Writing Excuses Transcripts

Writing Excuses 11.26: Elemental Mystery Q&A

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2016/06/26/11-26-elemental-mystery-qa/

Q&A Summary:
Q: How do you balance between two mysteries in the same story? Should you even try?
A: Yes. Especially small mysteries. A plot, B plot. Be aware of when you open and close each one, and the proportion of time spent on each. Sequential, with the answer to the first mystery introducing the real problem.
Q: What types of mysteries can fit as subplots? For example, when does a murder work as a subplot rather than as a main plot?
A: Any mystery can be a subplot, just set the scope and number of clues. A subplot find the murderer can heighten tension and build characters. Make sure your murder is a complication, that it changes things for the characters.
Q: When the beta readers all figure out the mystery too early, how can I tweak it so that my readers won't have the same experience as my beta readers?
A: Ask the beta readers what tipped them off, then take that out. All mysteries in first draft are either too obtuse or too obvious, and you have to add and remove to get it right. A good red herring that gets pulled out from under everyone helps.
Q: In terms of the MICE quotient, do all mystery plots have to be idea based?
A: Yes.
Q: How do you write a protagonist that is smarter than yourself?
A: Use revision, young writer! Accelerated thinking through rewriting. Jump to a conclusion, then explain the process of thought and clues -- it was not a guess! Extra mysteries with quick solutions to show how smart we are.
Q: So you've made your protagonist really smart, smarter than the average reader and the other characters. How do you still have it be a struggle for them to solve the mystery without losing people or ruining the story just by having it all internal inside of the protagonist's head?
A: Let them make mistakes. Use red herrings that mislead them, too. Make the cost of being wrong really steep. Lack of resources, or other kinds of obstacles.
Q: How do you keep a kidnapping victim from just being a MacGuffin if they aren't recovered until the end of the story?
A: Given them a point of view, and agency through trying to rescue themselves.
Q: How intellectually stimulating can you make a genre mystery? How literary or serious can it be?
A: There's what's happening (the story) and how you tell it. These are not intrinsically related! You can tell any story with any method. Genre, especially elemental genre, does not dictate method of writing.
( All the questions... and answers, too! )

[Brandon] So, your homework. I've got your homework this time. One of the things when we were discussing these episodes we realized is mysteries are embedded so much in our stories. There are often so many of them, a surprising number. So I would like you to take a book or film that you enjoy and just jot down every mystery you can see. From who drank my milk to who killed this person or how does the magic work. Whatever it is, write down every one, and you'll start to see that the curiosity of solving a mystery is integral to almost every story that's been written. This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses, now go write.

Writing Excuses 7.9: Micro-Casting

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2012/02/26/writing-excuses-7-9-microcasting/

Key points:

-- What do you do if you don't like any of your characters? Write a different book OR change the character so you do like them.
-- How do you keep your plot on track? Outline. Decide what you are going to accomplish.
-- Real names of places or pseudonyms? How well do you know the setting?
-- How do you fix plot holes? A big Band-Aid, trowel, and spackle. Figure out what's missing, and fill in the hole.
-- How do you know when to abandon a story? Finish it first. Are you retreading old ground? Is the book not up to your standard? Is it something you wouldn't want to read?
-- How do you make sure answers to mysteries are satisfying? Write backwards. Make sure the answer fulfills the promises you made. Make your red herrings interesting too.
-- What are amateurish language-level mistakes? Repeating the same adverb frequently. Overusing adverbs. Interrobang. Repetitive sentence structure. Excessive passive voice. Avoiding said.
-- What should a scene consist of? Setting, character, plot. A problem and resolution. One or more objectives. Something that cannot be accomplished in another scene. Watch for the can of scenic worms to be opened on a scene construction podcast someday!
-- What kind of bacon is best? Streaky bacon, fakin' bacon, samgyeopsal, smoked bacon underneath real maple syrup, rouladen, and tempeh.
-- Why is Schlock, a pile of poo, likable? Most of the time, he's expressing himself. That turns him into a person.
( And for more details, press here! )
[Brandon] All right. We're going to use one of these as our writing prompt. How about this one? Do blog post and D & D play-by-post game posts count for nanowrimo? So in other words, do blog posts count for nanowrimo? So, you are going to do a narrative blog post. We'll just use this guy's thing. As your writing prompt, I want you to write a blog post in character for one of your characters, if they had a blog. Okay?
[Dan] Okay.
[Brandon] All right. This is been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses, now go write.

Writing Excuses Season Three Episode 30: Unreliable Narrators

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2009/12/13/writing-excuses-season-3-episode-30-unreliable-narrators/

Key Points: Unreliable narrator, third person limited, depends on how wrong the character's perceptions are. Unreliable narrator, first-person, often just lies to the reader. Unreliable narrator can add a subtext, another layer of meaning that the reader deduces. Another use of unreliable narrator is to let us see the character's viewpoint more clearly, since we experience their flawed view of the world. Yet another use is as a plot device to hide a twist. Epistolary stories, told through letters and journals, often are unreliable because people hide things in their writing. You can also have epigraphs that are clearly mistaken. Using third person limited unreliable narrators who are competing can introduce tension and characterize because the reader sees both sides, even though the characters don't individually know enough. Some books have a character who misleads by paying attention to red herrings and discarding real clues as meaningless. Seeing the uncertainty -- experiencing the confusion of the unreliable narrator -- also builds sympathy. Just don't withhold too much, have good reasons for what you withhold and why.
( behind the curtain... )
[Brandon] I'm going to go ahead and give our writing prompt this time. I would like you to do... to have one event occur, and then have five different perspectives of that event which are... none of which are completely true. Just people's own views of what happened. They did this once in the X-Files, it was a wonderful episode. [Note: probably X-Files Jose Chung's "From Outer Space"] The movie Hero accomplished this, different narratives explaining the same event.
[Howard] There's an episode of CSI that did the same thing.
[Dan] Rashomon by Kurosawa.
[Brandon] Give this a try yourself. This has been Writing Excuses, you're out of excuses, now go write.
[Howard] Five times.
[Dan] You're out of five excuses.