Writing Excuses Transcripts

Writing Excuses 11.45: Elemental Issue, with Desiree Burch

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2016/11/06/11-45-elemental-issue-with-desiree-burch/

Key points: Issue as an elemental genre is a bit different. The driver is not so much emotion, but curiosity, let me think about that. How do you avoid being preachy? Remember that the first goal of a storytelling is to be entertaining. Issues raise questions, polemics answer them. Have empathy for your audience! The more specific a work gets, the more broadly it relates to people. To let a character deal with a major issue, consider making the main plot about something else (thriller, romance...). Use multiple points of view to show us the issue in the round.

( Behind the curtains... )

[Brandon] Well, I'm going to call this, because we're going to talk about it in two weeks…
[Laughter]
[Brandon] Anyway as a subgenre, so… I'm going to let us go there. Mary, I'm going to have you give us some homework.
[Mary] Right. So what I want you to do is, I want you to get a magazine about a topic that you do not normally read. I want you to read the entire thing, cover to cover. Including the ads.
[Chuckles]
[Mary] Was that okay?
[Brandon] You just… That's all you want them to do, just read it?
[Mary] This time, you're just going to read it.
[Brandon] Take notes on the issues that arise, even if they are issues that come from the ads. We'll have you do something with that in a later week. All right. We want to thank our special guest star, Desiree Burch.
[Desiree] Thank you for having me here.
[Brandon] We want to thank our Writing Excuses cruise members.
[Whoo! Applause!]
[Brandon] And we want to thank you guys for listening. You are out of excuses. Now go write.