In this week’s new Writing Excuses episode, Hybrid Outlining and Discovery Writing, Brandon, Dan, Howard, and Piper answer some questions: what can discovery writers learn from outlining? What can outliners learn from discovery writing? Is there a balance between the two that can serve as a happy, productive place for writers? (Summary of answers: lots, lots, and yes-but-not-all-writers.)

Last week, in Tor.com’s continuing reread posts for Warbreaker, while Siri was feeling guilty about enjoying her political challenges, Vivenna barely escaped with her life—twice. This week, in chapters 36 and 37, Siri and Susebron have a picnic on the floor, while Vivenna wanders the slums in despair.

The Twitter post archive for May is up to date.

Brandon will be out of the country for the next few weeks so we are going to change the format for this week’s #FaqFriday poll. You will see a variety of topics ranging from the the cosmere to writing advice and I will take the top rated questions to Brandon and give the answers over the next few weeks. As always, if you have a question you’d like to get answered by Brandon, please leave a comment in whichever location (Facebook, Twitter, Google +, or Instagram) and I will add it to the list of potential questions.

Full questions:

• Would it be possible to have a “shardgun”? (shardblade in the form of a gun)
• I’m not good at writing sexy scenes. Can you give me hints on how to imply that sexy stuff is happening behind the scenes?
• Are there parallels with your own personal spiritual journey that come out in characters like Hrathen in Elantris and Sazed in Mistborn?
• My husband and I have noticed parallels in each of the cosmere books with Socio-political structures and events throughout history. Have you drawn inspiration from historical events for how certain situations would evolve or are these parallels mere coincidence?
• One thing I wondered throughout Mistborn was if Ruin represents the concept of Entropy or the concept of Decay? It seems that the Shards seem to represent universal constants, and while it is evident what Preservation or Cultivation represents, Ruin seems more ambiguous.
• If a fantasy book had a bad (Not Happy) ending, would it affect the sales, the Goodreads rating, the overall satisfaction of the readers? Would publishers even publish a fantasy book with a bad ending?
• Can you give any tips for writing metaphors?
• In the first draft of The Way of Kings Kaladin was called Merin. Are there any other characters whose names you’ve changed?
• Can holders of Shards give them up voluntarily? I think this is what we see in a certain long novella, but can any vessel do this? If they do, will the power splinter quickly after they release it?