
Writing Excuses
Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler
Fifteen minutes long, because you're in a hurry, and we're not that smart.



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Top 10 Writing Excuses Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Writing Excuses episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Writing Excuses for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Writing Excuses episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

16.33: Tell, Don’t Show
Writing Excuses
08/15/21 • 18 min
Your Hosts: DongWon Song, Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler Few pieces of writing advice get repeated as much as that old saw "show, don't tell." We're here to show tell you that it's not only not universally applicable, much of the time it's wrong1. Tell, don't show, especially in the early pages of the book when so very, very much information needs to be delivered2 quickly. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson 1 Fun fact: this advice comes to us from silent film, when it made great artistic sense to put things on screen rather than on title cards. 2 If you need new terminology, Dan uses "demonstration vs. description."
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3 Listeners

17.22: Establishing the Ensemble
Writing Excuses
05/29/22 • 17 min
Your Hosts: Dan Wells, Zoraida Cordova, Kaela Rivera, and Howard Tayler Every character in your ensemble needs to matter to the team, or they probably don't belong in the ensemble. Zoraida Cordova leads us into this discussion of how we build our ensembles, how we introduce the characters, and how we ensure that all of them are important to the group. Liner Notes: The article about Superman's very first line of dialog is here. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson.
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2 Listeners

16.47: Believable Worlds Part 1: The Illusion of Real
Writing Excuses
11/21/21 • 19 min
Your Hosts: Dan Wells, Fonda Lee, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Howard Tayler Writers are illusionists, and worldbuilding requires no small mastery of that particular magic. In this episode we'll explore the creation of believable illusions through the techniques of similarity, specificity, and selective depth. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson
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2 Listeners

17.21: Casting Your Story With Character Voice
Writing Excuses
05/22/22 • 21 min
Your Hosts: Dan Wells, Zoraida Cordova, Kaela Rivera, and Howard Tayler Every member of your ensemble has a reason to be there, but they also have their own voice. Zoraida Cordova joins us for a discussion of how we make our ensemble characters distinct from one another. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson.
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2 Listeners

16.51: Promises are a Structure
Writing Excuses
12/19/21 • 21 min
Your Hosts: Howard Tayler, Kaela Rivera, Sandra Tayler, and Megan Lloyd Our next 8-episode intensive is all about promises and expectations. Our guest hosts are Kaela Rivera, Sandra Tayler, and Megan Lloyd. They're joining us to talk about how the promises we make to our audiences, and the expectations they bring with them, are a structural format. In this episode we introduce the topic, and talk about some apex examples of success and failure in this area. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Liner Notes: Here's the story of The Tropicana Packaging Redesign Failure
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2 Listeners

16.30: First Page Fundamentals—THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE
Writing Excuses
07/25/21 • 21 min
Your Hosts: DongWon Song, Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler In this episode we explore the first page of The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson, 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 Haunting of Hill House, for reference. No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against the hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.
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1 Listener

16.29: Building Trust
Writing Excuses
07/18/21 • 17 min
Your Hosts: DongWon Song, Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler How do we build trust with our readers? What does that even mean? In this episode we discuss ways in which we let our readers know what they can expect from the book they're holding, and how we set about getting the to trust us do deliver on those expectations. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson
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1 Listener

16.26: Working With Teams
Writing Excuses
06/27/21 • 21 min
Your Hosts: Mary Robinette Kowal, Cassandra Khaw, Dan Wells, James L. Sutter, and Howard Tayler Our series of game writing episodes draws to a close with a discussion about working with teams. This last skill set, these ways in which you learn to excel at collaborative projects, is often far more important than any of your other skills. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson
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1 Listener

16.27: Nobody Wants to Read a Book
Writing Excuses
07/04/21 • 18 min
Your Hosts: DongWon Song, Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler Our controversial episode title comes to us via John Schwarzwelder, and it points up nicely the importance of today's topic, which is first lines, first pages, and how we set about convincing people (who may or may not want to read a book) to read OUR book. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson
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1 Listener

15.19: As You Know, This Episode Is About Exposition
Writing Excuses
05/10/20 • 17 min
Your Hosts: Brandon, Victoria, Dan, and Howard "As you know, Bob..." is the trope-tastic line we use to refer to expository dialog which has no function beyond exposition. We get lots of listener questions about how to use dialog for exposition without making it feel like we're using dialog for exposition. And as Bob already knows, this episode is about answering those questions. Credits: This episode was recorded by Dan Thompson, and mastered by Alex Jackson
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1 Listener
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FAQ
How many episodes does Writing Excuses have?
Writing Excuses currently has 889 episodes available.
What topics does Writing Excuses cover?
The podcast is about Fiction, Podcasts, Business and Careers.
What is the most popular episode on Writing Excuses?
The episode title '16.33: Tell, Don’t Show' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on Writing Excuses?
The average episode length on Writing Excuses is 20 minutes.
How often are episodes of Writing Excuses released?
Episodes of Writing Excuses are typically released every 7 days.
When was the first episode of Writing Excuses?
The first episode of Writing Excuses was released on Feb 11, 2008.
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