Writing Excuses Transcripts

Writing Excuses 11.51: Ensemble As a Sub-Genre, with Lynne M. Thomas

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2016/12/18/11-51-ensemble-as-a-sub-genre-with-lynne-m-thomas/

Key points: Heists are often thriller or mystery plus ensemble. Sports dramas often are ensembles. Adding ensemble as subgenre can change the solutions, often adding other approaches. Ensembles often are big. Sometimes ensembles give the main characters a rest, as we follow the rest of the ensemble. Ensembles can provide the strange to mix with familiar main characters. Ensembles also can provide a framework for many small stories of another subgenre, or as the background for a series. Horror stories may use an ensemble is a cast of characters to kill. Ensembles can help avoid polemic and Mary Sue's. When introducing the members of your ensemble, work hard at compressed, good storytelling. Don't bury the reader in back story. Ensembles work best without superpowered main characters. "Bad decision theater is how great ensembles happen." Give the ensemble an arc.( Hiding in a subgenre, we find... an ensemble! )

[Brandon] Excellent. Well, Mary, you are going to give us some homework.
[Mary] Right. Since we are talking about ensemble as a subgenre, what I want you to do is look at some of the elemental genres that we have already discussed. See what happens to them if you introduce ensemble into it. Like, if you introduce ensemble into an issue, if you introduce it into a mystery, or into a thriller? What does it do to that story if you introduce the ensemble?
[Brandon] Excellent. We'd like to thank our special guest, Lynne M. Thomas.
[Lynne] Thank you. Lovely to be here.
[Brandon] We would like to thank our Writing Excuses cruise members.
[Whoo! Applause]
[Brandon] And I'd just like to take a moment to say we have really enjoyed doing the elemental genres with you. We only have a couple more weeks left of the year. We will be doing a Q&A on ensemble, but that will be the end of the elemental genres for now. I will encourage you to get excited and get ready because we will he introducing the new season to you and a couple of weeks.
[Howard] 2017's going to be pretty cool.
[Brandon] Look forward to that. And you are out of excuses. Now go write.

Writing Excuses 11.42: Elemental Drama As a Sub-Genre

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2016/10/16/11-42-elemental-drama-as-a-sub-genre/

Key points: Drama means character change. It's a basic component of a compelling story. How you introduce the conflict helps to distinguish between primary genre and subgenre. Often subgenres are short, poignant shifts, in one scene. Why add them? Because readers connect with drama, with the emotional impact. How do you add it? Think about who the character wants to be, and their fatal flaw. That gives you an internal struggle that you can manifest in external conflicts. Also consider having the character be mistaken about what they need, and discover what they really need. Subtle moments, like turning off the targeting computer, can be wonderful moments of subgenre drama. Watch for the don, don, don moments! Make sure your character earns those moments, don't just play the music and expect cheers.
( Just a moment of subgenre... )
[Brandon] We are out of time on this episode.
[Laughter]
[Brandon] Mary ruined it. We're going to run and cut it right there. We are going to give it back to Mary dangerously to give us some homework.
[Mary] All right. So. We have been talking about the ways in which a character's internal conflict affects the people around them. What I want you to think about is your starting example is you know when you're driving someplace and you're having an intense car conversation about something really heavy while at the same time having to navigate. So you have two conflicts going on simultaneously. You have an emotional conflict and a logistical conflict. What I want you to do is, I want you to look at your manuscript and take two scenes that have different conflicts. One is emotional, and related to the character's internal drama. The other is a logistical one. I want you to combine them so that things happen in the same scene in concert. Your character's going to be bouncing back and forth between dealing with those two things. Their emotional state is going to affect the way they approach the logistical problems. So I want you to try to blend those two things to make that subgenre happen within a single scene.
[Brandon] Awesome. And our audience. You guys are awesome, too.
[Yay! Whistles]
[Brandon] Thank you guys so much. This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.

Writing Excuses 11.29: Elemental Thriller As Subgenre

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2016/07/17/11-29-elemental-thriller-as-a-subgenre/

Key Points: Thriller, adrenaline, pumped! To make a thriller, make sure your character is in danger, and stays in danger. Take away the people the protagonist can trust. Keep the pot boiling -- four things at once, not just one. Try-fail cycles with yes-but/no-and and plenty of unintended consequences. Timebomb after timebomb. But don't lose what makes the main genre work, just add to it. Make it personal. Why does it matter to this character?
( When you turn the page, the bomb goes off? )

[Brandon] So, I'm going to stop us here and give you some homework. I'm going to suggest that you practice your cliffhangers. A lot of people ask me, students asked me this, I get a ton of questions over twitter about "How do you decide how long a chapter should be?" Well, one of the number one things you can learn from thrillers is practicing how to end a chapter in a way that pulls someone to the next one. What I want to avoid are the cheap tricks. So I want you to look at chapters you've written or write new ones or something monumental, something really cool happens at the end and it is so cool that the person wants to turn the page and read what happens next rather than hinting that something cool is going to happen in the next page. Practice doing this a few times. Practice chopping your chapters in different places from what you've already written. See what kind of effects you can create through varying chapter length and varying where you end them. This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses, now go write.

Writing Excuses 11.16: Adventure as a Subgenre

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2016/04/17/11-16-adventure-as-a-subgenre/

Key Points: Don't just be a cook, following a list of ingredients, be a chef who knows what each ingredient does and how to add spice to your stories! Adventure adds a sense of wish fulfillment, of everyman victory, of the normal person doing great things. Adventure takes us to exotic locations, and lets us accomplish things. Adventure gives you external adversity. It also gives you "oh, awesome" moments that come from action, from derring-do, from swashbuckling! Why do people like adventure? Wish fulfillment. Stand-up-and-cheer moments! Creative fulfillment -- how are they going to do this? The "We did it" moment at the peak of the mountain. The expectation of success. The moment of triumph. Using adventure as a subgenre? Consider the chase scene embedded in heist stories and others. Adventure can raise tension, or relieve it. Adventure lets the reader have fun! Chase scenes, fight scenes, other adventure scenes need to have bits pulled in that are important elsewhere, that the characters care about. You can use adventure as the glue, to keep it interesting and provide an external motivation to push characters together. Adventure also is a good setting for banter, to illuminate character. Show who people are under stress by adding adventure.

( And they're off on a chase... )
[Brandon] But it's time for some homework. Mary is going to give us our homework this week.
[Mary] All right. So we're talking about you using adventure as a spice. So I want you to do is I want you to grab your favorite piece of media. But not an adventure film. Not something where adventure is the main ingredient. Grab a romance, grab whatever. I want you to watch it, and I want you to note the moments when they are using the adventure as a subgenre. Also note why. Look at the transitions into the adventure, look at the transitions out of it. Think about what it is doing and what would happen if it was removed from the plot at that moment.
[Brandon] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses, now go on an adventure.

Writing Excuses 9: Sci-Fi Sub-genres
from http://www.writingexcuses.com/2008/04/06/writing-excuses-episode-9-sci-fi-sub-genre/
( The Little Stuff )
So - Space Opera goes out there and has an adventure, Mil SF lets the Space Marines kick butt, Hard SF means you gotta get the science right, and Cyberpunk can't pass a Turing test? How's that for a misguided summary?