Writing Excuses 8.17: Micro-Casting

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Writing Excuses 8.17: Micro-Casting

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2013/04/28/writing-excuses-8-17-microcasting/

Questions and Answers:
1. How do you mentally prepare to write? Do something physical while thinking. Reading what I wrote last. Music or a walk.
2. How do you write stories that are important? Don't worry about the important thing. Pick a character story that illuminates the important thing. Show characters struggling with questions. Use humor to slide past defense mechanisms. Use positive messages.
3. What is the difference between magical realism and outright fantasy? Magical realism is the metaphor made manifest. Fantasy lives in a fantasy world, whereas magical realism lives in this world plus a metaphor beyond.
4. Recommendations or techniques for beta reading? Ask the author what they want. What bores, confuses, or is unbelievable. Flag problems.
5. Can you do several novellas and short stories in a serialized way using the same settings and characters? Yes. Many examples.
6. Why do publishers ask for cross-genre books, but publish mostly straight genre books? Many cross-genre books become a genre of their own. Publishers can't afford to experiment all the time. Time lag of publishing.
7. Picture books and chapter books? See SCBWI.
8. How can you give a good reading out loud in front of people? Table for a podcast.
9. How do you write when you are sick? Slowly.
10. What have you learned from reading literary fiction that has informed your genre writing? Poetry of language. Ambiguity is okay. The scope of problems does not always have to be big, the fate of the world is not always in peril.
11. Kitten punk.
( Many words! )

[Brandon] Okay. Well. I'm looking through the questions, looking for one that would be a good writing prompt.
[Mary] I know which one you're going for!
[Brandon] Go ahead, Mary.
[Mary] Is it the nuclear kitten?
[Brandon] Yeah. Well, I saw kitten punk. Is that it?
[Mary] Oh, kitten punk. Yes.
[Brandon] Kitten punk. I saw that, and thought okay!
[Howard] Kitten punk?
[Brandon] Kitten punk. Your writing prompt is kitten punk. This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses...
[Howard] You're not going to give me anything besides kitten punk?
[Brandon] No.
[Mary] Do you need more?
[Brandon] Of course not.
[Dan] Well, steam punk is a world powered by steam, so kitten punk naturally is a world where you shovel kittens into the boiler, to make the airships go.
[Brandon] Oh, I'm sorry. Now go write.