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...
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...
Apr 22, 2014 | Book Three, fantasy, Imagination & Creativity, Paths of Alir, Philosophy, World-Building, writing |
Last week I finished penning the third book in my epic fantasy series and sent it off to beta readers. Paths of Alir was two years in the planning/writing, and the final clocked in around 300,000 words. (It is an epic fantasy. Providing a series is well-crafted,...
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...