Tag: Wheel of Time
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Building a Magic System (WoT Setting Study #2)
Wheel of Time is known for many things, and for its readers, channeling is often touted as an impressive magic system. It is expansive, detailed, and well-thought-out. For those who are interested in a more present, harder magic system, the series offers as a template three major facets that differentiate channeling from other magic systems.…
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Let’s Talk Tropes: Love Triangles
To the dismay of many young adult readers, the number of love triangle plot-lines exploded, in thanks, no doubt, to the success of the Twilight series. Fortunately, it did not become a staple of the fantasy genre, but a reader browsing the shelves still wouldn’t be surprised to find that a book’s synopsis hinted at…
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Sidestepping Monarchy (WoT Setting Study part 1)
The Wheel of Time series is a vast and detailed world, based not on your traditional medieval European setting but rather drawing from a multitude of sources to make each country, even those most resembling the expected medieval England-esque setting, feel very much distinct. As a result, it would be impossible to do a single…
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Let’s Talk Tropes: Instalove
Look, in a single book, there’s only so much time that two character has to fall in love with each other. Books take place in a single time-frame, and often, it’s one that spans days, weeks, or maybe months. Rarely years. Even Wheel of Time, a massive fourteen-book series, only takes place over the course…
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A Memory of Light Spoiler Rant
I did a series review of Wheel of Time, recently, and I intended for it to serve as a book review for the final book, A Memory of Light. I mean, it makes sense, especially for this book. While for most series, the payoff is in the latter half of the final book, the entirety…
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Let’s Talk Tropes: The Quest
Our last tropes discussion talked about Chosen Ones–ironically, one of the biggest character tropes in the fantasy genre. Today, I decided to focus on one of the best-known plot tropes of the genre: the quest. A quest is a trip that one or more characters–quite often, a group–embarks on in order to accomplish some important…
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The Craft of Building Minor Characters
Most people on the internet will tell you how to create your protagonist and antagonist. You know, the ones who admittedly get the most page time. But most people are also hesitant to attempt explaining how one might go about creating the less important characters that will appear throughout your story. It’s a fair problem,…
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Wheel of Time Wrap-Up (Spoiler-Free)
It took me almost a year and a half to read the whole series, but I finally finished A Memory of Light, and whoo! What a ride this has been. A pleasurable one, most of the time, but now it’s time for me to answer the question: Was it worth it? Whether you’re deciding if…
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Let’s Talk Tropes: The Chosen One
Welcome to what I hope will be the first of a series of posts focused on tropes common in the fantasy genre. So if you enjoy the post, be sure to leave a like, and while you’re there, feel free to recommend what other tropes you think I should discuss. First, a definition is in…
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Choosing the Opacity of Your World-Building
Among the multitude of differences that separate the practice of reading from the art of writing, especially when it comes to the fantasy/science fiction genres, one of the hardest to reconcile is that of world-building. For a reader, the setting cannot take center stage. Even for someone like me, who loves to explore new settings…
Katie Bachelder 