Writing Excuses 10.45: Q&A at the GenCon Writing Symposium, with Kameron Hurley, James L. Sutter, and Michael Underwood

Dan and Howard are joined by Kameron Hurley, James L. Sutter, and Michael Underwood for an anything-goes Q&A at the GenCon Indy Writing Symposium. We had reached the end of our two-hour block, but the audience hungered for the chance to ask their questions of these guests, so the Symposium gave us an extra half hour in the room. The audience had already been in this room for 120 minutes, but they wanted more more more, so we ran a bit long. * Can you advise us about Writing the Other especially regarding avoiding cultural appropriation? (yes, this question deserves an entire symposium all by itself. We answered as best we could.) * If you were trying to break in right now, what would you do, and how would you do it? * How do you best handle slithering out of making a commitment to help someone with their writing, and how do you deliver bad news to those writers if you end up committing to help anyway. * How soon do you telegraph a plot twist? * How do you, as a non-writer, be a good resource to the writers in your life? * Do you know your title at the beginning of the writing process, or does it come to you later? * How do you know when you need another revision pass, vs. when you need to simply rewrite the whole thing again? *NOTE: Back in July we attempted to record an episode on cultural appropriation with several guests hailing from marginalized and commonly misappropriated cultures, races, and backgrounds. The discussion was wonderful, but the recording itself was unusable due to an equipment failure. We wanted to share it with you, but even our brilliant mastering engineer Alex couldn't make it listenable. We promise to address this topic in the future, and we've purchased all new recording gear to ensure that we capture the discussion correctly. This episode was recorded and mastered by Alex Jackson