Podcast Episodes
Back to Search13.27: Characters as Foils
Season 13 Episode 27
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary, Amal, and Maurice A foil is a character who serves as a contrast to another character. The foil might be a sidekick, an an…
7 years, 10 months ago
13.26: Character Relationships
Season 13 Episode 26
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary, Dan, and Howard Our characters become far more interesting when they begin interacting with each other. These interactions…
7 years, 10 months ago
13.25: Our Journey With Character
Season 13 Episode 25
Your Hosts: Brandon, Valynne, Dan, and Howard Brandon wanted to ask us how our perspectives on character have changed since the very beginning of our…
7 years, 11 months ago
13.24: What Writers Get Wrong, with Piper, Aliette, and Wesley, with special guest Ken Liu
Season 13 Episode 24
Your Hosts: Piper Drake, Aliette de Bodard, and Wesley Chu, with special guest Ken Liu Our hosts for this episode are experts in a great many differe…
7 years, 11 months ago
13.23: Internal Conflicts
Season 13 Episode 23
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary, Amal, and Maurice Internal conflicts, simply put, are problems your characters have with themselves. In this episode we ad…
7 years, 11 months ago
13.22: Character Arcs
Season 13 Episode 22
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary, Dan, and Howard When Mary says we could do fifteen different episodes on character arcs, she's being conservative. Notwith…
7 years, 11 months ago
13.21: Q&A on Character Depth and Motivation
Season 13 Episode 21
Your Hosts: Brandon, Valynne, Dan, and Howard Our listeners submitted some great questions! How do you fairly and even-handedly write a deeply compel…
8 years ago
13.20: Fear and Writing, with Emma Newman
Season 13 Episode 20
Your Hosts: Dan, Mary, Aliette, and Howard, with special guest Emma Newman Emma Newman, author, audio book narrator, and podcaster, joined us on the …
8 years ago
13.19: Backstories
Season 13 Episode 19
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary, Amal, and Maurice Character backstories: these are the tales that describe how the characters in your story became who the…
8 years ago
13.18: Naturally Revealing Character Motivation
Season 13 Episode 18
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary, Dan, and Howard What motivates us? What really motivates us? Why? (Note: our motivations are probably not in service of so…
8 years ago