So, the other day I was at physical therapy for my broken foot*, and at the next table the patient was trying to explain Game of Thrones to his therapist. […]
Read moreCategory: genre
ArmadilloCon Writers Workshop 2014
ArmadilloCon is now three months away, so I figured it was high time to turn up the signal on this year’s workshop. If you are a genre writer looking to […]
Read moreGenre Writing and Honesty
So let me talk a bit about Arrow, which is probably my favorite show currently airing on network television. And it’s certainly the best superhero-genre show, well, ever. A big […]
Read morePath to Publication, Part V: Crash and Epiphany
By 2007, I had attended the ArmadilloCon Writers’ Workshop twice. I have my “finished” novel The Fifty Year War, and a handful of fits and starts, including Crown of Druthal, […]
Read morePerils of the Writer: Hooks and Investment
Let’s talk for a moment about Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD, possibly the biggest disappointment of the current season of television. And it was the biggest disappointment because the expectations were […]
Read moreWorldbuilding: Rituals for the Dead
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 […]
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 […]
Read moreAnalysis of a SF/F Query Letter
This week we have a brave soul who is willing to have his query letter given a public critique. And there’s a good lesson in here about the overall challenges […]
Read more