- "Fifteen minutes long......because you're in a hurry......and we're not that smart!I'm Brandon!
- I'm Dan!I'm Mary Robinette!And I'm Howard!"
So you want to write a story? Well you're in luck. Writing Excuses is a weekly podcast by Brandon Sanderson, Howard Tayler of Schlock Mercenary, Dan Wells, and Mary Robinette Kowal —formerly a recurring guest host and now an official full-time host as of Season 6. Updated every Sunday, each week's episode focuses on a particular aspect of the writing process, from brainstorming
to getting published, usually responding to particular obstacles that are common for beginning and improving writers. Naturally, numerous tropes have been touched upon along the way, discussed in terms of how to use them to make your book better and avoiding bad writing. Often a guest host (usually a recently-published author or a personal/professional friend of one of the authors with ties to the writing world) will join the quartet for an episode or two to add outsider input as well. The series also features a Book of the Week for listeners to read which is often pertinent to the topic being discussed. Or sometimes it's just one of their own books. They gotta make money somehow.
Each podcast is around fifteen minutes long, not more than twenty. Usually there are also suggested writing prompts to practice with, especially in the later seasons.
In June 2014, they released Shadows Beneath, an anthology of the stories they brainstormed in seasons 7 and 8, with the intent of showing the process of moving from a first draft to a finished story.
The podcast home page is here.The TV Tropes discussion forum about it is here.
This podcast has discussed the following tropes:
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Season 1
- Episode 1 - Brainstorming
- Episode 2 - Blending the Familiar and the Original
- Episode 3 - Killing Your Darlings
- Episode 4 - Beginnings
- Episode 5 - Heroes and Protagonists
- Episode 6 - Flaws versus Handicaps
- Episode 7 - Villains
- Episode 8 - Writing Science Fiction
- Episode 9 - Science Fiction Sub-genres
- Cyberpunk
- Hard Science Fiction
- Military Science Fiction
- Space Opera
- Episode 10 - Pacing
- Episode 11 - The Business of Writing
- Episode 12 - Submitting to Editors (Part 1)
- Episode 13 - Submitting to Editors (Part 2)
- Episode 14 - Magic Systems And Their Rules
- Also discusses why it's good that a magic system does have rules.
- Episode 15 - Costs and Ramifications of Magic
- Episode 16 - Butt In Chair, Hands On Keyboard
- Dealing with scheduling time to practice writing so that you actually produce.
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Episode 17 - This Sucks and I'm A Horrible Writer - Episode 18 - Q&A at CONduit
- Character voice
- Naming things
- The "Second-Act Slump" (related to Two-Part Trilogy)
- Finishing the story
- Episode 19 - Plot Twists
- Foreshadowing
- "The fine art of making your characters miserable" (without going into Diabolus ex Machina)
- Episode 20 - More Q&A from CONduit (Guest starring Eric James Stone)
- Are Plot Twists necessary?
- Making your protagonists as interesting as
your villains - Marketing and the web
- Episode 21 - Humor
- Episode 22 - Doing the Unpopular
- Specifically, "doing things to the reader that they would never do to themselves" because the story is better that way.
- Episode 23 - Viewpoint and Tense (Part 1) (Viewpoint)
- Episode 24 - Research
- Episode 25 - Viewpoint and Tense (Part 2) (Tense)
- Episode 26 - Horror
- Episode 27 - Worldbuilding Religion
- Episode 28 - Writing for Webcomics with Phil and Kaja Foglio
- Episode 29 - Talking Publishing with Lou Anders
- Episode 30 - Talking Revision with Moshe Feder
- Episode 31 - Talking RPG and Game Writing with Steve Jackson
- Episode 32 - Talking Exposition with Patrick Rothfuss
- Episode 33 - Side Characters
- Also, a link to Dan's Old Shame, A Night of Blacker Darkness.
- Episode 34 - What The Dark Knight Did Right
- Episode 35 - Voice, Tone, and Style
This season also had two bonus episodes:
Season 2
- Episode 1 - Setting and Characters
- Episode 2 - How to Write for Children
- Episode 3 - Characters
- Episode 4 - Viewpoint, Plot Twists, and Being a Part-Time Writer
- Episode 5 - Writing Groups
- Episode 6 - Endings
- Episode 7 - Using Writing Formulas
- Episode 8 - The Three Act Structure
- Episode 9 - Romance
- Episode 10 - The Boring Parts
- Episode 11 - Publishing and Writing
- Episode 12 - Theme
- Episode 13 - Violence
- Episode 14 - Writing Habits
- Episode 15 - Knowing When to Begin
- Episode 16 - Non-Human Races
- Episode 17 - Website Marketing for Authors
- Episode 18 - Worldbuilding Governments
- Episode 19 - Do Creative Writing Classes Help?
- Episode 20 - Marketing 101 for Creators
- Episode 21 - Fight Scenes
- Episode 22 - Marketing 201: Branding for Authors
- Episode 23 - Avoiding the Cliché
- Episode 24 - Writing Habits
- Episode 25 - The Seven Deadly Sins of Slush Stories
- Episode 632 - Now That We've Got Time Travel, What Do We Do With It? (Released on April Fools' Day)
- Episode 26 - How Publishing Is Changing in the New Century
- Episode 27 - Reading Critically
- Episode 28 - Applying Critical Reading: Watchmen
- Episode 29 - How Not to End Your Book
- Episode 30 - The Most Important Thing Howard Learned In The Last Year
- Episode 31 - The Most Important Thing Brandon Learned In The Last Year
- Episode 32 - The Most Important Thing Dan Learned In The Last Year
- Episode 33 - How To Not Be Overwhelmed
Bonus Episodes:
Season 3
- Episode 1 - Worldbuilding History
- Episode 2 - Keeping It Real
- Episode 3 - Stumping Howard at Conduit
- Episode 4 - Non-Linear Storytelling
- Episode 5 - How to Take Criticism
- Episode 6 - Dramatic Breaks
- Episode 7 - Genre Blending
- Episode 8 - What Star Trek Did Right
- Episode 9 - Conventions You Should Be Attending
- Episode 10 - The Do's and Don't's of Attending Cons
- Episode 11 - Trimming
- Episode 12 - Subplots
- Episode 13 - Dialects and In-World Jargon
- Episode 14 - The Four Principles of Puppetry, with Mary Robinette Kowal
- Episode 15 - The Writing Process
- Episode 16 - The
Anti-Mary Sue Episode - Episode 17 - Characters and Worldbuilding
- Episode 18 - How to Not Repeat Yourself
- Episode 19 - Emotion in Fiction
- Episode 20 - Plot- vs. Character-Driven Fiction
- Episode 21 - Pitfalls of Self-Publishing with Larry Correia
- Episode 22 - Idea to Story
- Episode 23 - How to Write Without Twists
- Episode 24 - Writing Comics with Jake Black
- Episode 25 - The Business of Writing Comics
- Episode 26 - NaNoWriMo
- Episode 27 - Mixing Humor with Drama and Horror
- Episode 28 - Worldbuilding Gender Roles
- Episode 29 - Antiheroes
- Episode 30 - Unreliable Narrators
- Episode 31 - Tragedy
- Episode 32 - Collaboration
Bonus Episodes:
Season 4
- Episode 1 - Types of Humor
- Episode 2 - Heroism
- Episode 3 - How to Manage Your Influences
- Episode 4 - Agents: Do You Need One?
- Episode 5 - Roleplaying Games as Tools for Story Telling
- Episode 6 - Pacing with James Dashner
- Episode 7 - Q&A with James Dashner
- Episode 8 - Working With Editors
- Episode 9 - How to Write Men With Jessica Day George
- Episode 10 - Writing for Young Adults
- Episode 11 - Brainstorming From Headlines
- Episode 12 - Writing An Epic
- Episode 13 - Juggling Multiple Viewpoints
- Episode 14 - Brainstorming Science Ideas
- Episode 15 - Visual Components of Storytelling
- Episode 16 - Breaking the Fourth Wall
- Episode 17 - Living with the Artist
- Episode 18 - How to Steal for Fun and Profit
- Episode 19 - Discovery Writing
- Episode 20 - Strategies for Getting Published
- Episode 21 - Writing Practical Fantasy
- Episode 22 - Q&A with L.E. Modesitt, Jr
- Episode 23 - How to Break In to the Young Adult Market
- Episode 24 - Random Storytelling
- Episode 25 - Mating Plumage
- Episode 26 - Avoiding Stilted Dialog
- Episode 27 - Major Overhauls to Broken Stories
- Episode 28 - Brainstorming The End and Working Backwards
- Episode 29 - Line Editing
- Episode 30 - Worldbuilding the Future
- Episode 31 - Line Editing Dialog
- Episode 32 - First Paragraphs
- Episode 33 - Trunk Novels
- Episode 34 - Q&A at Dragons and Fairy Tales
Season 5
- Episode 1 - Third Person Limited
- Episode 2 - Character Quirks
- Episode 3 - First Person Viewpoint
- Episode 4 - Creating Suspense
- Episode 5 - Writing the Unfamiliar
- Episode 6 - MicroPodcasts
- Episode 6.01 - Flash Fiction
- Episode 6.01
- Episode 7 - Avoiding Melodrama
- Episode 8 - The Excuses You're Out Of
- Episode 9 - Character Arcs
- Episode 10 - John Brown and the Creative Process
- Episode 11 - MicroPodcasts 2
- Episode 12 - The Secret Of Lincoln's Gold
- Episode 13 - Writing the Second Book
- Episode 14 - Visual Components of Novels with Scott Westerfeld
- Episode 15 - Steampunk with Scott Westerfeld
- Episode 12 - Time Travel!
- Episode 16 - Critiquing Dan’s First Novel
- Episode 17 - Dialog Exercises
- Episode 18 - Offending Your Readers
- Episode 19 - Fulfilling Promises to Your Readers
- Episode 20 - More Dialog Exercises
- Episode 21 - Alternate History
- Episode 22 - Film Considerations
- Episode 23 - Life Day!
- Episode 24 - Author's Responsibility to the Reader
- Episode 25 - Writing In Other People's Universes
- Episode 26 - Scared For The Characters
- Episode 27 - Perseverance
- Episode 28 - E-Publishing
- Episode 29 - Rewriting
- Episode 30 - Writing Action
- Episode 31 - Writing Romance
- Episode 32 - Urban Fantasy
- Episode 33 - Alpha Readers
- Episode 34 - Story Bibles
- Episode 35 - Brainstorming an Urban Fantasy
- Episode 36 - Non-traditional Settings with Saladin Ahmed
- Episode 37 - Parody and Satire with Jim C. Hines
- Episode 38 - Dialog with John Scalzi
- Episode 39 - Filking and writing music with Tom Smith
Bonus Episodes:
Season 6
- Episode 1 - Can Creativity be Taught?
- Episode 2 - Internal Motivations
- Episode 3 - Professional Organizations
- Episode 4 - Microcasting
- Episode 5 - Query Letters
- Episode 6 - Cyberpunk
- Episode 7 - Brainstorming a Cyberpunk Story
- Episode 8 - What an Agent Does
- Episode 9 - Microcasting 2 Electric Boogaloo
- Episode 10 - Orson Scott Card’s M.I.C.E. Quotient
- Episode 11 - Making Your Descriptions Do More Than One Thing
- Episode 12 - Revising For Description
- Episode 13 - Worldbuilding Communications Technology
- Episode 14 - Suspension of Disbelief
- Episode 15 - Writing Other Cultures
- Episode 16 - Gender Roles—Black, White, and Gray
- Episode 17 - Writing Assistants
- Episode 18 - The Hollywood Formula
- Episode 19 - Pitching
- Episode 20 - Endings
- Episode 21 - Brainstorming from Story Seeds
- Episode 22 - Continuing Education for Writers
- Episode 23 - Pigeon Holes with Jonathan Maberry
- Episode 24 - From the Ridiculous to the Sublime with Andrew P. Meyer
- Episode 25 - When Characters do Dumb Things
- Episode 26 - Mystery Plotting
- Episode 27 - Fantasy Setting Yard Sale
- Episode 28 - Interstitial Art
- Episode 29 - Character Foils
- Episode 30 - Help! I Can't End My Book!
Season 7
- Episode 1 - When Good Characters Go Bad
- Episode 2 - Worldbuilding Flora and Fauna
- Episode 3 - Flora and Fauna
- Episode 4 - Brevity
- Episode 5 - Sensory Writing with Sam Sykes
- Episode 6 - Behind the scenes / Meet the cast episode
- Episode 7 - Historical Fantasy
- Episode 8- City as a character with Sarah Pinborough
- Episode 9 - Microcasting
- Episode 10 - The importance of criticism with David Brin
- Episode 11 - More Microcasting
- Episode 12 - Writing the Omniscient Viewpoint
- Episode 13 - Man Vs. Nature
- Episode 14 - Writing Excuses
- Episode 15 - Editing Mary's Outline
- Episode 16 - Continuing with Mary's Outline
- Episode 17 - Guns and Fiction
- Episode 18 - Discovering Your Voice
- Episode 19 - Q&A at UVU
- Episode 20 - Cathartic Horror
- Episode 21 - Project in Depth—Force Multiplication
- Episode 22 - Microcasting
- Episode 23 - Time Travel
- Episode 24 - Project in Depth—The Way of Kings
- Episode 25 - Writing Capers
- Episode 26 - Q&A at UVU, Part 2
- Episode 27 - The Problem of Originality
- Episode 28 - Project in Depth—Glamour in Glass
- Episode 29 - The Villain Problem
- Episode 30 - Microcasting, Again
- Episode 31 - Project in Depth—The Hollow City
- Episode 32 - Astronomy 101 for Writers
- Episode 33 - Authentic Emotion
- Episode 34 - How to Start the Next One
- Episode 36 - Writing Gaming Fiction with Monte Cook
- Episode 35 - Brainstorming with Dan
- Episode 37 - Pantsing
- Episode 38 - Writing Love Scenes
- Episode 39 - Death
- Episode 40 - Writing the Other
- Episode 41 - Seven-Point Story Structure
- Episode 42 - Contemporary YA Fiction
- Episode 43 - Tie-in Fantasy Fiction
- Episode 44 - Writing for Comics with Jim Zub
- Episode 46 - Project in Depth—The Emperor's Soul
- Episode 47 - Raising the Stakes
- Episode 48 - Pixar Rules for Writing a Compelling Story
- Episode 49 - Beginnings Revisited
- Episode 50 - Outlining the Mary Way
Season 8
- Episode 1 - Microcasting
- Episode 2 - The Hero's Journey
- Episode 3 - Pets with Personality
- Episode 4 - Side Character Arcs
- Episode 5 - Breaking the Rules
- Episode 6 - Retellings and Adaptations
- Episode 7 - Cliffhangers and Iceburgs with Robison Wells
- Episode 8 - Writing and Personal Health
- Episode 9 - Brainstorming with Howard
- Episode 10 - Brainstorming with Howard (Again)
- Episode 11 - Abnormal Psychology
- Episode 12 - Project in Depth—Deus ex Nauseam
- Episode 13 - Fake It Till You Make It
- Episode 14 - Brainstorming With Brandon
- Episode 15 - Narrative Rhythm
- Episode 16 - Brainstorming With Brandon Again
- Episode 17 - Microcasting
- Episode 18 - Blocking
- Episode 19 - Writing And Convention Culture
- Episode 20 - The Short Story
- Episode 21 - What The Avengers Did Right
- Episode 22 - Pre-Writing
- Episode 23 - Microcasting
- Episode 24 - Project in Depth—Kiss Me Twice
- Episode 25 - Middle Grade with E.J. Paten
- Episode 26 - Space Opera
- Episode 27 - Chapter Breakdowns
- Episode 28 - Your First Contract
- Episode 29 - Out Of Excuses Retreat Q&A #1
- Episode 30 - Writing Reluctant Characters
- Episode 31 - Combining Dialogue, Blocking, and Description
- Episode 32 - Microcasting
- Episode 33 - Making Non-Human Characters Relatable
- Episode 34 - Survivorship Bias
- Episode 35 - Digging Yourself Out Of Holes with Jeph Jacques
- Episode 36 - Transitioning Characters in Prominence
- Episode 37 - When Fail Happens in Your Career
- Episode 38 - Out Of Excuses Retreat Q & A #2
- Episode 39 - Dystopian Fiction with Cherie Priest
- Episode 40 - Publishing with Bill Schafer
- Episode 41 - Out of Excuses Retreat Microcasting
- Episode 42 - The Internal Heckler vs. The Internal Editor
- Episode 43 - Realistic Melee Fighting with Wesley Chu
- Episode 44 - Talking Publishing with Tom Doherty
- Episode 45 - Gencon Q&A with Wesley Chu
- Episode 46 - Editing with Aeryn Rudel
- Episode 47 - Roguishness with Scott Lynch
- Episode 48 - Long-Form Storytelling with Sam Logan
- Episode 49 - Hard Social Science Fiction with Joel Shepherd
- Episode 50 - Q&A with Mercedes Lackey
- Episode 51 - Creative non-fiction with Mette Ivie Harrison
- Episode 52 - You Think You Don't Have Time to Write, with Mette Ivie Harrison
Season 9
- Episode 1 - Chronology of a Book Deal with Eric James Stones
- Episode 2 - Hard Science Fiction with Eric James Stone
- Episode 3 - Character Perception vs. Narrative Perception with Nancy Fulda
- Episode 4 - Artificial Intelligence with Nancy Fulda
- Episode 5 - Hijacking the Knowledge You Already Have, with Mette Ivie Harrison
- Episode 6 - The Experience of Time
- Episode 7 - Last Pass Revisions with Eric James Stone
- Episode 8 - When is your Handwavium Good Enough?
- Episode 9 - What to do When Truth is Stranger than Fiction
- Episode 10 - Engaging Characters
- Episode 11 - Microcasting
- Episode 12 - Microcasting! Twice in a row!
- Episode 13 - Three Pronged Character Development
- Episode 14 - How to have an Opinion as a Public Figure
- Episode 15 - Becoming a Writer — Full Disclosure
- Episode 16 - Coming up with a New Ending Halfway Through
- Episode 17 - Microcasting
- Episode 18 - Microcasting
- Episode 19 - Showing Emotion
- Episode 20 - Creator vs Creation
- Episode 21 - Sanderson's 3rd Law
- Episode 22 - Microcasting
- Episode 23 - Worldbuilding without Breaking Viewpoint
- Episode 24 - Side Quests
- Episode 25 - Adjusting Character Sympathy
- Episode 26 - Adjusting Character Competence
- Episode 27 - Prewriting
- Episode 28 - Part 2 of 2, Critiquing Sixth of the Dusk
- Episode 29 - Critiquing A Fire in the Heavens
- Episode 30 - Critiquing “An Honest Death”
The podcast has demonstrated the following tropes:
- Interface Screw: The podcast on Non Linear Storytelling is episode 4 in the season, immediately after episode 1 and right before episode 2.
- Mad Libs Catch Phrase: The two reasons the episode is fifteen minutes long vary. You're almost always in a hurry, but Howard often comes up with something thematically appropriate for the second half... or just screws it up.
- Makes Sense In Context: Mary: Sometimes you have to take the underwear off the puppet.
- Self-Deprecation: They really are that smart. Don't believe their lies.
- Spiritual Parallel: Extra Credits addresses game design in much the same way Writing Excuses handles literature.
Brandon: This has been Writing Excuses! You're out of excuses. Now, go write!
