I’ve gone over this before, but it bears repeating: cultures have rituals to mark almost every important occasion: marking adulthood or marriage, for example. Or, it the case of the […]
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Perils of the Writer: NaNo No No No
Right now, on November 25th, the rough draft of Banshee stands at 54,932 words. If I were doing NaNoWriMo, that would be pretty impressive. But I’m not doing NaNoWriMo, and […]
Read moreWorldbuilding: Origins of Herbs and Spices
Food is a crucial part of worldbuilding. This is a point you can be certain that I will keep coming back to. And all foodstuffs, while helping define a culture, […]
Read moreHeroes, anti-heroes, and misaligned moral compasses
A degree or two off course doesn’t lead you wrong at first. At least, not too wrong that you can’t self-correct. But eventually that wrong course, that misaligned compass, leads […]
Read moreFantasy Worldbuilding: Drinks and Weapons
All right folks, here’s where I lift up the hood and show you the cheat codes… Er, that metaphor is rather mangled. The point is, I’m going to show you […]
Read morePerils of the Writer: Heroic Support and Infrastructure
Most of what I write essentially involves one or two key characters who, through choice or circumstance, have to go out and do hard, heroic things. Of course, sometimes these […]
Read morePerils of the Writer: Writing on Shuffle
I am not a NaNoWriMo person. I don’t think it’s a bad thing to do, per se, but I do think it sets an artificial ideal of breakneck pace over, […]
Read morePerils of the Genre Writer: Prophecy and Inevitability
Given my frequent mentions of Edding as, if not an influence, at least an inspiration, it’s no surprise that I think about prophecy as a tool in the fantasy writers’ […]
Read moreWorldbuilding: Shortcuts for Language Building
When it comes to worldbuilding, especially fantasy worldbuilding, constructing a language is the sort of thing you sometimes feel you ought to do, especially since Tolkien set the standard by […]
Read moreDueling Query Letters!
This time around we have two variant query letters for the same project, courtesy of Amy Judd. Let’s see what we can do for her: Version One: Genieve Hart is […]
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