Writing Excuses

Your Hosts: Dan Wells, Fonda Lee, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Howard Tayler Magic and technology are tools that we, as writers, use to tell interesting stories, and they're very, very similar tools. In this episode we'll examine some ways in which both magical and technological elements can be used in our stories. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson

Your Hosts: DongWon Song, Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler In this episode we explore the first page of The Killing Floor, by Lee Childs, with the goal of learning how to build good first pages for own own work. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Liner Notes: here is the 1st paragraph of The Killing Floor, for reference. I was arrested in Eno's diner. At twelve o'clock. I was eating eggs and drinking coffee. A late breakfast, not lunch. I was wet and tired after a long walk in heavy rain. All the way from the highway to the edge of town. The diner was small, but bright and clean. Brand-new, built to resemble a converted railroad car. Narrow, with a long lunch counter on one side and a kitchen bumped out back. Booths lining the opposite wall. A doorway where the center booth would be. I was in a booth, at a window, reading somebody’s abandoned newspaper about the campaign for a president I didn’t vote for last time and wasn’t going to vote for this time. Outside, the rain had stopped but the glass was still pebbled with bright drops. I saw the police cruisers pull into the gravel lot. They were moving fast and crunched to a stop. Light bars flashing and popping. Red and blue light in the raindrops on my window. Doors burst open, policemen jumped out. Two from each car, weapons ready. Two revolvers, two shotguns. This was heavy stuff. One revolver and one shotgun ran to the back. One of each rushed the door.

Your Hosts: Howard Tayler, Kaela Rivera, Sandra Tayler, and Megan Lloyd This week we're talking about giving inevitability to our intended surprise, and we open with a discussion of Chekov's Gun, which, as a writing rule, is mostly used in inversion. Next week we'll focus on making inevitable things surprising. Liner Notes: Art and Editing of Suicide Squad (YouTube) Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson

Your Hosts: Dan Wells, Fonda Lee, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Howard Tayler As we do our worldbuilding with similarity, specificity, and selective depth (per the previous episode), we should take care to apply these things throughout our stories. In this episode we discuss how these elements we've world-built can become "textures." Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson

Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, Dan, and Lari1, with special guest Shauna Hoffman Many Writing Excuses listeners (especially WXR alumni) already know Shauna Hoffman. She joins us to talk about how to deal with the fact that we, as authors, often feel isolated. The listener question that sparked this episode: "How do you keep the pressure off when you feel alone?" How indeed? If this feels timely, well, some of that is coincidence. And some, of course, is not2. Credits: This episode was recorded remotely3, using a variety of VOIP tools, and was mastered by Alex Jackson. 1 Larissa Helena is joining us as a guest host. She has worked as a literary agent, a translator, and a rights manager, and we look forward to hearing more from her this season. 2 Yes, the irony of this being the first of our recorded-during-sparkling-isolation episodes is something we're leaning into. 3 This is the first airing of a Writing Excuses episode in which the participants not physically present in the same room. We suspect it won't be the last, and that we'll get better at it.