Death! DEATH!!

Let's talk about killing characters.

Howard starts by relating a time when he did it poorly, and why he feels like it didn't work. Brandon discusses the academic, clinical aspect of the matter, and how he in particular handles planning (or not planning) for character death. Dan talks about the email he gets about page 267. Mary talks about the differences between deaths in the various genres in which she writes.

There's lots more. If characters risk death in your writing, this 'cast will certainly affect their odds for survival.

Shanna Germain joins Brandon, Mary, and Howard in front of a live audience at GenCon Indy to talk about writing love scenes. They're not easy to get right, and they can be even more difficult to talk about it in a way that leaves the Writing Excuses team's "clean" rating intact.

We cover the ways in which the love scenes must support the story, and the importance of tension in setting those scenes up. Mary asks the question foremost in all our minds: how do you write a sex scene so that it's not silly? Shanna fields it with aplomb, explaining how she lets the characters drive it, washing unintentional humor out of the scene.

We also talk about how difficult it can be for those writing the POV of the opposite sex to get the head-space details right, and how love scenes fit into the pacing of your work.

What You Missed: Prior to recording this episode, in an effort to get all the nervous giggles and snerky titters worked out of our live audience, Mary read a portion of a recently released Pathfinder novel in her "one-nine-hundred" voice. No, we did not record it. Some things are meant to be loved, then lost.

Pantsing! What are we even talking about?

We're talking about discovery writing, but apparently some folks think it's more fun to call it "seat-of-your-pants" writing. In this cast we cover this exhilarating process, and how it might best be applied.

Mary uses the "yes-but, no-and" trick. Dan starts with an end in mind, and then ignores it in order to write today's chapter. Brandon, despite being a fairly rigid outliner, often finds himself discovery writing when under odd sorts of pressures. Howard likens discovery writing to improvisational music.

Fundamentally, seat-of-your-pants writing is like seat-of-your-pants anything else: the more practice you have within that discipline, the more of the techniques you've mastered, the more likely you are to succeed in the endeavor.

Dan needs to write a military thriller. It's just a short story, but still, it's a bit outside his area of expertise, and he needs help. So in this episode Brandon, Mary, and Howard will endeavor to help him.

The working title? "I.E.Demon"

You can't read this story yet, but we'll let you know when you can.

Fans of role-playing games should know the name Monte Cook well, because he's been writing some of the highest-profile tomes in the field for two-and-a-half decades now. Monte joins us in front of a live audience at GenCon Indy 2012 to talk about writing games.

We start by talking about some of the differences between straight-up prose, and prose tooled for games. With role-playing games, this often boils down to the fact that it's not the writer doing the storytelling -- it's the role-players. The writer's job is to provide the gamers with the tools they need. Monte and the hosts cover the roles of world-building, character development, and plotting, and talk a little about the path you might consider if you're looking to get published in this field.

If you're ready to relinquish story control to your readers, if you are prepared to let them breathe life into the places, monsters, and characters you've created, this is the episode for you.

Let's talk about how to start the next one -- not the next book in a series, necessarily. Your next project might not leverage the worldbuilding or characters you used in your previous project. We discuss the challenges each of us have faced, and how we've cleared those hurdles.

If you're having trouble letting go of your previous project, this 'cast should help you, if only because you can see it's something each of us had difficulty with as well. Of course, we also offer you some pointers and some tricks to make this transition easier.

Writers, like actors, have to animate the inanimate, and evoke emotions that we may not have ever felt, and in this episode we talk about the things that we do in order to accomplish that. We talk about making faces, remembering analogous events, playing thematic music, and running around the kitchen with a knife.

Eric James Stone, Nebula winner and "graduate" of NASA's Launchpad workshop, joins us to talk about astronomy in our world-building.

We talk about tides, habitable zones, planetary orbits and axial tilts, stellar life-cycles, and other fun factors for authors to take into account. But obviously we can't teach you everything you need to know about astronomy in 15 minutes, so we wrap with some handy resources for you to begin your continuing education:

*  Astronomy Picture of the Day

* Bad Astronomy

* Diamonds in the Sky

It's time for our fourth "Project in Depth" episode, and now Dan Wells is on the spot. The Hollow City is Dan's latest book, and while it's not a new John Cleaver book, it's still a supernatural thriller with a tight psychological focus.

Spoilers galore, of course. If you haven't read The Hollow City yet, go read it before listening to this episode.

Dan's New Twitter Handle: Per Howard's suggestion, @JohnCleaver has been retired in favor of @TheDanWells.

Microcasting! Again!! Now with exclamation points!!! You'll have to have a listen for our answers, but here are the questions:

* How do you deal with bad reviews?

* How do you apply Brandon's magic system rules to science fiction?

* Dan, will you do the marshmallow voice for us again?

* How do you keep tension high without exhausting the reader?

* You've made your manuscript as good as you know how to. Now you need to make it even better, based on feedback. What do you do?

* Any tips on creating suspension of disbelief?

* How do you deal with annoying fans?

"Oddly, no. Sometimes you guys are dull." 5:22, Mary Robinette Kowal.

Mary's Shmoozing 101 Link: Right here.