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 moreCategory: sff
Worldbuilding: 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 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 moreHeinlein’s First Rule
If you go to workshops– especially SF/F related workshops– or otherwise seek out Writing Advice, sooner or later you’re going to hear Heinlein’s Five Rules for getting published. The rules […]
Read moreWorldbuilding: Aliens and Environments
Now I’m working on Banshee, a space-opera novel that, on a fundamental level, is about putting a human being on a ship with a whole lot of different aliens and […]
Read moreFuture Worldbuilding: Choosing the Future
I’ve now switched gears, in earnest, with my “primary” writing project. I’ve written four books in Maradaine and the world around it (six if you also count the two trunked […]
Read morePerils of the Writer: Writing Race in SF/F
A little story from some 20 years ago: My college roommate and I were watching Deep Space Nine, and in the episodes a small group of Bajorans were meeting with […]
Read moreWorldbuilding/Perils of the Writer: One-Story Worlds vs. Many-Story Worlds
There are pretty much two ways a sf/fantasy writer can go about writing and worldbuilding: come up with a story, and build a world for it to be in; or […]
Read morePerils of the Writer: The Overexplanation of Genre
I recently discovered a little gem of satire: How David Weber Orders a Pizza. Go check it out. I’ll wait. Back? I’ll admit, I laughed a lot there, because it […]
Read moreLoneStarCon and the Amazing People in this Industry
So, I will attending WorldCon in San Antonio at the end of the month, though I won’t be appearing on any panels. Given the size and scope of this thing, […]
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