Recent content by Mad Swede

For me good writing is inherently by and for people, but it is also about people. As writers we try to build an emotional bridge with our readers, and we do that by using character, emotions and perspectives in conjunction with events to give the readers something they can relate to. That...

I always name all characters, majhor and minor. That way I can bring minor characters back if I need to - which can and should happen if the same place (an inn or whatever) appears in different stories.

Start by reading the following threads: Favourite fantasy books and why What are your top fifteen favorite novels/series. Recommendations for childrens/young adult adventure fantasy Where to start vs if I could read only one Go down the library and pick up a few books. Any fiction will do...

I criticised your apparent lack of reading and your apparent reliance on Youtubers. That has nothing to do with your intelligence.

Ah, now she's not named in the Bible, she is only described as Manoah's wife. However, whilst serving in the Lebanon with UNIFIL I did hear that her name was Zlelponith (I think that's the correct spelling but I'm not sure). If I remember correctly (and this is many years ago now) the source...

I've been trying to think how to write this diplomatically. And I've given up. You do not read anything like enough. Watching a bunch of Youtubers is not enough to gain the knowledge you need to use such expressions. You must read a lot. You do not know how to use colloquial expressions and...

Agreed, and I'd stress the need to read widely and extensively. Only then can you hope to gain the insight you need both to use colloqial expressions appropriately and to use them in more creative ways (such as using them both literally and colloqially). The late Sir Terry Pratchett was...

Hmm. Might I challenge the idea of a traditionally large cast? The Lord of the Rings doesn't have a large cast at all, in fact if I recall there are only 130 or so named characters in those books. I read somewhere that the total number of named characters across all Tolkiens books (The Lord...

I thought custom was to gibbet people at the crossroads, not feed them to the spiders?

We've discussed artwork dpi before (here: Book cover artwork DPI) and the general rule is that you should be using as high a resolution as you can for your original artwork, including maps. My publishers guidance is very clear, at least 600 dpi for colour artwork and 1200 dpi for black and white...

You mean colloquial expressions. They can be a way of setting a story or character without making location or origin specific. The one thing to bear in mind is that such expressions are very hard to translate into another language, because they depend on the culture in that particular place or...

I have trouble taking that sort of monologue seriously, although it does have its place in certain types of film. I don't ever use them myself in my stories, instead I let the reader build their own picture of what the antagonists are up to and why. That way I can also leave a few red herrings...

Thinking a bit more about this, I'd suggest you read Douglas Adams' Life, the Universe and Everything and then consider the character Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged. Adams plays Wowbagger for laughs, but underlying the humour there is also a very serious point being made about what might...

Your questions are one of the hidden (or perhaps I should write less obvious) themes in the Lord of the Rings. Tolkien drops a series of hints about the emotional costs of such relationships, especially that between Arwen and Aragorn. The ideas are more fully developed in The Silmarillion and...

The closest I ever got to a situation like this was in central Africa. We had to deal with a herd of forest elephants who were living in our operating area. Being briefed by a local expert as we stood by the road watching the herd cross ahead of us is something I'll never forget. It certainly...