20.31: Framing the Lens

Writing Excuses

Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler

Fiction, Business, Careers

4.7 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 3 August 2025

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This year, we’ve been looking at writing through various different lenses. In two weeks, on August 24th, we’ll begin a 5-part deep dive into these lenses through a specific book: All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders. There will be many spoilers in these episodes, so please read the book if you haven’t already!

Now, we’re talking about choosing what your lens is focused on. How do you choose what’s in your story—and what’s not? In this episode, we talk about how to make this choice, and how this informs all the other choices you’ll make. After we talk about how to decide where to draw the box around your story, we dive into the exterior framing of your story (AKA stories may exist in their own world, but they still have to be read in ours).

Homework: Take a story you’re working on and think about what happens if you shift the frame just a little. The easiest way to do this is to ask yourself, is there a scene I could take out that would change the way that the lens or the story is focused? What new scene would you add in to re-balance your story? Then, go and write that scene. And have fun with it!

P.S. Our 2025 writing retreat (on a cruise! In Mexico!) is over 50% sold out! Learn more and sign up here.

Credits: Your hosts for this episode were Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, and Erin Roberts. 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/donations

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 www.com
0:11.8	slash writing excuses.
0:15.2	Season 20, episode 31.
0:19.3	This is writing excuses.
0:21.6	Framing the Lens.
0:23.6	I'm Mary Robinette.
0:24.6	I'm Erin.
0:25.6	And I'm Dan.
0:26.6	And wow, we are almost to the end of our entire lens lineup.
0:32.6	We have gone through many, many lenses.
0:35.6	And before we get into this one, I just want to make sure that
0:39.3	you're aware that in two weeks, we are going to start our deep dive into all the birds in the
0:44.9	sky. So if you haven't read it, this is a great time to get in there and read it because we
0:51.0	will be dropping so many spoilers. And we want you to have a chance to experience
0:55.3	the book before we get into it. But first, we're going to talk about frame. And the reason that this
1:02.4	one, I thought would be a great one to kind of go last is we've talked a lot a little,
1:06.7	a lot about what happens when you're using whatever lens you're using. But not how you choose
1:12.0	what the lens is actually focused on. How do you choose what's in your story and what's not?
1:18.0	All the decisions that we've been talking about sort of presume that you already know what you're
1:22.3	focused on, but how do you make that choice? And how does it inform all the other choices that we've been making?
1:28.6	I think that that's actually one of the hardest things, especially for a new writer, is deciding what to leave out.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

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.