Writing Excuses Transcripts

 

From https://writingexcuses.com/20-29-authorial-intent

 

Key Points: Authorial Intent, or Why am I writing this? Message versus content. Features inform, benefits sell. Execution. Macro level versus micro level. Area of intention. What do I want to achieve? Theme and meaning are often heady cerebral things, but why is very visceral. Sit down and do more writing. The intention that you have when you start a book does not have to be the intention that you have when you later. Make sure authorial intention and character intention are lined up. Make sure you know why those scenes are in the form (genre, etc.) that you are working in. 

 

[Season 20, Episode 29]

 

[Mary Robinette] This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by our listeners, patrons, and friends. If you would like to learn how to support this podcast, visit www.patreon.com/writingexcuses.

 

[Season 20, Episode 29]

 

[Mary Robinette] This is Writing Excuses.

[Howard] Authorial Intent. 

[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.

[Howard] I'm Howard.

[Dan] And I'm Dan.

 

[Howard] And we are gonna talk to you about this particular did this little aspect of the lens of Why called authorial intent. AKA Why are you writing this book? Or this thing? Or this scene, this chapter, this screen play, this whatever? 

[Mary Robinette] Line of dialogue.

[Howard] This line of dialogue.

[Chuckles]

[Howard] I want to start with an example from my marketing background. And the example is message versus content in advertising. The message for an auto ad is like this car will make you sexy. But they can't just come out and say that. That's their intent. This car will make you sexy. Their intent is for you to buy the car. The content has to say it subtly. How do you intend a book and then not heavy-handedly just stamp Authorial Intent all the way through it on every page? 

[Chuckles]

[Howard] How do you do better than the auto advertiser does?

[Dan] Well, you're talking about advertising now which is reminding me of my old advertising days. And one of the advertising maxims that gets shared around a lot is features inform, but benefits sell. Like, you can talk about all the things the car does, that's not going to sell the car. But what will the car do for you? That's what will sell the car. And now I'm thinking about that with stories that we tell. I can absolutely think to myself about what the theme is, what the meaning is, what the structure is, all of the stuff that I have put into it. That is not going to make you as a reader enjoy the thing. That is not going to sell the book to you. Whereas the execution of it all absolutely will. And so for me author intent has a lot of different meanings. Because some of it is what have I put into this, what am I trying to say with this? But a lot of it is also just I haven't explored this type of character before, and it is my intention to give this very different type of character or setting… It is my intent to explore this kind of magic or this kind of conflict. Those are more of the benefits. That's the execution, and that's what I think is going to grab readers.

 

[Mary Robinette] I… I find myself that when I'm thinking about like grabbing readers or something like that… But I often do not think about the why of the book. Like, why on a macro level. Because honestly most of the time my why is Cool! I love this idea.

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] Like, that's my why for writing it.

[Howard] I get to write another book?

[Mary Robinette] Great! It's like Dragons! Yay! That's my intention. Like, I just want to play… Spend a couple of months playing with dragons. That's my why.

[Howard] Can we just put another pin in that and say that's absolutely valid?

[Mary Robinette] I hope so.

[Laughter]

[Howard] That is enough why for me.

[Mary Robinette] Right. But when I get into the book, for me, when I'm thinking about why, that's where I start thinking about how I'm engaging with the reader. And I'm thinking about something that Jane [Espenson?] Calls the area of intention. Which is the… She was talking about this when you were… With jokes. Why… What am I trying to do with this joke? Why is the character doing this? And I find that this idea with the area of intention helps me make decisions on a line by line basis on why this scene is in the book. And what I often in thinking about is, for my why is, what effect do I want to have on the reader? What conversation do I want to engage with? If I think about why on a macro scale, it is that what conversation do I want to have, what question am I asking? But most of the time, when I am using why personally, it is not on the big project level. Because most of the time that upper-level intention really is just Nifty!

 

[Howard] Dan?

[Dan] Yes?

[Chuckles]

[Howard] Why?

[Dan] Why? Well, so the project that I'm working on right now… Middle grade fantasy. The intention behind there, the why of the book, why am I writing this book… We've talked about theme and meaning before, and there is theme there that I've got something that I'm trying to say with the book and we don't need to go into that because I think that those discussions where they get into the very strict details, are kind of boring for readers. They're English class kind of stuff. Whereas why am I telling the story in this particular way…

[Mary Robinette] Yes.

[Dan] Well, because I got very excited about it. I was reading a… Some kind of peripheral material to Lord of the Rings and Silmarillion and talking about the land of Eriador, which is the land west of the Misty Mountains and how it is basically a vast unpopulated wasteland that used to be a huge kingdom, that used to be two huge kingdoms. And now there's basically Rivendell and the Shire and the Grey Havens and nothing else, of any particular import. And that, for whatever reason, the idea of this vast lonely land completely captured my imagination. And so why am I telling this story in the way I'm telling it? Because I wanted to capture that almost post-apocalyptic fantasy kind of idea. The idea that this takes place not in a bustling kingdom, not in an enchanted forest, but in this huge empty wasteland where there's just a couple of little villages here and there and very little else. And capturing that feeling, capturing that tone, that is absolutely my intention for the book.

 

[Mary Robinette] And I think that that's… Like, when you're talking about that… What you made me think of are some of the things we talked about when we were in our Who module. That in many ways, we're talking about the author's motivation, the author's stakes and goals. Your goal is to explore this, the Rivendell, and so the why, for me, as an author, is, like, what do I want to achieve? Why am I making these decisions? And it usually goes back to this… To a core idea of some sort. For me, it was the Thin Man in space with the Spare Man.

[Dan] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] There's a mood that I want to evoke for the reader. There's… Which will be talking about when we get to tone. But there's something at the core of it, and experience that I want to have and that I want to share with the reader. And, for me, that is often the why, is about the experience. Where is theme and meaning is about the heady cerebral things.

[Howard] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] But the why for me is often very visceral.

[Dan] And that's such a… That's why I was going back to this old advertising maxim. Features inform and benefits sell. How fast can this car go is a very different question from what does it feel like to drive this car. What does it feel like to go that fast? What does it feel like when the windows are rolled down and you're on that twisting highway and the radio is on your favorite station? That is such a visceral experential thing, and that's what people are looking for. Beyond just the boring numbers or the high level engineering that goes into it.

[Howard] Let's take a break for a moment, and when we come back, I'm going to say a thing.

[Laughter]

[Mary Robinette] Why, Howard? Why?

[Laughter]

[Howard] That's a keeper.

 

[Howard] Earlier, Dan, you said discussions like in English class are just boring. And it occurred to me that if in my English classes in high school, we had discussions with the answer to authorial intent was the author wanted to write this book so that they could sell the book and make money… That never one time, never even one time, came up. My intent, in many cases, when I sit down to write something is, I intend to write anything that will give someone an experience, just when they pick it up and read the back cover, that leads to them buying it, that leads to them reading it, and enjoying it, that then plants a hook within them that will get them to buy other things that I write. And that's a pretty deep-seated intent, and that's not something that I would ordinarily state openly in any of my marketing copy, because it sounds a little insidious. And yet, it's a valid intent. It's every bit as valid as dragons are cool. And the Shire exists in the wasteland, and I want to explore a wasteland. My question now is what are the weird intents we would never talk about in English class, but that are perfectly valid? What are our motivations to write that are just out there?

[Mary Robinette] I mean… I guess… So here's the thing for me. On a certain level, I don't know how useful it is, because, like, I can tell you, like, that my intention is dragons are cool. I had a dream. This is the why of it. The Ghost Talkers. Why? Why does Ghost Talkers exist? I had a dream, and then I was like, oh, I think there may be a story there. And I teased it out, and other parts of Ghost Talkers are there because I put a Doctor Who cameo in every novel, and that's why. Like, why is it there? Because I needed a chuckle. But, so, for me, I think the why can be so personal to the reader. And the question that I'm interested in, and that I hope that we can kind of play with some with this intention is how are you using that intention? You've got an intention, but how are you using it? How do you use it to make decisions when you're measuring against the choice of making it feel like Rivendell versus in space, how do you measure that?

[Howard] At some level for me, the decision that… The authorial intent needs to lead to a decision on the author's part to sit down to and do more writing and I want to have... I want my intent to be compelling enough to me that it keeps me moving. And I feel like being able to… And I guess this is my intent for at least this segment of the episode… I want our listeners to evaluate their intents and to realize, one, hey, that's a valid intention, and two, I'm allowed to keep going back to that well if that's what gets me into my chair to keep writing.

 

[Mary Robinette] So with that in mind, here's the thing that I think is really important. The intention that you have when you begin the story does not have to be the intention that you have later in the book. One of the problems that I think happens to writers over and over again, especially those of us with ADHD, is that it gets boring after a while.

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] And I am not the same person today that I was yesterday. Yesterday I was extremely fatigued. I had had to do a bunch of teaching that I had not planned on doing. I was… I had been out in the sun, and the things that were interesting to me, the things that motivated me, were very different from today. So, for me, when… If you're talking about that kind of author… That's… For me, that's not authorial intention, that's authorial motivation. Like, what's going to get me to sit down in a chair. That, for me, I think every day you can ask yourself, why is this story important to me today? And it doesn't have to be why it was important to you yesterday. If I am trying to write a story… Here's an extremely personal example, Martian Contingency came out this year. I started writing that book and had ideas for it. And in the course of writing it, my mother who had Parkinson, went into hospice. As I was finishing that book. My authorial intention at that point became I have to finish this before mom dies or I will not pick it up again. That is not a sustainable authorial intention. When I finished writing it, it was months before I did revisions on it. I'm a completely different person. I was the one who's grieving. I was the one who's recovering. And that is a different person who is going through it. So this is why I feel like when we're talking about these big broad level authorial intentions, it's good to think about it and I think that you can use it to say why am I sitting down to write today. But the reader can't tell when that book comes out that that was my intention. So, for me, the thing… That's why I keep saying I find that thinking about it on a micro level of why do I have this sentence, why do I have this paragraph, why do I have this chapter? That is dealing with the person who is in the chair in that moment.

[Howard] Yeah. I actually have a spreadsheet to track those things. My authorial intent for this scene, this scene, this scene. What is this supposed to do? What is my intention for these things? But, yeah, you're right, at some level, it's authorial motivation for me to sit down in front of the spreadsheet and look at today's list of intentions for what needs to be written.

[Dan] Um… We're recording this on the cruise, the Writing Excuses cruise, and I just taught a class yesterday about fight scenes and why I think they're terrible.

[Mary Robinette] I really enjoyed that class. FYI.

[Dan] Thank you very much.

[Mary Robinette] And I have like… I, like, was taking notes and I'm very excited to talk to you more about that… But carry on. Please.

[Dan] So, one of the things that we talk about in there is why are you putting this fight scene…

[Mary Robinette] Yes.

[Dan] Into your story? Why are you putting this action scene into your story? And one of the comments that we got… Several of the comments that we got where exactly what I expected, which is, well, I've read better books before, and there were fight scenes at this part of it. Or I watched movies that I love and there's a fight scene at this part of the story. And I feel like, so often, that is our intention, and that is a very shallow intention. When we get to that level of thinking, why is this scene in the book, why is this chapter in the book, and if your answer is because I think it probably ought to be… I mean, yes, you might be right, but that's a terrible way to start. And that's not a helpful way to go into this scene. If you're writing it out of obligation, without a specific purpose, if the purpose is on… If it's purely tautological. This scene exists because I know that it should exist. You need something more than that. There needs to be some kind of question that you are asking or answering, there needs to be some kind of exploration of who the characters are or a revelation about the setting or the technology or the magic or something. There needs to be a specific intention beyond, well, I've read other books and they have this kind of scene at this point in the story, so I'm putting one in.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. And I find that there's the authorial intention and then there's the character intention. And often, when a story is falling flat, it's because the authorial intention… The author is, like, I need the character to do this. I need the character to have this fight right now. And the character… Like, there is no sensible reason that they would do that. Their intention is to try to… Based on everything that you the author have set up to that point, has them pointed in a different direction, but you force them to do it without providing them sufficient motivation, sufficient intention, all of the things we're talking about before with character. So, for me, again, it's like with the author, what is my goal for the story? That is the why that I'm interested in. What is my goal for the story? What is my goal in this moment?

 

[Howard] One of the things that you brought up, Dan, is the importance of understanding the why of the form in which we are working. Why are there action scenes in movies? Why are there fight scenes in other books? Why are there… Why are any of these things… Why are there happily ever after's in romance? And if you don't understand some of those whys, if you don't understand some of the intent of the authors who have come before you, the intent to ape what they have done by making your own book follow the same pattern is going to be broken. Because it's not what you mean. It's not…

[Dan] Yeah.

[Howard] You don't understand why this was done and so you're doing it. I mean, I don't want to suggest that you're writing your book for the wrong reasons, but you might be writing that part of the book in the wrong way because of wrong reasons.

[Dan] Well, and that's often why someone says that a story feels formulaic is because the formula has become more important to the author than the characters, than the plot. Because we are following this because we know we're supposed to and not because the characters would naturally do these kinds of things.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah, and that's why one of the things that we're doing this season is a little unusual, that we are… We're doing a lot of really, really deep dives and we're going to do this whole extremely deep dive into structure in season 21, where we're talking about the what and the how of our big questions. And it is hard to evaluate something when you don't know why it exists.

 

[Howard] And I think that might be a good place for the homework. You ready for the homework? Take your work in progress, and in two sentences, describe to yourself why you are writing this. It might be a scene, it might be a chapter, it might be the whole book, it might be a screenplay. Two sentences. Why you are writing this? And then, for bonus points, one sentence. Why is that the reason that you're writing this?

 

[Howard] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.

 

 

From https://writingexcuses.com/18-05-an-interview-with-mary-robinette-kowal/

 

Key points: Puppetry and teaching a cat to talk with buttons? Before that? Art education with a minor in theater and speech. Art director. Puppets. Technique, and something to say. Curiosity and surprise. Challenge! Toolboxes. MICE Quotient. Axes of power. The go-to? Yes-but, no-and. What is the character trying to accomplish, what is their motivation? Next? How do we deal with tension without conflict. Subverted expectations? 

 

[Season 18, Episode 5]

 

[Mary Robinette] This is Writing Excuses.

[DongWon] An Interview with Mary Robinette Kowal.

[Erin] 15 minutes long.

[Dan] Because you're in a hurry.

[Howard] And we're not that smart.

[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.

[DongWon] I'm DongWon.

[Erin] I'm Erin.

[Dan] I'm Dan.

 

[Howard] And I'm driving. My name's Howard Tayler, and I get to lead this interview of my friend, Mary Robinette Kowal.

[Mary Robinette] Hi.

[Howard] Mary Robinette, I remember meeting you at World Con in… Gosh, was it Montréal?

[Mary Robinette] It was World Fantasy, but, yes.

[Howard] Was it World Fantasy?

[Mary Robinette] No, I think…

[Dan] World Fantasy. I'm pretty sure it was World Fantasy.

[Mary Robinette] It was World something.

[Laughter]

[Howard] I'm pretty sure it was World Con, because that was the year that I got to be in the People Versus George Lucas movie.

[Dan] Okay.

[Howard] But we podcasted, and episode 3.14 was Mary schools Brandon, Dan, and Howard about using puppets to teach us how to write. That was when I met you. But that is not when you started. You have done a bazillion things. I know that one of them is puppetry, and another is teaching your cat to talk with buttons. Where did you come from?

[Laughter]

[Howard] Where did you even…?

[Mary Robinette] Were did I even? So, I was actually an art major in college. Art education with a minor in theater and speech, because being one of those kids who wanted to do everything, that was the closest I could get to doing all the things I wanted to do.

[Howard] The everything major!

[Mary Robinette] Yes. The everything major. I was firmly convinced… So, before that, I was firmly convinced that I was going to be a veterinarian specializing in cats. Then I looked at my math grades, and… Actually, just looked at my grades in general. I was like, "Oh, hey." It turns out I'm good at art. Went to college to do that. I… Like, I can render. I have good technical chops that I have used outside of school. I've been an art director. I've even illustrated some things. But I looked at the stuff that my friends were doing and realized that I had technique, but I didn't actually have anything to say. With puppets, I had both. I had the technique, and I had things I wanted to say. I had a voice that was specific to me. I fell in love with that, and chased it, and did that for 20+ years. Somewhere along the way, also started writing again. Because I had stopped. Again, had that moment of, "Oh. Not only is this fun for me, but there are things I want to say." It's very much the storyteller with any tool you will give me. But some of them I have more things to say than others.

[Howard] That is fascinating to me, because I feel like… Well, you and I are clearly very different people. Because I feel like if I got something to say, and I have technique, then I got something to say using that technique. I've seen your art and was… You drew a picture on a tablet at one point when we were in Chicago. I remember looking at it and thinking why are you not just doing this. You've got so many wonderful things to say, and clearly you've got mad art chops, why don't you say them that way? So that… I don't understand that. I'm not denying that it's a thing, but I just don't understand it.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. It doesn't make sense to me either. Honestly. I don't know…

[Meow]

[Mary Robinette] Elsie however does have things to say.

[Chuckles]

 

[Dan] Well, let me ask you a question, Mary Robinette. Was there a specific moment or project or story that helped crystallize for you either visual art is not for me or puppetry is for me? Because of that, I have something I want to say. Is there anything specific attached or is it more broad than that?

[Mary Robinette] It's broader. Some of it is the difference in where I am in my life, I guess. But with the… I mean, with the writing, I very clearly remember that I was… When I came back to it, my niece and nephew had moved to China with my brother. Skype was not yet reliable thing. So I started writing this story for them. If you go back pretty far into episodes, you can find a thing where we do a deep dive on an outline for… I think I was calling it Two Ordinary Children or Journey to the East, I can't remember which. But it's the novel that brought me back to writing. I remember that I was starting to write this thing as a serial for my niece and nephew. I thought, well, you know, I'll just write an episode and all kind of choose your own adventure my way through it. And that I was… I was starting to think about what happened next and starting to wonder where the story was going and that I wanted to know what happened next. That was this moment of going, "Oh, I think I have something here." That curiosity, that wonder, that is the next thing, what's the surprise. For whatever reason, when I draw, when I paint, I love it. I really en… It's very satisfying. But it is not surprising for me. There's no curiosity about what's the next thing around the corner for me.

[DongWon] I think that is such a wonderful way to think about it, and I'm so glad that you expressed it that way. I… One thing that I always encourage people against is this idea of comparison. That moment you had when you looked at the stuff that your friends were creating and what I thought you were going to say is, "And I could see they were so much better than me." That's not what you said. That's a really important difference. What you said is that you found your voice and your excitement in a different style of art. So I don't want people out there to just get discouraged and stop doing one thing. But the way you did it instead is you got very encouraged by something new and exciting and followed that passion. Which is such a better way of making that decision.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. Like I… As I said, I use those skills. It has framed the way I approach things. I still take enormous satisfaction from it. It's just I get more satisfaction from other things. I have stories to tell that I… The tools for me are better with puppets than with fiction.

 

[DongWon] You're exploring all these different media, you're exploring all these techniques. To sort of refill your creative tank? To sort of get back to the writing side, or is it all kind of orthogonal, incidental to each other?

[Mary Robinette] It's… It depends. There's… A lot of this is a new understanding of it. If you had asked me this at the beginning of… When I joined Writing Excuses, I'm sure I would have answered it differently, but I don't know how I would have answered it. Because at the time, I didn't understand that I had ADHD. One of the things that helps is the new. Like, I'm drawn to the new. In hindsight, it's like, "Oh, that's why I had a very successful career in theater," because theater is… Everything is… It's constantly moving to a new show. You do that show and you get really good at it. Then the season is over and you go to a new show. Or you're doing a television show and it's a different… Each episode is different, and you have to learn this technique and that for this particular thing. So it was constantly… New was constantly happening. With the writing, I think that's one of the reasons that I keep moving genre is because that's some of where that newness comes for me. But I also… One of the other things for me that is a driver, and again, it's like, "Oh, in hindsight," is the challenge. So the refilling of the well, it's less about going to something else to refill the well, and more about finding something new to challenge me. So sometimes that's the "I'm going to take my friend's advice and try to write this book without an outline."

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] Sometimes it's "I'm going to learn to make a Regency gown that is entirely handsewn."

[Oh, wow.]

 

[Howard] Okay. On that terror inducing note, let's take a quick break for a thing of the week, and then were going to come back and… I've got some cool questions queued up.

[Mary Robinette] I want to talk about The Monsters We Defy by Leslye Penelope. So I met Leslye through a friend of a friend and was told this person is great. Then I was like, "You know, I'd like to…" Correct, Leslye is fantastic and extremely talented and smart. Then I was like, "Let me read this person's fiction." So I listened to The Monsters We Defy. It is such a good audiobook. So it is prohibition black Washington heist novel with ghosts. It is so good. The heist is so beautifully structured. Like, I spent a lot of time looking at how to construct a heist, and this one is so just exquisitely handled. There is the assembling of the team beats, and I love all of the teams. There's the… There's… Every heist, there's a twist, and the twist is… It's just so cleverly handled and moving in the way that it's handled. It's… I can't tell you about it, but you need to listen to this book. It's also really well narrated. It is smart, it is moving, it's funny. It's dealing with generational trauma. It's dealing with fashion. It's dealing with magic and ghosts and I love it a lot. I keep talking about it on kind of everything I go on. So, this is The Monsters We Defy by Leslye Penelope.

 

[Howard] I have a question about the toolbox. Because, Mary Robinette, you have thrown so many tools at us during the last decade or so. The MICE Quotient, obviously, we come back to a lot. The axes of power that you've talked about a little more recently. Discussions of creation of tension. Discussions of the way learning to read things aloud changes the way you write. Do you have a go to favorite when you're stuck? When you fall back on craft, what's the first tool you reach for?

[Mary Robinette] Yes-but, no-and. Because almost always, when I am stuck…

[Howard] Sorry. I thought you were yes-but no-anding my question. And I'm like, "It wasn't enough?"

[Laughter]

[DongWon] The worst improv tool ever.

[Laughter]

[Dan] That's going to be my new response when I get interviewed in like someone else's podcast. Just…

[Laughter]

[Howard] It sounds like a game. Yes-but, no-and.

[Laughter]

[Howard] Mary Robinette, please continue.

[Mary Robinette] Yes. But…

[Howard] No.

[Mary Robinette] Okay. So, the reason that I said, "Yes-but, no-and," is that almost always when I'm stuck, it's because of the "Okay, but what is the next thing that supposed to happen next?" It's usually I have a general idea of the scene and I'm in the scene and I'm like, "Oh. This is okay. But where's? What's the…?" So I look at what my character is trying to accomplish. So I guess in many ways the actual answer is that I go back to my theater roots and I'm like, "But what's my motivation?" Then, once I got the motivation, it's the question of does she succeed at this thing? It's going to be yes, she succeeds, but there is a negative consequence. Or, no, she doesn't succeed, and there's a negative consequence. Then, more recently, when I'm in the latter part of the book, realizing that the but and the and represent directions of progress. So, yes is closer to the goal. But is a reversal. And is continued motion. So yes-and gets me closer to the goal. So it's yes, and a bonus action. That has helped me so many times when I'm kind of trying to inch forward towards the ending. It's reaching for that has been very useful in a scene. Especially if it's like something is coming too easily for the character, or it's coming… It's too hard. I can, like, "Okay, you can adjust direction of action."

 

[Howard] Okay. 

[Erin] I'm curious…

[Howard]  Who else has questions? Erin?

[Erin] I'm curious, yes, what the… So, you have all these amazing tools. I'm curious if there's anything you wish you had a tool for, but you haven't yet figured out. Something that you're working towards figuring.

[Mary Robinette] Um… Hah… Yeah. That's a great question. So… I'm sitting here… What… For the people who don't have the video feed, I'm staring into the middle distance as I think about the novel that I am writing right now. I wish that… So. Huh. A thing that I have been thinking about a lot recently, which I will talk about later in the season, is the difference between conflict and tension. I wish I had a set of tools for talking about tension that is not conflict based and how to manipulate it. I'm starting to kind of be able to identify it and some of the tools to manipulate it. But it is still such a new concept to me because so much of my training as a writer has been story must have conflict. I've been coming to realize that a story must have tension and that conflict is the easiest way to teach that. But that I don't think that it has to have conflict. So, like, one of the things that I'm actually trying to do in this book is have people… Is have the conflict come from the cooperation. Or have the tension come from the cooperation. It's… It is such… Like, it is working, but I don't have a toolbox for it. I'm definitely feeling myself… My way through it and am looking forward to being at a point where I can reverse engineer it, and can reverse engineer what other people are doing. Like, I can tell that other people… It's like, "Okay. This is a subverted expectation." What are the dials for setting up that expectation? What's the point at which you subvert it? Does it matter which direction that you do the subvers… Like, when you veer off of the expectation, does it matter which direction you go? How do you control that? Like, I really… I am… That's, for me, the toolbox that I'm excited to get my hands on next.

[DongWon] That's so cool.

[Howard] Let me know when you've got that one labeled.

[Laughter]

[DongWon] I love watching your process, Mary Robinette. Because… This reminds me of, like, there's a thing that the physicist Richard Feynman said at some point about you don't truly understand the concept until you can teach it to a freshman seminar.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[DongWon] I see you over and over again tackle these new ideas, these new techniques, these new things. Like, watching you sort of figure out how to internalize it, how to do it, and then how to explain it to other people, seems to be the cycle that I see you go through. It's always really exciting just to watch that and participate in it, and end up getting to reap the benefits of the results at the end there.

[Mary Robinette] My dad says that actually what I is an engineer, really. He's sad that I didn't go into programming.

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] The rest of the world is happy that I did not.

[Howard] There is a computer somewhere that is very sorry that it's not running a Mary Robinette Kowal program. But it's not running one, so it's unable to speak to us, so… Meh. Oh, well.

 

[Howard] Hey, do you have some homework for us?

[Mary Robinette] I do. What I want you to think about is, I want you to think about the skills that your non-writing life has given you. I talk a lot about the stuff that I've brought from puppetry. Dan has talked about the stuff that he's brought from doing audio. Which is, granted, still writing, but it is the non-writing aspect. Howard talks about the stuff that he gets from drawing. DongWon and Erin are going to be talking about these things as well as we go through the season. So think about your own life. What is a lens that you have that gives you a toolset that is exciting to play with in your writing?

[Howard] Thank you very much, Mary Robinette. This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.