Recently, I’ve been blown away by some of the casts of the fantasy books I’ve been reading. Two in particular don’t just have a realistic protagonist. Many of the mid-tier characters also seemed capable of just hopping off of the page. I know I don’t do many character-related blog posts, but today we’re going to … More Creating Realistic Characters: A Song of Wraiths & Ruin, a Case Study
While I was working on my current project–which is a high fantasy piece–there were a lot of resources I found myself pulling from in order to make the story as realistic, consistent, and good as possible. It seemed like a good idea to me to put all, or at least the most important, of those … More Writing Resources for Fantasy Authors
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 … More Choosing the Opacity of Your World-Building
Today’s blog post is going to be a little different from what I usually do in my final post of the month. However, I came to a decision a month or two ago regarding a specific writing project of mine. That is, I decided to stop working on it for the time being, and focus … More Knowing When to Quit
In previous blog posts, I’ve discussed how you can use characters to generate plot. Naturally, you can also use known plot points to determine essential character traits that will need to be incorporated. If you know there will be a scene where your character will have to decide to trust someone, then, until that point, … More A Web of Stories
So we are one week into NaNoWriMo, and I hope things are going well for all of the participants. But, if things are already starting to slow, I thought I’d spend a few minutes today talking about how to decide where to send your plot. A story’s plot is one of those things where you … More Turning Characters Into Plot
It starts next week, guys. The big 50k challenge is right around the corner. I hope at this point that you have a pretty good grasp on your project, whatever it is. But if you’re otherwise finished with plotting and characters, then take advantage of the last week of prepping to flesh out your world … More NaNoWriMo 2019: Setting
I’m maybe over halfway done with my plotting at this point, and it’s honestly such a good thing that I’m getting a feel for my characters in the process. I don’t think I’d otherwise have had much time to sit down and get to know them all personally before November strikes. We’re already halfway through … More NaNoWriMo 2019: Characters
A little less than a week ago, I made myself sit down and think about what it was I wanted to do for this year’s NaNoWriMo challenge. There were a few different options. One: I could use it as an opportunity to explore another major story that is happening in the world of my main … More NaNoWriMo 2019: Story Planning
Reading and writing are two completely different beasts. When writing a novel, every element feels like it needs to fall into place accordingly. Everything from the big stuff, like plot points, to the smaller things, like a character’s name. However, the things we focus on as writers tend not to be the things people focus … More Power in a Name
