Writing Excuses

Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Margaret, and Howard Political Intrigue stories are less about "politics" (as colloquially defined by pop culture) and more about mysteries. Per Mary Robinette, they're often like heists of information. The word "politics" here is used in its purest sense: POWER. In this episode we talk about how we worldbuild for stories in which the flow of information and misinformation affect the shift of power, and how to craft those stories so they're, well... intriguing instead of being boring. Credits: This episode was recorded by Dan Thompson, and mastered by Alex Jackson

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Answering questions about the power structures you live within can help you with the worldbuilding of politics in the fiction you write.

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Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Dan, and Howard Sherlock Holmes has his Watson for a reason. Readers need a character to whom some things must be explained. In this episode we talk about how we create these gateway characters without delivering "maid and butler" dialog, or talking down to the reader. Credits: This episode was recorded by Dan Thompson, and mastered by Alex Jackson

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Your Hosts: Dan, Tempest, and DongWon The single most asked question we get on the subject of writing cultures other than our own is some variation on "can we even DO this anymore?" Short answer: YES, YOU CAN. Our objective with this episode is to encourage you to put in the work, do the research, and write outside of your culture or personal experience. At risk of sounding cliché, it's not easy, but it's worth it.

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Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Margaret, and Howard What is an allegory, anyway? This episode probably won't settle that question, but we did manage a discussion on how to use our stories to teach things, or be stand-ins for things, and to do it in the ways that allegories and/or parables might. We talk about some famous allegories, some things whose authors insisted were not allegorical, and the possible pitfalls of didacticism. Credits: This episode was engineered by Dan Thompson and mastered by Alex Jackson.

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Your Hosts: Brandon, Dan, Howard, and Mahtab We often worldbuild religions and rituals for the stories we create. In this episode we discuss the decisions surrounding this, and our approaches for doing it well. Credits: This episode was recorded by Dan Thompson, and mastered by Alex Jackson

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Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Dan, and Howard Theme is one of those high-falutin' concepts we're often reluctant to approach in a nuts-and-bolts sort of way. In this episode we'll talk about how our themes can be communicated through elements of our settings, deepening reader engagement with the things we write. We offer examples from our own work, and from things we've watched or read which have done this in ways that resonated well for us. Credits: This episode was recorded by Rob Kimbro, and mastered by Alex Jackson

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Your Hosts: Howard, Mary Robinette, Dan, and DongWon This episode is about comp titles (comparative titles), which are those things you use to describe your project in terms of other works. We discuss the ones we've used (both successfully and unsuccessfully), and the criteria we use to come up with good ones. Credits: This episode was recorded by Bert Grimm, and mastered by Alex Jackson

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Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Margaret, and Howard Your setting can quickly tell the reader what kind of a story they're reading, and in this episode we'll talk about how we make that happen. Think of it as the "establishing shot" principle from film making, expanded to cover whatever worldbuilding details we choose to reveal first. Liner Notes: Here are the Schlock Mercenary Book 19 prologues Howard described, complete with the footnotes which make fun of prologues. Credits: This episode was recorded by Dan Thompson, and mastered by Alex Jackson

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Your Hosts: Brandon, Dan, Howard, and Mahtab We've spent a lot of time talking about magic systems in our worldbuilding. It's time to talk about science and technology in that same way. This has been a staple (perhaps the defining staple) of science fiction since before "science fiction" was a word. At risk of opening the "where do you get your ideas" can of worms, this episode covers a little bit of where we get our ideas, and where you might get—and subsequently develop—some more of yours. Credits: This episode was recorded by Dan Thompson, and mastered by Alex Jackson

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