Writing Excuses

This month's wildcard episode comes to you from the 2015 GenCon Indy Writers' Symposium, where Dan and Howard had the opportunity to interview Susan J. Morris and Marc Tassin. Susan is one of the finest moderators the symposium has ever seen, and Marc directs the event, building the schedule around good panelists and great moderators. Their advice is insightful, fresh, and spot-on. If you ever find yourself scheduled to speak on, or moderate, a panel, this episode is a great listen for beginning your preparation.

We've talked about plot twists before. This episode covers the way in which the type of plot twist is dependent on, or signaled by, the context of the story. Getting plot twists right may mean surprising the reader, but it's just as important to have the twist surprise the character. SPOILER ALERT: Avengers: Age of Ultron, and The Sixth Sense, among others. It's hard to talk about plot twists without talking about some really good ones. This month's master-class topic is "Context," but the Q&A at the end of the month (coming real soon!) is on plot twists, featuring a special guest who joined us at Sasquan, the 73rd Annual World Science Fiction Convention.

Charlie N. Holmberg, who was recently signed by Amazon's 47 North imprint, joined us in front of a live audience it Sasquan (the 73rd World Science Fiction Convention) to talk about breaking in to the industry. Brandon and Dan broke in a decade ago, and Howard never actually bothered breaking in. This episode is brought to you by David Farland's writing workshops at mystorydoctor.com, whose URL completely escaped Howard during the episode. Here are two coupon codes: August50 gets $50 off any course regularly priced $399 August100 gets $100 off any course regularly priced $749  

We wrap up this month's discussion of pacing with a Q&A. Here are the questions we pulled out of the virtual hat (read: Twitter) for answering during the episode: What are some early indications of a pacing problem? How do you chart pacing so that it remains even? Can you control pacing using scene/sequel format? How do you handle character progression during travel without making it choppy? It feels like new authors are required to deliver breakneck pacing. Is this true?

Marie Brennan joins us again, this time for a discussion about writing combat. She's studied fencing, combat choreography, and is *this close* to having a black belt in shotokan karate, bringing a valuable perspective to the discussion. Also, she's written an ebook called Writing Fight Scenes, so she knows how to talk about this stuff. We discuss some of our favorite fight scenes in movies and in books, why they work well, and how we can go about creating those sorts of things ourselves. That Scene We Couldn't Stop Gushing About: Here's a no-Netflix-membership-required version of the Daredevil fight scene. It's a teaser from Netflix, but it's unabridged. For context, Daredevil is looking for a kidnapped child, and has tracked the boy's captors to this hallway.  

Words take time to read, but that's not the same amount of time that the words communicate...

Are we making progress? How do we communicate that to the reader?

Marie Brennan joins us again, this time to help us field your questions about middles. Here are the questions we collected from the various social media feeds: How do you maintain interest without having something explode every other chapter? In short fiction, how do you prevent try-fail cycles from bloating the story? How do you prevent the introduction of POVs during the middle of the story from being jarring? How do you keep subplots from turning into side quests? In longer stories, how important are "breather" chapters that ease the tension? Do you have methods for weaving plot and subplot threads together? Do you outline this, or keep it in your head? Fifty-Cent Word: Proprioception, which serves as an excellent metaphor for what expertise with a set of tools feels like. Thank you, Marie, for simplifying the whole "the tool should be an extension of your hand" thing.

Character failure is a big part of making the middle of a story work. We talk about why, and offer tips about how to make this work well for you.

Marie Brennan joins us for a discussion of polytheism (and really any belief system) in our fiction.

Lots of people struggle with the middles of their books. One way to look at the middle is that it's the point where you're no longer working on that new project that has you excited, but haven't yet gotten to the cool ending that has you excited. We talk about why the middle is important, and how you can make it enjoyable not just for the reader, but for you.

How do you "show, don't tell" a character's thoughts? We answer this question, and more!

We talk about how we define and structure scenes in our writing, and we make reference to Scene/Sequel format, the MICE quotient, and pacing.

Media Specialist Kiley Snyder joins us to talk about hooking young readers.

Instead of saying "show, don't tell," we say "here's how to show."

Spoilers ahead! We dig into Of Noble Family, by Mary Robinette Kowal, focusing on language, culture, and the extensive research Mary did.

We answer questions about consistency, alternate histories, and the Great Spoke Plague of '77

You've done piles of world building. How do you convey this world to reader without infodumping? We talk about the different skill levels involved, and then the techniques that you'll be using as you get better and better at what is probably the most critical skill unique to genre fiction writers.

What's the difference between intrigue, suspense, and mystery? We talk about this, and then drill down on intrigue.

This one's for all you folks who like to do some world building on-the-fly.