Recent content by Prince of Spires

Indeed, but we have no idea how any of the other magic in the world works. All those elements are simply a matter of "because magic." At one point they have a magical tent that's small on the outside but like a mansion on the inside. How? Because magic. Or they have a tree that's alive and...

I personally don't like the explanations. The chapter 1 bit for instance just feels silly, even with knowing the character has run into a word in a different language. Writing is like real life with all the boring bits taken out. All your readers will understand what magic and a mage are on a...

He does stick to the character, especially in the first three books. The protagonist isn't likeable, but it does fit. I enjoyed the first three. As I mentioned, for the three after that I felt like I was re-reading the same thing in just a slightly different form. And the same again with book 7...

That does sound like an interesting premisse indeed. There's a bit a difference between what people are and who they are. Someone can be just an average farm-hand, but he can also be an asshole who swears at everyone who walks past. Or a bee-keeper who would sell his own mother. Or an...

Same for me. They never try to sell me anything :(

It's definitely more common in children's and YA novels. One counterpoint is though that plenty of adults read and enjoy HP, showing it's not something that prevents adults from enjoying the books. Also, there are aldult novels with a reader-insert character. From what I gather (though I...

I've read the first 7. They're pretty decent. I must say though that the first 3 were probably best, and after that they felt a bit like a rehashing of the same themes.

You can do whatever you want. There are examples of all different situations that have been succesful. Raymond E. Feist did more or less what you suggest. 1 world with multiple different stories (though there are a few characters that keep showing up). So did Terry Pratchett. For a non Fantasy...

Some good advice here already. New stuff happening or (new) character talking are the primary places to add a paragraph break. To add to that, I'll say that when in doubt, more is usually better. Few people will complain if your paragraphs are only two or three sentences long. But they will...

If you're looking for random powers, I think Brandon Sanderson did something like this in the Alcatraz series, where the characters have some random power, like always being late to things or falling over. I think part of his idea came from X-men, where the mutants always have these awesome...

I've seen it said by several different authors that if you want to make your readers believe your big fantasy ideas, that you have to make your small details believable first. Now this does't mean that everyone has to figure out the size and weight of their dragon eggs. You could easily think...

There can be easy cultural reasons why he doesn't become king. You could look to the Netherlands for a real world example. We previously had a queen as official head of state. She was the queen because she was the first child born of the previous queen. As in, she was a direct descendant in the...

Not always. However, it should be used sparringly and very deliberately. In most cases you're right that all characters have very distinct traits and quirks and are very different from one another. The one exception to this is the reader insert main character. That is, a character which is...

I'm not completely certain on what level you need help. If you don't want your reader to know something, then don't write that down. It's probably best if you have a valid reason for not writing it down. Usually that is because your characters don't know. For things to be interesting, your...

This makes me curious: where is the conflict? The story you described hints that you're looking at a war of some kind. But this sort of removes all tension from the virtual world. Unless you're going for some political thriller of course, but that wasn't the vibe I got from your description...