20.49: Using Tone and Mood

Writing Excuses

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

Business, Careers, Fiction

4.6 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 7 December 2025

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week, Mary Robinette pulls back the curtain on some of fiction’s sneakiest power tools: tone and mood. Drawing from a recent craft class she taught for her Patreon, Mary Robinette breaks down how these elements shape a reader’s emotional experience—and why they deserve as much attention as plot or structure. DongWon, Erin, and Howard jump in to poke at the definitions, debate where tone and mood collide, and explore how contrast, character reactions, and even sentence rhythm can totally change a scene. Expect examples ranging from Wizard of Oz to Mike Flanagan as we dig into practical ways to use tone and mood to supercharge your storytelling. Homework: Take a five-part mystery structure (crime → investigation → twist → breakthrough → conclusion) and write a story that uses that structure but is not obviously a mystery. ANNOUNCEMENTS: Last Annual Cruise The final WXR cruise sets sail for Alaska in September 2026—don’t miss your chance to be part of it. Learn more and sign up here. *Scholarship applications for our cruise are open now until December 31st, 2025. You can learn more and apply here. Call for Writing Breakthroughs Have you had a breakthrough in your writing because of Writing Excuses? If so, we want to hear about it. Fill out this Writing Breakthroughs Google Form for a chance to be featured in a WX Newsletter! Credits: Your hosts for this episode were Erin Roberts, Mary Robinette Kowal, Howard Tayler, and DongWon Song. It was produced by Emma Reynolds, recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson. Join Our Writing Community! Writing Retreats Newsletter Patreon Instagram Threads Bluesky TikTok YouTube Facebook Our Sponsors: * Check out HomeServe and use my code homeserve.com/excuses for a great deal: https://www.homeserve.com * Check out Talkiatry and use my code Talkiatry.com/WX for a great deal: https://www.talkiatry.com Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/writing-excuses2130/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everybody, this is Erin, and I've got a question for you.
0:05.1	What have you learned from writing excuses that you use in your own writing?
0:10.9	Now, we talk a lot about tools not rules, which means there are things that we're going to say that you're going to be like, yes, that is for me.
0:19.2	That's the tool I'm going to use in my next project. And there are others that you're going to be like, I, that is for me. That's the tool I'm going to use in my next project.
0:21.9	And there are others that you're going to be like, I'm going to leave that to the side.
0:26.2	And what we want to know is which of the things that we're saying have really worked for you?
0:32.9	What's the acronym you're always repeating? What's the plot structure you keep coming back to? What's a
0:39.3	piece of advice that has carried you forward when you've been stuck in your work, or that you've been
0:44.3	able to pass on to another writer who's needed advice or help? However you've used something that
0:50.8	you've learned from us, we want to know about it and we want to share it with the
0:55.5	broader community. Every month, we're going to put one of your tips or tricks or tools in the
1:03.0	newsletter so that the rest of the community can hear, how have you actually taken something that we've
1:09.1	talked about and made it work for you? And I'm
1:12.6	personally just really excited to learn about these because a lot of times y'all take the things that
1:18.9	we say and use them in such ingenious and interesting ways to do such amazing writing that I'm
1:25.7	just like chomping at the bit to get in these tools and
1:29.3	tips and share them with everybody else. So if you're interested, please go to our show
1:35.8	notes and fill out the form there and be part of this project and just share with us what
1:41.6	you're doing, what you've learned, and how you're using it so that we can share with everybody else.
1:47.5	Really excited again to get all this in because honestly, what we say is made real and important and meaningful by what y'all do with it.
1:59.0	With that, you are out of excuses.
2:02.0	Now go tell us what works for you.
	...

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