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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.
- 21 minutes 55 seconds20.03: Polishing Your Writing Lens
One of the most important tools that a writer brings to their work is their own personal lens. This is shaped by your hobbies, your job, your history, and your experiences. In this season, we're going to be looking at personal lenses as well as the narrative lens through which stories are told. We'll look at how the questions of Who, Where, When, and Why shape a story. Also, we're going to do a Deep Dive later in the year with the novel All The Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders, in which we analyze it using the lens we've been talking about.
Homework: What lenses from your non-writing life shape the way you see things?
P.S. Want to come write with us in 2025?! Our retreat registration is open, and we are starting to fill up! We are going to unlock our creative processes in Minnesota and explore Story Refinement as we cruise down the Mexican Riviera! Learn more here.
Credits: Your hosts for this episode were Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, and Howard Tayler. It was produced by Emma Reynolds, recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson.
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy19 January 2025, 9:00 am - 24 minutes 54 seconds20.02: Q&A Aboard the Writing Excuses Cruise, with Mark Oshiro and Kate McKean
This episode was recorded live at our 2024 Writing Excuses Cruise. (Did you know that we host a writing retreat on a cruise every year!?! You can learn more at https://writingexcuses.com/retreats/.)
While on a boat in Mexico, we were joined by author Mark Oshiro and literary agent Kate McKean. In addition to our hosts, they answered questions that were asked by our cruise attendees. Our answers included things such as how much space a character should take up and how to find the balance between plot-focused and character-focused novels. We also tackled questions about worldbuilding, motivation, and deadlines.
Homework: Ask someone a question about writing, either to learn more about what they're working on or to work through a project of your own.
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Credits: Your hosts for this episode were Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, Howard Tayler, Erin Roberts, Mark Oshiro, and Kate McKean. It was produced by Emma Reynolds, recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson.
Credits: Your hosts for this episode were Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, and Howard Tayler. It was produced by Emma Reynolds, recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson.
Join Our Writing Community!
Our Sponsors:
* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/WX
* Visit kinsta.com to get your first month free when you sign up today!
Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/writing-excuses2130/exclusive-content
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy12 January 2025, 9:00 am - 23 minutes 18 seconds20.01: Welcome to 2025!
For our 20th season, we are focusing on your toolbox. We’re going to be thinking about tools in terms of the lenses that we use to approach a story. We’re going to focus on the four lenses of: who, where, when, and why (don’t worry– what and how will be looked at in a later season, since they’re more about execution and less about lenses.) Our hosts talk about the lenses they’re adopting as they look towards 2025.
At the end of this season, we’re going to take all these lenses and apply them to one work: All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders.
A note: we will now only have “thing of the week” occasionally, and not regularly!
Homework: Make a list of the tools you already have in your toolbox. Now, as an intention, think of an area that you want a tool for. Over the course of this year, we’re going to try to help you find that tool.
Credits: Your hosts for this episode were Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, and Howard Tayler. It was produced by Emma Reynolds, recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson.
Join Our Writing Community!
Our Sponsors:
* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/WX
* Visit kinsta.com to get your first month free when you sign up today!
Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/writing-excuses2130/exclusive-content
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy5 January 2025, 9:00 am - 29 minutes 41 seconds19.52: End of Year Reflections: Navigating Speedbumps
Today, we’re reflecting on 2024. Individually, all of us went through a lot throughout the year—we encountered myriad speed bumps that slowed us down in different ways.. How do you balance your workload with your own personal life and its needs? How can you help make navigating these speedbumps easier by knowing your own limits and needs? We give you specific questions you can ask yourself in order to locate your problem points and figure out how to rearrange your life (and your stories about your own life) in order to not over-exhaust yourself.
Thing of the Week: Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Homework: Once a day for the next week, identify and write down something that is causing you pain. At the end of your week, look through your list and identify the one that is causing the most pain, and try to bulldoze it.
Credits: Your hosts for this episode were Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, and Howard Tayler. It was produced by Emma Reynolds, recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson.
Join Our Writing Community!
Our Sponsors:
* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/WX
* Visit kinsta.com to get your first month free when you sign up today!
Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/writing-excuses2130/exclusive-content
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy29 December 2024, 9:00 am - 24 minutes 19 seconds19.51: And That Was That
As the end of Season 19 approaches, we want to help you integrate what you’ve learned over the year. For December, we’ll be releasing episodes designed to help you make measurable progress on a writing project. So dust off your current work-in-progress, or pull out your brainstorming documents—we’re here to help you finish the year strong.
Today, we’re thinking about endings—specifically, what endings have in common with beginnings. When you’re coming to your conclusion, you can revisit the start of your work in order to get clues for how you should end it. You can also revisit your favorite works of fantasy fiction, which we’ve noticed often wraps things up with big climactic moments that don’t lose track of smaller moments of impact. Additionally, we talk about surprising versus inevitable endings, what Toy Story got right, and Howard’s rule for the last third of a story.
Thing of the Week: Chants of Sennaar
Homework: Think of how what you’ve been writing recently is going to end. What might be the next scene you need to write? Write that.
Credits: Your hosts for this episode were Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, and Howard Tayler. It was produced by Emma Reynolds, recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson.
Join Our Writing Community!
Our Sponsors:
* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/WX
* Visit kinsta.com to get your first month free when you sign up today!
Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/writing-excuses2130/exclusive-content
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy22 December 2024, 9:00 am - 31 minutes 20 seconds19.50.5: An Interview with DIY MFA Founder Gabriela Pereira (BONUS EPISODE)
We had the pleasure of sitting down with Gabriela Pereira, founder and instigator of DIY MFA, which is the do-it-yourself alternative to a Master of Arts in Writing. Pereira has some incredible advice for how to put together a writing curriculum for yourself. Using the pillars of writing, reading, and community, she explains how she first came up with the idea for DIY MFA. We also talk about how to build a well-rounded craft, how to know what you don’t know, and what exactly it means to “write with focus.”
Thing of the Week: DIY MFA Starter Kit
Homework: Observe your own habits! Think about your writing time like a pie: 1 slice for writing, 1 slice for reading, and 1 slice for community. Draw a circle at the end of every day and map out how much time you spent doing each of these three things. Do this for several weeks, and watch the patterns that emerge!
Credits: Your hosts for this episode were Mary Robinette Kowal, Erin Roberts, and Howard Tayler. Our guest was Gabriela Pereira. It was produced by Emma Reynolds, recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson.
Join Our Writing Community!
Our Sponsors:
* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/WX
* Visit kinsta.com to get your first month free when you sign up today!
Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/writing-excuses2130/exclusive-content
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy18 December 2024, 9:00 am - 20 minutes 56 seconds19.50: All Systems Go
As the end of Season 19 approaches, we want to help you integrate what you’ve learned over the year. For December, we’ll be releasing episodes designed to help you make measurable progress on a writing project. So dust off your current work-in-progress, or pull out your brainstorming documents—we’re here to help you finish the year strong.
How do you have multiple plot threads moving at the same time? Today, we’re talking about complex plot structures—focusing on space opera and epic fantasy. Some of the questions we’re tackling are: how do you escalate existing problems, how do you juggle multiple climaxes at once, and what are the cascading effects of each? We ask each host about their unique approaches to writing larger projects. We talk about the utility of multiple POVs and what fast food can teach you about escalating problems (somebody’s gonna get burnt buns).
Thing of the Week: Laboratory Conditions
Homework: Take a piece of technology you’ve already introduced to your work. Find out a new, cool way you can use it in the next scene that you’re writing.
Credits: Your hosts for this episode were Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, and Howard Tayler. It was produced by Emma Reynolds, recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson.
Join Our Writing Community!
Our Sponsors:
* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/WX
* Visit kinsta.com to get your first month free when you sign up today!
Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/writing-excuses2130/exclusive-content
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy15 December 2024, 9:00 am - 22 minutes 14 seconds19.49: Getting to Know You
As we wrap up our Close Reading Series, we’re shifting our focus towards helping you integrate what you’ve learned. For December, we’ll be releasing episodes designed to help you make measurable progress on a writing project. So dust off your current work-in-progress, or pull out your brainstorming documents—we’re here to help you finish the year strong.
What can we learn from romances? Today we’re talking about using elements of romance in your story (even if you have no romance in your current WIP!) Character relationships and dynamics are often at the heart of our stories, so what can we learn from the romance genre?
We’re thinking about the power of one character putting another one at ease, a character dismissing another (“I’ll never be interested in you!”), or two characters finding a commonality between themselves. Mary Robinette also introduces us to her family’s theory of compatibility, which measures these M-words: mind, money, morals, manners, monogamy, and mirth.
Thing of the Week: Ancient History Fangirl (podcast)
Homework: In the scene you’re working on, what is one thing your character finds attractive about the other character in the scene? Also, what does your own character think is their own least attractive trait, and how can you make them more anxious about that right now?
Credits: Your hosts for this episode were Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, and Howard Tayler. It was produced by Emma Reynolds, recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson.
Join Our Writing Community!
Our Sponsors:
* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/WX
* Visit kinsta.com to get your first month free when you sign up today!
Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/writing-excuses2130/exclusive-content
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy8 December 2024, 9:00 am - 20 minutes 56 seconds19.48: Beginning With A Thrill
As we wrap up our Close Reading Series, we’re shifting our focus towards helping you integrate what you’ve learned. For December, we’ll be releasing episodes designed to help you make measurable progress on a writing project. So dust off your current work-in-progress, or pull out your brainstorming documents—we’re here to help you finish the year strong.
Today, we’re focusing on beginnings. The titular phrase “beginning with a thrill,” doesn’t have to mean a burst of action or violence, but more so refers to how you hook your reader within the first few pages of whatever you’re writing. A great example of this is Toy Story, which we dive into at the end of this episode. Dan encourages us to shift our focus from starting with tension to starting with a thrill. How do you introduce conflict into your work while taking into consideration your genre? How do you establish—and then break— the “normal” in your world? DongWon talks about micro-tropes, and encourages us to steal and borrow from various genres. Also on this episode: meat cubes versus meet cutes. They’re different, even though they sound (phonetically) the same.
Thing of the week: The Favourite (movie)
Homework: What breaks “normal” for your character right now? Now, write that.
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Credits: Your hosts for this episode were Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, and Howard Tayler. It was produced by Emma Reynolds, recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson.
Join Our Writing Community!
Our Sponsors:
* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/WX
* Visit kinsta.com to get your first month free when you sign up today!
Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/writing-excuses2130/exclusive-content
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy1 December 2024, 9:00 am - 32 minutes 17 seconds19.47.5: Interview with Andrew Buckley of the StoryCentric podcast (BONUS EPISODE)
What does it mean to be building a career as an author in this day and age? We talk with author and speaker Andrew Buckley about everything from author brands to conferences while we ask Andrew to give us advice on how to get comfortable talking about yourself. In addition to hosting the StoryCentric podcast and speaking at conferences, Andrew is a speculative fiction author, with a focus on paranormal fantasy for young adult readers. He also has a background in marketing and business.
Thing of the Week: Fallout (TV show on Amazon Prime) & “The Watchers” by A.M. Shine
Homework: Try something that scares you.
Special Offer: Do you want 20% off a signed special edition copy of The Broken Earth Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin? You can order The Orbit Gold Edition set at orbitgoldeditions.com, and use the code “excuses” for 20% off!
Sign up for our newsletter:
Credits: Your hosts for this episode were Mary Robinette Kowal,Erin Roberts, and Howard Tayler. Our guest was Andrew Buckley. It was produced by Emma Reynolds, recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson.
Join Our Writing Community!
Our Sponsors:
* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/WX
* Visit kinsta.com to get your first month free when you sign up today!
Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/writing-excuses2130/exclusive-content
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy27 November 2024, 9:00 am - 25 minutes 37 seconds19.47: Final Thoughts on Our Close Reading Series
We reminisce on when we were on a writing retreat on a cruise in 2023, planning this close reading series. We have loved how this series grounded our conversations, allowing us to dive into works that were complex in specific ways. We have loved wading into the waters of voice, world-building, character, tension, and structure while talking about these phenomenal works of science fiction and fantasy.
Thank you, listeners, for reading along with us. It has been powerful to read the same books, and to feel connected to you all through the Patreon, Discord, Instagram, and emails.
Thing of the Week: Forget Protagonists: Writing NPCs with Agency
Homework: Get a group of friends together, and pick a book you love. Discuss and unpack what makes the book work. Then, tell us what it is by tagging us on Instagram, @writing_excuses.
Special Offer: Do you want 20% off a signed special edition copy of The Broken Earth Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin? You can order The Orbit Gold Edition set at orbitgoldeditions.com, and use the code “excuses” for 20% off!
Sign up for our newsletter:
Credits: Your hosts for this episode were Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, and Howard Tayler. It was produced by Emma Reynolds, recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson.
Join Our Writing Community!
Our Sponsors:
* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/WX
* Visit kinsta.com to get your first month free when you sign up today!
Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/writing-excuses2130/exclusive-content
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy24 November 2024, 9:00 am - More Episodes? Get the App
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