Posts Tagged: ‘Brion Humphrey’

First Anniversary Episode, Part I (Guest Hosts: Christopher Moore and Alasdair Stuart)

March 12, 2013 Posted by Dave Robison

The Roundtable Podcast, First Anniversary Episode pt I, with Christopher Moore, Alasdair Stuart, and Brion Humphrey So here we are, one year into our ongoing search for Literary Gold and we were wondering how we can celebrate.  The answer came from long-time fan Peter Ellis… workshop our OWN stories (thanks, Peter)!

We have the remarkable Christopher Moore – author of exquisite tales of satirical humor – returning to the Big Chair, and we wheel in a second Big Chair for our Special Co-Guest Host and veteran RTP Host Alasdair Stuart! With this astonishing Duo of Awesomeness we are primed for some epic story workshopping… of Brion’s story idea!!

Alasdair Stuart

Alasdair Stuart

Brion’s tale of a dystopian post-apocalyptic horror serves as a marvelous opportunity not only to explore a very cool story idea, but also to observe how two masters of their craft approach the same story terrain. The end result is an intricate tapestry of concept and perception woven densely with threads of Literary Gold. (and more writerly goodness will be found at Chris’s Showcase Episode AND you can check out Alasdair’s Showcase and Workshop Episodes as well)

PROMO: “Subversion” by John Mierau

Anniversary Episode, pt I (Guest Hosts: Christopher Moore and Alasdair Stuart)

[caution: mature language and themes - listener discretion is advised]

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Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:18:07 — 53.6MB)

Check out this and all our episodes on iTunes and on Stitcher Radio!

Of matters Moore and Stuart… (more…)

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Categories: Episodes, Workshop Episodes

Master Procrastination and the Disciplinary Imperative

April 28, 2012 Posted by Brion Humphrey

Writing...writing...research...Tacos!

“If we let too much time to lapse, the thread will snap and getting back to it later will cause the flow of our writing to become stilted and disjointed.”

I’ll get to it later.

I have to spend time with my wife /family /friend /posse /dog /herd of rabid monkeys or they’ll hate me.

I write best at night, so right now I’ll just do research (watch TV).

I’m hungry, let me just eat a sandwich first…or a taco…or a sandwich AND a taco.

I’m currently 63,000 words into my second novel attempt.  Sounds fairly impressive, but I’ve been at 63,000 words for the last six weeks.  Sure, I’ve written two short stories, a couple blog entries, participated in recording ten-or-so Roundtable episodes(my favorite distraction besides my wife), taught, graded papers and lesson-planned for about 60 hours a week, etc., etc., and on, and on.  A lot like you! But is all of that really keeping me from writing my book?  Yes.  Because I let it.

We all are experts at wasting time, and the successful few have learned to at least minimize the bastard! We’ve all heard and read countless papers and pamphlets and programs on how to beat down the maniacal villain known as Master Procrastination.  That is not what this post is going to do.

Instead, it’s important to look at why we need to get our butts in seats and get to work and leave the hot pocket (or two) in the freezer. (more…)

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Categories: Ideas and Inspiration, Story Development

Love Your Bad Self!

April 4, 2012 Posted by Brion Humphrey

Brion Humphrey as... The Dark One

The Dark One

“We want to believe the best of who we are, and ignore and deny the worst.  The most intriguing moment of a story is when a villain begins to convince a reader that what he is doing may actually be necessary…”

As writers, we often romanticize our protagonists, endowing them with ruggedly handsome, or sweepingly enchanting good looks, special abilities that set them above the fray and add intrigue, and razor dialogue that always leads them to exactly the right thing to say at the right time.  Our heroes are, after all, in some way not too short of narcissism, based on ourselves.  And don’t we love to pretend we are that cool?

One thing that we definitely do with our protagonist, is give him a sense of duty born from a true conviction.  He believes in what he does, and what he does is right and just.  This aspect of a character is why he acts and plays out the trials and conflicts in the story.  Ultimately, it is also why we as readers follow him into whatever danger his belief conjures.

But what of the villain?  Why do so many bad guys fall flat and fail to intrigue readers?  And why, as writers, do we spend so little time developing our antagonists as fully as even our sidekicks?

What of a villain bent on world domination, or a bad guy who just likes to kill? Isn’t that good enough to tell a good story?

(more…)

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Try Something New

February 28, 2012 Posted by Brion Humphrey

Photo by Rob Brewer

-More than one of them cried out in pain, “This is impossible, my brain hurts!”-

 

Write what you know.

Really?  Do I have to?

It’s because of these four, seemingly innocuous words that people like me spend hours staring at the damn cursor on the soul-suckingly blank screen.  How often have you shied away from writing something you’re interested in because you simply do not feel that you know enough?  Tech specs, genre specifics, races, clichés, real names of types of laser beams…

I didn’t grow up reading Science Fiction.  I was a slow reader and the true fascination for me was fantasy, but I could only swallow about a book a year.  So when, for the first time, I sat down to try my sonic-galacto-pen at Sci-Fi, I was stumped and all I could hear, bleeding through my brain in a repetitive, tin-robotic drawl, was “you don’t know anything about science fiction, so you can’t write it.”

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Categories: Ideas and Inspiration, Story Development

Episode Zero-Point-Five

February 21, 2012 Posted by Dave Robison

I know… “Zero-Point-Five”?

But SO much has happened since we started this project and Brion and I wanted to update everyone on our progress and some of the cool things we’ve discovered, both about the podcast and ourselves.

 

 

Roundtable Podcast: Episode Zero-Point-Five
[warning: contains mature language]

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Podcast: Download (Duration: 29:12 — 26.7MB)

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Categories: Episodes, Showcase Episodes

Escape Solitary Confinement!

January 22, 2012 Posted by Brion Humphrey

“…though we often soliloquize about writing being a solitary existence with coveted ideas held closer to the chest than Bluebeard’s key to his chamber of torture and death, writing should never be a purely individual undertaking.”

While wrapping up a perfectly productive Friday, I led my students through a discussion of Charlie Fish’s fabulously wicked short story, “Death by Scrabble.”  We were exploring conflict, its relation to tight plot development and the vicious need for stake raising in fiction of all kinds, not just those stories teeming with vampires.  I was just about to close the conversation when one of my students raised his hand and pointed out a connection in the story that I, after four years and twenty four class periods of teaching it, had never recognized.  It was subtle, it was pivotal, it was brilliant, and I had become too familiar with the overall story, and the story’s punch line, to see it.

It is entirely possible to get too close to things: the novel you’ve been writing for ten years, the short story that you’ve rewritten over and over a thousand times that still just doesn’t seem quite right, a lion at the zoo…

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Episode Zero

January 15, 2012 Posted by Dave Robison

In this “pre-episode” episode, Brion and I introduce ourselves and layout what the Roundtable Podcast actually IS.

 [NOTE: The legal segment of this episode is NOT ACCURATE.  We'll be recording a follow up once we do more research]

 

 

 

Roundtable Podcast: Episode Zero
[warning: contains mature language]

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Podcast: Download (Duration: 36:57 — 25.4MB)

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Categories: Episodes, Showcase Episodes