Jan 12, 2015 | Character Development, Kingdom Blades, Plot Development, Story Concepts, writing |
Many of you have been asking when book four in A Pattern of Shadow & Light will be released. All I can tell you right now is that I’ll have Kingdom Blades to you at some point in 2016 (the Muse willing). For comparison, each book in this series runs around 300,000...
Sep 15, 2014 | Character Development, Imagination & Creativity, Organic writing, Plot Development, Story Concepts, World-Building, writing |
Think of writing like sailing a massive ship. There are an enormous number of mechanical actions that synergistically combine to keep the ship plowing forward through the waves. It behooves you, as the captain of the vessel, to have an understanding of all of those...
Sep 8, 2014 | Character Development, fantasy, Imagination & Creativity, Organic writing, Philosophy, Plot Development, Story Concepts, World-Building, writing |
After my last blog post on the four things you must know before starting a novel, in which I suggested not inventing a character, kingdom or creature until the story calls for it, a number of readers wrote in to ask, should nothing be planned? My answer is absolutely...
Sep 1, 2014 | Cephrael's Hand, fantasy, Imagination & Creativity, Plot Development, Story Concepts, Tropes, World-Building, writing |
A reader recently wrote to me and asked, how do you write a novel when every time you start (oh, so many times!) you get a few chapters in and suddenly become deluged with doubts? And how, when you’re so well-read in the genre that you’ve read it all and seen it all a...
Aug 18, 2014 | Character Development, fantasy, Philosophy, Story Concepts, Tropes, villains, writing |
I want to talk about villains. Not the blackened-to-the-core, maniacally twisted kind or the ultimate evil, soul-devouring kind—I’d say genre fiction is all too familiar with stereotypical antagonists of this ilk. No, I want to talk about the villains you love to...
Jul 28, 2014 | Book Three, Imagination & Creativity, Philosophy, Plot Development, World-Building, Writer's Block, writing |
There’s something known as writing yourself into a corner. This phrase might be used to describe any number of authorial ailments, from the scene that mystifyingly “doesn’t work,” to the sinking realization—many chapters in—that your entire plot resolution hinges on...