19.38: A Close Reading on Tension: Anticipation and Subversion
Writing Excuses
Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler
4.7 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 22 September 2024
⏱️ 21 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When you’re subverting your readers’ expectations, do you need to do the exact opposite of what they’re anticipating? Today, we dive into this question, using various examples of books and movies. We then examine how P. Djèlí Clark does this throughout Ring Shout– does he subvert our expectations completely? Not always. In fact, sometimes he does the opposite.
Thing of the Week: White Cat, Black Dog by Kelly Link
Homework: Write a scene listening to three different piece of music that move you in different ways.
Sign up for our newsletter:
Credits: Your hosts for this episode were Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, and Howard Tayler. It was produced by Emma Reynolds, recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson.
Join Our Writing Community!
Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/writing-excuses2130/exclusive-content
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by our listeners, patrons, and friends. |
| 0:05.6 | If you would like to learn how to support this podcast, visit |
| 0:08.9 | www.patreon.com slash writing excuses. |
| 0:15.0 | Season 19 episode 38. |
| 0:20.0 | This is writing excuses. |
| 0:22.0 | A close reading on tension, anticipation, and subversion. |
| 0:26.0 | 15 minutes long because you're in a hurry. |
| 0:28.0 | And we're not that smart. |
| 0:30.0 | I'm Mary Robinette. |
| 0:31.0 | I'm Don Juan. |
| 0:32.0 | I'm Aaron. I'm Mary Robinette. I'm Donne one. I'm Aaron. I'm Howard. |
| 0:35.0 | One of my favorite forms of tension is the thing where you set something up for the |
| 0:39.6 | reader and then you send it off in a completely different direction that they expect. |
| 0:45.0 | And it's something that P. Jelly Clark does again and again in Ring Shout. |
| 0:50.0 | An example from a different property is one that Dong One mentioned earlier in this series when they were talking about the in the |
| 0:59.7 | Candy Land remake with the opening the door the long set of stairs looking down it and going nope. |
| 1:06.4 | Like we are anticipating that and that just subverts it. |
| 1:11.0 | It just was like nope we're gonna do the exact opposite we're going to do the exact opposite. |
| 1:13.2 | We're going to go a completely different way than you're expected. |
| 1:16.6 | So when we're playing with anticipation and subversion, |
| 1:20.0 | is it necessary to always go in the exact opposite direction when you're subverting or are there other options? |
| 1:27.2 | Yeah, I feel like there's so many ways to subvert, right? There's the complete inversion, right? But then you can also just sort of sometimes make a lateral move, right? Like the nope example is the complete |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.