Writing Excuses Brandon Sanderson, Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler

Your Hosts: Howard Tayler, Kaela Rivera, Sandra Tayler, and Megan Lloyd



This week we're talking about giving inevitability to our intended surprise, and we open with a discussion of Chekov's Gun, which, as a writing rule, is mostly used in inversion.



Next week we'll focus on making inevitable things surprising.



Liner Notes: Art and Editing of Suicide Squad (YouTube) 



Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson

Your Hosts: Howard Tayler, Kaela Rivera, Sandra Tayler, and Megan Lloyd



The title of this episode comes to us from the first paragraph of The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss—a novel which delights us with turns of phrase and evocative prose from beginning to end.



We're continuing our exploration of "promises as a structure" by looking at the promises made by the prose of your first line, first paragraph, and first page. What does your first line say about the rest of your book? Did you mean for it to say that? Is your first line writing checks that your later chapters can actually cash?



Liner Notes: We did an eight-episode master class on first lines, pages, and paragraphs with DongWon Song. It begins with 16.27.



Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson

Your Hosts: Howard Tayler, Kaela Rivera, Sandra Tayler, and Megan Lloyd



The genre of your story is making promises to the reader, and the medium upon which your story is told makes promises too.



In this episode we talk about the expectations set by various mediums and genres, and how we can leverage those to ensure that we deliver a satisfying story.



Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson



Liner Notes: The entirety of Season 11, The Elemental Genres, is a deep-dive on this stuff.

Your Hosts: Howard Tayler, Kaela Rivera, Sandra Tayler, and Megan Lloyd



The structure you're using for your story isn't just helping you organize your plotting. It's telling the audience what's going to happen. Story structures make promises to audiences, and these audience expectations are, in large measure, outside of our control.



In this episode we talk about the expectations set by various story structures, and how we can make sure we use our structures to satisfy our audiences.



Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson



Liner Notes: We've done episodes on the M.I.C.E. Quotient, Seven Point Story Structure, The Hollywood Formula, and many, many more of the structures mentioned in this episode. We haven't done any on Kishōtenketsu, but we probably should!

Your Hosts: Howard Tayler, Kaela Rivera, Sandra Tayler, and Megan Lloyd



Our next 8-episode intensive is all about promises and expectations. Our guest hosts are Kaela Rivera, Sandra Tayler, and Megan Lloyd. They're joining us to talk about how the promises we make to our audiences, and the expectations they bring with them, are a structural format. In this episode we introduce the topic, and talk about some apex examples of success and failure in this area.



Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson



Liner Notes: Here's the story of The Tropicana Packaging Redesign Failure

Your Hosts: Dan Wells, Fonda Lee, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Howard Tayler



Here at the end of our 8-episode intensive series on Worldbuilding we discuss stepping away from the defaults, the clichés, and the tropes, and choosing every element deliberately. There's nothing inherently wrong with the tropes. We're just suggesting that they be included only after deciding we actually want them.



Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson