Writing Excuses

This week (and for the following two weeks) the Writing Excuses crew is joined by author Dave Wolverton, who also writes under the name David Farland. This week's topic? ROMANCE. What can four adult males possibly have to say about the subject? The answer: We tell you absolutely everything we know in just sixteen minutes and fifty-one seconds. And there was time left over in there to stick in an advertisement.

This week's Writing Excuses is brought to you by Rokit Fuel. That ad Howard recorded was powered in part by two bags of the stuff. They sent us samples, and we plowed through them like a tornado through a trailer park.

 

With Brandon still mysteriously missing, Professor Bob Defendi returns to take Dan and Howard on a magical journey through the three-act format: every step, every element, every nuance of this very common and very helpful writing structure. The only way you could conceivably learn more is in a magic school bus, and frankly we don't think that's very likely.

This week’s episode is brought to you by Bob's podcast audiobook Death by Cliché, by Robert J. Defendi. No matter how hilarious you think this is going to be, it's actually more hilarious than that.

Writing Prompt: Plot out a three act structure for a current project or a new one.

Howard, Dan, and guest Bob Defendi open this episode with some high literary humor. Bob fills in for Brandon as we discuss formulas writers use in crafting stories. But how do we prevent those stories from feeling formulaic? Can the formulas themselves help? We discuss (at a high level) the three-act format, the hero's journey, the romance, the two-act format, try-fail cycles, and others.

This week's episode is brought to you by the podcast audiobook Death by Cliché, by Robert J. Defendi. We didn't plug it very hard in the episode itself, but oh, MAN you need to listen to it. Howard hasn't laughed that hard in a long time.

Episode 6, recorded live at Dragon's Keep opens with monkey noises and greeting-card pith, and ends with... well, we'll just let you listen. Is it a storybook ending? What IS a storybook ending? What is a whiz-bang ending? Is the ending the ending, or is the ending followed by a denouement? How important is a good ending?

Writing Prompt: Take whatever you're working on right now, look at the ending you have planned now and then come up with two other endings and write all three.

This week Writing Excuses is brought to you by Geek at Play Studio.

So you've got a fantastic idea for a book or a short story, but where do you go from there? Who can give the incentive to write, the support to keep going when it gets hard, and the tough love to let you know when it sucks? The answer: a writing group.

Writing groups can be difficult to put together and manage, but when everything clicks the rewards can be invaluable. This week we discuss all the ins and outs of how to find fellow writers, organize your group, interpret their advice, and overcome the common pitfalls that might get in the way.

This week's Writing Excuses is brought to you by Fablehaven by Brandon Mull

Eric James Stone joins us for our final Mountain-Con episode. This Q&A covers writing part-time (and Dan disqualifies himself from answering this question in future episodes), setting deadlines for yourself, writing plot twists, and providing character description within that character's viewpoint.

No matter how grand your setting, how intense your conflicts, or how tight your plot, at some point you're going to need characters. Join us as we discuss what makes a character interesting, memorable, and unique. Once again, the team is joined by Brandon Mull of "Fablehaven" fame.

Brandon Mull’s website

This week Writing Excuses is brought to you by the Writing Excuses Season One Collection on CD.

Kids these days with their long hair and their love of reading. It's like, get off my lawn, am I right? But in other news, kids (meaning anything from chapter books to mature YA) read a TON, and somebody has to write those books, and it might as well be you. Learn how to write for children with the Writing Excuses team and special guest star Brandon Mull, author of the wildly successful Fablehaven series.

Brandon Mull's website

This week Writing Excuses is brought to you by the Writing Excuses Season One Collection on CD.

We talk among ourselves about some episodes of this podcast being "crunchy" and others being "fluffy." "Crunchy" episodes are the ones where we have hard advice about writing. "Fluffy" episodes are the ones where we talk a little more philosophically about the profession.

This episode takes "fluffy" to a new, flufftastic level. Here are twenty minutes excerpted from almost sixty minutes we recorded in line at the Hero of Ages book release and signing event at the BYU Bookstore. It's almost like being there, complete with the people in line who have read more of Brandon's books than you have, and will spoil key points in them via t-shirts. We interview these people, and we also interview a few people who have dirty secrets about Brandon, but are unwilling to share them.

You didn't think we'd just keep going with the same old stuff forever, did you? Well, actually we are, but now we're calling it Season 2. This season begins with a series of episodes recorded at Mountain Con in Layton, UT, each of them rife with wisdom and wonder.

This week Writing Excuses is brought to you by the Writing Excuses Season One Collection on CD.