Third Rail World Building
Politics, religion, and taboos are all parts of a good fictional world. What should authors drag into their world, and how should they highl...
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Dead Robots' Society
Writers on writing. The Dead Robots' Society, a gathering of writers podcasting to other aspiring writers, hoping to help each other along the way to the promised land of publication.
Episodes
20 of 324 episodes
Time To Let This Mother Rip?
When do you start the action in your story? How much introduction do the world and characters need before things go off the rails? The DRS C...
Info Dumps and Scams
How do you best convey the background or history of your story's universe without lengthy exposition and info dumps? Also? The scams are out...
Specificity and Vaguefulness
The DRS Crew discusses when it's appropriate to pontificate in extremis on a facet of your world, technology, science, etc and when being va...
Plot Monogamy - Mindful or Menace?
Should you start a series and only write in that series until it's finished? Or should you "play the field" and work on as many different bo...
Human Prove Human Wrote
Accusations of using AI to write fiction are growing in number and severity. How can you prove you wrote the story without the assistance of...
A Passive Protagonist?
Protagonists are usually active participants in solving plot complications. But what if they aren't? What happens when the minor characters...
Refill The Tank!
Writing a novel requires a lot of energy. Finishing one often leaves you depleted and struggling to write another word. What do you do to re...
I Am X So How Do I Write Y?
While V is at an undisclosed location, Terry asks the age-old question: how do you write believable characters when they're a different sex...
Edit This!
Before you send it to the editor, before you let another person set eyes on the manuscript, you need to edit. There are plot holes to look o...
Challenging vs Challenged Characters
How smart is your protagonist? Can they realistically solve the dread puzzle you've laid before them? Or is the situation tailor-made for th...
Author/Series/Book Branding and Other Marketing Nonsense
The DRS Crew discusses in-depth branding for authors and their work. DRS caffeinates with Larry's Coffee. If you want to purchase fair-trade...
Writer? Meet Public. Public? Meet Writer
Readers leave comments. Readers send emails. Readers respond to your social media posts. But how should you interact with them? The DRS Crew...
Quotables, Homages, and Outright Theft
When should a character or narrator use a quote? Does it have to be attributed? What about aping characters from an existing property? How d...
Infinitely Told Tales
So-called "fairy tales" are some of the oldest tales. As writers, what tropes/plots/character archetypes can we steal to use in our speculat...
Humans Do It Better
Michael J Strazinski wrote an article called "Silence Where a Story Would Have Been" that argues that the current state of the art AIs are i...
SciFi/Fantasy Social Systems and World Building
Does your future or fantasy world require a system of government? How about a social caste system? How in-depth do you need to be in constru...
Aliens and Religion
What effect, if any, would the discovery of aliens have on today's religions? Will those religions change if we become a truly space-faring...
Audible, AI, and Lawsuits
Audible is literally stealing from content creators, Eleven Labs is accused of stealing voices, and the DRS Crew is at its wits' end. DRS ca...
Timelines and Other Temporal Mischief
Terry and Veronica wonder about timelines and whether or not Paul exists after his surgery. DRS caffeinates with Larry's Coffee. If you want...