Category Writing Topics
My own process for writing a book / is there a proper way?
How do you go about writing your novels or other writing projects? I can see clearly now that I will be going through my book in three significant drafts (definitely more, but then mostly for small changes) with a fairly swift editing/proofreading run after each. It should be noted that there are actually more than three revisions because […]
Holy [expletive], I just brutally killed one of my characters!
So, um…yeah. All of the corners in my bedroom are occupied by furniture or something else, so where am I supposed to crawl into a ball and weep? Alright, let’s be serious here, killing off your characters is tough. Who but we, the authors, have a greater connection to our characters? It can be a […]
A few blogging truths & strategies
Here is a list of a few things I have found out during my first 4 months of blogging: Truths No matter what we say, we all want some site traffic. “I’d be writing these things either way.” Not entirely true. My blog is about showcasing my own writer’s journey from start to finish. While […]
World Building: How to come up with populations for your world
Here is a little tool you might find useful in creating your worlds. Population data can be important, more for the writer than the reader. Knowing the populations of the regions/cities/places in your world can really help you understand the playing field on which your characters find themselves, and ensure the larger scale events make […]
EVIL CHARACTERS
There’s something to be said about the characters we read about who want nothing more than to see the world destroyed and everyone enslaved under their rule. I don’t know what it is, and I hope I’m not among a small group of crazies when I say that, usually, I love villains and immoral characters. […]
PLOT (The Most Important Thing)
Plot is everything. Plot is what everyone is looking for, and what everyone remembers. No matter what the story being told is, it all comes down to one basic question: What happens? After that we ask ourselves: Is it interesting? then: Do I care? If the answers to the last two questions are something along […]
CHARACTERS
We all have our favourite characters. Some we love, some we love to hate, and some we even just plain don’t like at all. Plot is nothing without the actions of characters. In fantasy, there is the opportunity for writers to make very unique people for their stories. You can create someone who is not […]
WAR!
A steady flow of good writing, meaningful dialogue, and great action is what makes any book worth reading. In fantasy, action scenes are full of combat and I for one, love it. This world of FOTS is full of life and death. In times of serious conflict, decisions and deeds of people have huge impacts […]
RACES
This is something that I left out of my CULTURE post. I want to touch on the different ‘races’ I have in my series. I use that term because it is the popular word in the fantasy genre. While pretty much all of the people in FOTS are human, they are racially different. Each race […]
GEOGRAPHY
Alas! What would a fictional world be without actual, physical land and sea?! Answer: Nothing! So why have I waited this long to post about it concerning my philosophies of world building? Simple. You do not need to start with a finalized ‘world map’ to understand your own concepts. It is even not entirely necessary […]
A successful first month & keeping faith in quality
My first post was on March 4th of this year, and after nearly one month I am more than happy with the reception. Eighteen fantastic followers have put some faith in me, some of whom will especially not be forgotten. I know there are more on the horizon and should any significant success come my […]
CULTURE
Culture is an aspect of world building that can be under-appreciated, but no proper world can live without it. Since it is more intangible than other things you may read about, the importance of culture is sometimes overlooked, but culture is the closest part of world building to characters. If you have ever read the […]
HISTORY
Every present has a past, and an imaginary world is no different. I can’t say how many times I have been reading a fantasy series, and no matter how great the present story is, I just want to get to the next section where the epic and glorious history is explained further. This must be […]
How it all began
The idea for this project came to me sometime last year (2012). It used the bare-bones of an idea I had years ago, and while this updated version is barely recognizable to the old idea, that was the origin of my inspiration. I really can’t remember the exact first time it happened, but when it […]
World Building: Setting ground-rules and holding to them
If you aren’t sure exactly what world building is, I would define it as both the creation and conveyance of anything, and almost everything, that goes into a story that is outside of the present storyline and characters. It is feeding the reader with knowledge of the fictional world‘s many aspects, where all of the […]
RELIGION
Religion plays a role of significance for many of the characters in this story. The nations of the main continent, on which the present story takes place, are strongly devoted to a religion. Their faith is directed towards a Holy Leader, viewed as a saviour, and his Host. They arrived on the mainland around five […]
MAGIC
Magic is prevalent in every great work of fantasy fiction, from Steven Erikson‘s genius ‘warrens’ in The Malazan Book of the Fallen, to George R.R. Martin‘s and Tolkien‘s more subtle use of magic, known to exist yet is uncommon, forgotten, its details a mystery to the reader where only the results are known. Here is […]
PERIOD
Most of the more popular fantasy novels have a time period setting similar to the dark ages, with knights, chain and plate armour, and castles. I, however, have always been drawn to ancient history, of places like Greece, Rome, Egypt, Babylon, etc. The time period setting of my own world reflects this and will have […]
Recent Comments