Writing Excuses

If you still want to read All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders, you can purchase it here!We are looking today at the lens of when. But we’re not going to look at time periods—instead, we’re going to examine flashbacks and foreshadowing. “All the Birds in the Sky” takes place in four distinct times. For instance, one of the characters foreshadows a grim future for the children we’ve...

If you still want to read All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders, you can purchase it here!Today we’re talking about places and place-moments. We’re looking at how Anders uses context, details, and relationships to create a deep, familiar, and authentic reading experience for us, even if we’ve never been to the locations in the story. In this episode we’re also analyzing how Anders...

Last season we took different works to represent different concepts. But this season, we’re looking at a single work— All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders. So, for the next five episodes, we’re going to look at how Anders’ novel is deploying all of the lenses we’ve talked about this season—who, where, why, and when. And for our fifth episode, we’ll have Anders on the podcast to talk...

Throughout this season, we have been doing a series of episodes that feature different metaphors for writing. Today, we’re talking about raising children and what it can teach us about our own writing practice. It’s common knowledge that parents want their children to grow up to be happy and successful. But the real joy in raising children, Dan and Howard tell us, is watching them express their...

Téa Obreht is a short story writer and novelist. Her debut novel, The Tiger’s Wife, won the 2011 Orange Prize for Fiction, and was a 2011 National Book Award finalist and an international bestseller. In our conversation, we focused on revision and character consciousness. Téa talked to us about the difficulty of the idea-generation stage of writing, how to cultivate layered characters, and how...

This year, we’ve been looking at writing through various different lenses. In two weeks, on August 24th, we’ll begin a 5-part deep dive into these lenses through a specific book: All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders. There will be many spoilers in these episodes, so please read the book if you haven’t already! Now, we’re talking about choosing what your lens is focused on. How do you...

Tone is one of those words people use in many different ways when talking about fiction. On today’s episode, our hosts break down what it means, how we use it, and how it can be a tool in the writer’s toolbox. We dive into the myriad emotional shades of tone, and how you can use this to deepen your story’s themes. Homework: Write a vignette in which one of your characters is pouring tea for a...

What the heck is authorial intent? Does it matter? And how do intentions end up on the page without cluttering or overwhelming the story? Today, our hosts dive into message versus content, and how to wrap your intention and narrative structure into your story’s execution.Homework: Take your work in progress, and in two sentences, describe to yourself why you are writing this (could be a scene, a...

Every story has been told. Okay, maybe not, but most stories have a tradition/ influence/ history/ genre/ style that they draw upon, even if only slightly. How do you know what traditions you're bringing to your work, and how can you use them to make your story both resonant and unique?We’re exploring the lens of “why” right now. Why do we write the stories that we write? And what did we read...

We are joined by author Mark Oshiro, who primarily writes YA and middle grade books and was a guest teacher aboard our 2024 cruise! (Our 2025 cruise is over 50% sold out! Learn more and sign up here.) We ask the question, “Why did you write this book?” while focusing specifically on theme and meaning. We discuss how authors ask questions through their work while readers bring their own answers...