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...
Jun 23, 2013 | Book Three, Character Development, Excerpts, fantasy, Plot Development, Story Concepts, writing |
As some of you may know, I’ve been traveling in Europe this month gathering a plethora of research for book three. Much of the third installment of A Pattern of Shadow & Light is set in the Empire of Agasan – specifically in the Sacred City of Faroqhar – which in...
Apr 29, 2013 | Character Development, Imagination & Creativity, Plot Development, Writer's Block, writing |
As writers, we innately tend to know when our story is working and when it isn’t. I like to describe this awareness as a sort of resonance, but it could just as easily be compared to an engine with all pistons firing. A skilled mechanic can tell just by listening when...
Mar 12, 2013 | fantasy, Imagination & Creativity, Philosophy, Plot Development, Reviews, Uncategorized, World-Building, writing |
I’ve been struggling recently with a situation that arose from the number of positive—yes, I just said positive—reviews I’ve received on my latest novel (which, by the way, was recently selected as a Finalist for the ForeWord Book of the Year – yay!)...
Oct 31, 2012 | Character Development, fantasy, Plot Development, World-Building, writing |
Many thanks to The Cover by Brittany for originally hosting this post on her blog. Some fantasy authors cringe at the topic of world-building, but actually, it’s one of the most thrilling aspects of writing genre fiction. When we write fantasy, we become...
Oct 4, 2012 | fantasy, Plot Development, Story Concepts, Tropes, World-Building, writing |
The word trope is defined in most dictionaries as “a word or expression used in a figurative sense,” but trope has become reinterpreted in today’s vernacular to refer to an often overused plot device. The conflict inherent in tropes as they apply to genre literature...
