20.36: Deep Dive into “All the Birds in the Sky” - Using the Lens of When

Writing Excuses

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

Fiction, Business, Careers

4.7 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 7 September 2025

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

If you still want to read All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders, you can purchase it here!

We are looking today at the lens of when. But we’re not going to look at time periods—instead, we’re going to examine flashbacks and foreshadowing. “All the Birds in the Sky” takes place in four distinct times. For instance, one of the characters foreshadows a grim future for the children we’ve just met. This big jump forward colors the way that we see the kids, through both stakes and tension. And this begs the question, how do “future whens” affect your reading experience?

Homework: Pick a scene in your current project and think about two moments: one moment in the past of this scene, and one that is in the future (both of these moments should still resonant with this scene in some way). Then, write two different versions of the scene: one in which the past weighs heavily on it, and one in which the foreshadowing of the future weighs heavily on it. Then, see what the difference is.

P.S. Want to come write with us in September 2025 (we know that’s soon)?! Our retreat registration is open, and we are starting to fill up! We are going to unlock our creative processes in Minnesota and explore Story Refinement as we cruise down the Mexican Riviera! Learn more here.

Credits: Your hosts for this episode were Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Dan Wells, Erin Roberts, and Howard Tayler. It was produced by Emma Reynolds, recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson.

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Transcript

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0:45.6	Season 20, episode 36. This is writing excuses. Deep dive on all the birds in the sky through the lens of when i'm mary robinette
0:57.0	i'm don juan i'm dan i'm aaron and i'm howard and we are going to be looking today at the
1:03.5	lens of when which is a little bit of a cheat because when we did our lenses we put where and when
1:09.2	together and we did i think a single episode about time.
1:12.8	And I am also going to cheat in that this story takes place, this book takes place in multiple time periods,
1:19.0	but I'm completely uninterested in that. I'm not going to talk about it at all. Instead,
1:24.9	what interests me is the use of foreshadowing. Because when I think about time,
1:28.4	I think a lot about flashback and foreshadow, where you are in the time of the story, the when
1:33.6	of the story moment. Well, and it's interesting because this book takes place in four different
1:39.0	times, but they are not presented chronologically. There are a lot of flashbacks in it.
1:44.8	And so she is using time very intentionally and very specifically.
1:51.3	And just because something took place like in school for Patricia doesn't mean that we're
	...

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