Writing Excuses Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 3: Stumping Howard at Conduit
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Jun 22, 2009 Joined by Eric James Stone, the hosts turn a Q&A panel into a 'Stump Howard' game. Topics include making aliens seem alien, crafting consistent characters with contrary beliefs, navigating ethical dilemmas in storytelling, metaphors in depicting violence, impact of Writers of the Future on career, handling rejections, crafting epic villains, and more.
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Writing Sympathetic Disagreeing Characters
- Write characters with beliefs you disagree with by researching and portraying those beliefs sincerely.
- Make them consistent and respectful, avoiding straw man arguments to build reader sympathy.
Making Aliens Believably Alien
- Balance aliens' similarities to humans with striking differences to make them alien yet relatable.
- Use universal traits as a base to highlight alien characteristics effectively.
Reinventing Difficult Scenes
- Howard struggled writing a scene involving child abduction because it played on false fears.
- He rewrote the scene to align with truth, which made writing it easier.