomy room in the Provo Library, this time for a discussion of steampunk. What is steampunk? Basically, it's Victorian-era science-fiction as written by non-Victorian-era writers. Why do we write...
11.22.2010
Writing Excuses 5.12: The Secret of Lincoln’s Gold
We sta ... ...ising but inev... ... pendently wealthy, tha... [NO CARRIER]
11.15.2010
Writing Excuses 5.11: MicroPodcasting 2
It was so popular when we did it the first time, we decided to do it again. Here's a second rapid-fire Q&A;, with questions coming to us from Twitter, Facebook, and email. * How do you do bad things to your...
11.08.2010
Writing Excuses 5.10: John Brown and the Creative Process
The now cancer-free John Brown joins us again, this time for a discussion of the creative process. John has presented a seminar on this subject in the past, the focus of which is to teach people to unlock their creativity. At...
10.12.2010
Writing Excuses 5.6.01: Flash Fiction
Hey! It's a mid-week bonus episode! Some people complain that we are not thorough enough in our coverage of certain topics. This episode is not for those people. Writing Prompt: Write a piece of flash fiction that can be printed on a...
10.10.2010
Writing Excuses 5.6: MicroPodcasts
You're going to love this one. This fast-paced episode of Writing Excuses goes out to everybody who thinks Writing Excuses isn't already fast-paced enough. We've done Q&A; episodes before, but this one is special. This time we applied our "shot clock"...
09.19.2010
Writing Excuses 5.3: First Person Viewpoint
Bree Despain joins us for a discussion of writing the first-person viewpoint. We talk about "method writing" and get briefly creeped out by Dan. We discuss some key aspects of this particular POV, including the unreliable narrator, the over-the-shoulder vs....
08.29.2010
Writing Excuses 4.34: Q&A at Dragons & Fairy Tales
The last of our three recorded-live episodes is also the last episode of Writing Excuses Season 4. We took questions from the audience, and answered them with ABSOLUTE APLOMB. Questions asked include: How did we, as beginning writers, manage to write while...
08.23.2010
Writing Excuses 4.33: Trunk Novels
Recorded live at Dragons & Fairy Tales, this episode is for anybody who has a novel or two (or more) sitting in the bottom of their trunk. What are the best ways to re-use old material you've set aside? We...
08.02.2010
Writing Excuses 4.30: Worldbuilding the Future
Let's build THE FUTURE! [cue dramatic music] The Writing Excuses crew explores another angle on the massively multifaceted gem of a topic known as "worldbuilding." We've touched on governments, religions, and magic systems in the past. This time we're looking at...
06.20.2010
Writing Excuses 4.24: Random Storytelling
James Dashner and Julie Wright join Brandon and Dan at CONduit in Salt Lake City, and may end up wishing they hadn't. Brandon throws sets of story concepts at the crew, and asks them to quickly frame serious stories with...
06.13.2010
Writing Excuses 4.23: How to Break In to the Young Adult Market
Janci Patterson and Robison Wells join Brandon and Dan at CONduit in Salt Lake City. Both Janci and Rob have recently signed book deals, Robison with Harper Teen, and Janci with Henry Holt, and they tell us about those deals...
06.07.2010
Writing Excuses 4.22: Q&A with L.E. Modesitt, Jr
Recorded live at CONduit with the inestimably valuable help of our friends at Dungeon Crawlers Radio, here's an episode full of the randomness that is "questions from the audience." These include: * What do people get wrong when they write military...
05.03.2010
Writing Excuses 4.17: Living with the Artist
Sandra Tayler, Dawn Wells, and Kenny Pike take over the 'cast with some coaching from Dan (and heckling from Howard) to talk about what it's like to live with an artist. We cover the ups and the downs, and share...
04.12.2010
Writing Excuses 4.14: Brainstorming Science Ideas
Our last brainstorming 'cast was so well-received we decided to do another one. This time we grabbed articles from a New Scientist article called "13 More Things We Don't Understand." Dark flow, hybrid life, the bloop, the lithium problem, the nocebo...
03.29.2010
Writing Excuses 4.12: Writing An Epic
"Dude, that's totally epic." "Epic fail! Epic fail!" These phrases have only passing relation to epic storytelling, and to epic fantasy. Brandon and Howard write epics, and we're going to talk about how we do it. And Dan's going to help, because...
03.22.2010
Writing Excuses 4.11: Brainstorming From Headlines
Let's mix things up a bit, shall we? Your Writing Excuses hosts are going to brainstorm for you, and we're going into it completely cold. By "cold" we mean to say that we have no idea what fodder we're getting...
03.14.2010
Writing Excuses 4.10: Writing for Young Adults
Jessica Day George joins the Writing Excuses crew again, this time for a discussion of writing for young adults, and maybe for teens, or even middle-grade readers. This isn't a podcast about rigidly defining the boundary between the YA and...
03.01.2010
Writing Excuses 4.8: Working with Editors
Jessica Day George, author of The Dragon Slippers and a host of other things, joins us to talk about working with editors, and she's got stories to tell. But so do Dan and Brandon. And hey, surprise! Even self-published Howard has...
02.22.2010
Writing Excuses 4.7: Q&A with James Dashner
Recorded live at LTUE 2010, here's a high-energy Q&A; session with the Writing Excuses crew and our special guest James Dashner, author of The Maze Runner. We cover outlining vs. discovery writing, the return to the hairy palate, education for writers,...
02.15.2010
Writing Excuses 4.6: Pacing with James Dashner
This episode was recorded live at Life, The Universe, & Everything 28, The BYU Symposium on Science Fiction and Fantasy, and features, among other things, our largest audience ever. Oh, and James Dashner, our friend and the author of The Maze Runner. It...
02.08.2010
Writing Excuses 4.5: Roleplaying Games as Tools for Story Telling
Roll for initiative, folks! Brandon, Dan, and Howard all play tabletop role-playing games, and sometimes even play together. The question of the hour (well... quarter-hour) is "how can these games help your world building, storytelling, and anything else having to...
02.01.2010
Writing Excuses 4.4: Agents. Do you need one?
We're going to wade into a recent e-brouhaha, but it's not going to be the Amazon vs Macmillan one. No, this is the one where Dean Wesley Smith argued that authors do not need agents. But you don't need to...
01.04.2010
Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 32: Collaboration
For starters, let's clear the air. Yes, the first episode of the new year is also the last episode of Writing Excuses Season 3. And yes, we'll be getting Season 2 and Season 3 on CDs pretty soon here. Collaboration! This...
12.14.2009
Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 30: Unreliable Narrators
This episode totally would have updated earlier if I'd only known sooner that it was ready to go. Jordo says he emailed me early this evening, but if he HAD then you'd have been listening to this by 8:00pm Sunday. So......
12.07.2009
Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 28: World-Building Gender Roles
Is there a disconnect? Brandon specifically introduces the episode as "World-building political correctness," but the title here says "World-Building Gender Roles." And then Brandon goes on to blame Howard for picking the title. There is, in fact, a disconnect. Oh...
11.23.2009
Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 26: NaNoWriMo
Dan, Howard, and Jordo descended into the basement at Dragon's Keep where members of the local NaNoWriMo chapter were attempting to bolster their word-counts for the day. We talked to them about National Novel Writing Month, and about the things...
11.16.2009
Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 25: The Business of Writing Comics
Dan and Howard are again joined by Jake Black, who writes comics (and some other things) for a living. Jake tells us how he got into the business, and we talk about how this might be applied to other folks....

What's Writing Excuses about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Writing Excuses episodes:

Writing Excuses 6.19: Pitching

Writing Excuses 6.17: Writing Assistants

Writing Excuses 6.9: Microcasting 2 Electric Boogaloo

Writing Excuses 6.7: Brainstorming a Cyberpunk Story

Writing Excuses 6.6: Cyberpunk

Writing Excuses 6.4: Microcasting

Writing Excuses 5.39: Filking and Writing Music with Tom Smith

Writing Excuses 5.38: Dialog with John Scalzi

Writing Excuses 5.36: Non-Traditional Settings with Saladin Ahmed

Writing Excuses 5.35: Brainstorming Urban Fantasy

Writing Excuses 5.34: Story Bibles

Writing Excuses 5.33: Alpha Readers

Writing Excuses 5.32: Urban Fantasy

Writing Excuses 5.27: Perseverance, with Sherrilyn Kenyon

Writing Excuses 5.25: Writing in Other People’s Universes

Writing Excuses 5.24: The Author’s Responsibility to the Reader

Writing Excuses 5.23: Life Day!

Writing Excuses 5.22: Film Considerations

Writing Excuses 5.21: Alternate History

Writing Excuses 5.18: Offending Your Readers

Writing Excuses 5.17: Dialog Exercises

Writing Excuses 5.16: Critiquing Dan’s First Novel

Writing Excuses 5.15: Steampunk with Scott Westerfeld

Writing Excuses 5.12: The Secret of Lincoln’s Gold

Writing Excuses 5.11: MicroPodcasting 2

Writing Excuses 5.10: John Brown and the Creative Process

Writing Excuses 5.6.01: Flash Fiction

Writing Excuses 5.6: MicroPodcasts

Writing Excuses 5.3: First Person Viewpoint

Writing Excuses 4.34: Q&A at Dragons & Fairy Tales

Writing Excuses 4.33: Trunk Novels

Writing Excuses 4.30: Worldbuilding the Future

Writing Excuses 4.24: Random Storytelling

Writing Excuses 4.23: How to Break In to the Young Adult Market

Writing Excuses 4.22: Q&A with L.E. Modesitt, Jr

Writing Excuses 4.17: Living with the Artist

Writing Excuses 4.14: Brainstorming Science Ideas

Writing Excuses 4.12: Writing An Epic

Writing Excuses 4.11: Brainstorming From Headlines

Writing Excuses 4.10: Writing for Young Adults

Writing Excuses 4.8: Working with Editors

Writing Excuses 4.7: Q&A with James Dashner

Writing Excuses 4.6: Pacing with James Dashner

Writing Excuses 4.5: Roleplaying Games as Tools for Story Telling

Writing Excuses 4.4: Agents. Do you need one?

Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 32: Collaboration

Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 30: Unreliable Narrators

Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 28: World-Building Gender Roles

Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 26: NaNoWriMo

Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 25: The Business of Writing Comics