Writing Excuses21 Maalis 2025

20.12: Fashion as a Writing Metaphor

Today, we’re returning to different personal metaphors for how we all think about writing and storytelling. In this episode, we’re talking about how DongWon uses fashion as a helpful metaphor to think about storytelling. For both fashion and writing, whether you know it or not, you are already engaging with it every single day of your life. You are writing emails, you are communicating with the people around you, you’re dressing yourself, you’re wearing certain things and not others, and you’re ordering pizza! But what’s the difference between ordering a pizza and performing a poem? Well, lots of things, but mostly intention and deliberateness.

Note: In this episode, we mention cooking as a metaphor—this episode hasn’t aired yet but will in May!

Homework: Take one article of clothing from your closet and build three different looks around it. One for everyday wear, one for a family function, and one for a night out

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Credits: Your hosts for this episode were DongWon Song, Mary Robinette Kowal, Howard Tayler, and Erin Roberts. Our guest was Chuck Tingle. It was produced by Emma Reynolds, recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson.

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