Writing Excuses

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/.) ...

16 Mar 202521min

Today we have the pleasure of talking with author (and longtime listener!) Chuck Tingle. We invited him on the podcast to talk about breaking the rules—both in terms of how to publish and what to publ...

9 Mar 202533min

What do emotional beats and action scenes have in common? Well, they both need to land with your audience in order for your story not to fall flat. On today’s episode, we’re talking about the importan...

2 Mar 202519min

This week, we’re continuing our conversation about the lens of who. On last week’s episode we talked about a character’s motivation and goals. Now, we’re starting to think about tension in the form of...

23 Feb 202522min

Do you know what your characters want? And is there a deeper desire underneath that one? A character's motivations can help make them "relatable," drive the story's momentum, and create obstacles. Add...

16 Feb 202521min

Have you ever wondered how much you need to know about a specific character before you start your story? Do you need to have an entire outline of their childhood before you can start writing in depth ...

9 Feb 202525min

Today we are introducing the “lens of who” – which means talking about characters. We try to break big character ideas down into their elements. For instance, what do terms like "relatability" or "dep...

2 Feb 202525min

For our 20th season, we are focusing on this belief: that the lived experience that we all have affects the way we think about writing. We’ve all heard Mary Robinette talk about puppetry for seventeen...

26 Jan 202533min