Recent content by DustinBilyk

Description for me comes after I put the First Draft onto paper. It helps me focus on the narrative flow and characterization when I know I don't need to add description as I hammer out words. Of course, if the setting or place your characters are in is integral to the scene, there should be...

That's a super interesting idea. I imagine putting your aggressor into a state of hypnosis would guarantee a kill/win, no? It's essentially mind control/making the target see and believe what isn't there. So perhaps a variety of movements, paired with speech (in the heat of battle), could put...

Hey guys! I'm a voracious podcast listener, and I've recently stumbled upon Edward Willett's The Worldshapers podcast. He's a long-time sci-fi and fantasy author, and in this podcast he interviews famous genre fiction authors on their craft, including Orson Scott Card, Tad Williams, S. M...

I think the most interesting question (to me in this scenario) is how "magic" or your shaped world would fit into this courtroom drama. Does magic play into the revelations in the courtroom? Is there a way to produce truth through the use of magic? Or a way to trick and hide the truth with the...

Thanks Maker of Things Not Kings! What I may have achieved in originality I failed in delivery (by my standards today), but I'll take the compliment and run with it :) I did find some success in print, yes - about 5,000 copies sold, which, for this extremely small press, was akin to a worldwide...

Thanks Joe! Very happy to be here. It looks like this community is pretty active :) Yeahhhh Librarian Gladiator, though my librarian was fighting Jagisado (humanoid gargoyles) instead of giant stacks of books or giant windmills ^^ haha! Always learning, love sharing, and damn right I'll leap...

My biggest pet peeve, and I see this all the time in my editing, is the propensity to TELL instead of SHOW. Info dumps are the death of good writing. Instead of giving me three paragraphs of prose/dialogue explaining how noble and chivalrous Sir Frederick is, try showing me in one paragraph...

I don't believe I'll ever become a full-timer because, while I do love the craft, I find I love editing even more. I have an innate need to serve others and make others happy/successful, which is something I ignored for years and years while I slogged away in the bureaucracy of local government...

Hey guys and gals, As my username suggests (hah!) my name is Dustin Bilyk, and I'm from Saskatoon, Canada. Been writing since the age of five, wrote my first "novel" at the age of eight, and I like to think my writing has improved to a point where it's both readable and enjoyable for genre...