Recent content by michael.harrel

When you're naming things in a fictional world, there are several ways to go about making things up. Sometimes you make stuff up as you go along (à la GRRM's Dothraki vocabulary). Sometimes you methodically and painstakingly craft every detail to give it internal consistency (à la Tolkien's...

I haven't really read much of Stephen King, but I will say my interest in him went up when I heard that many of his stories shared a common setting and that sometimes characters from one story or novel would have a cameo in another. Slowly building up those connections in otherwise unrelated...

My mistake -- it's been years since I read the book, so I just skimmed through the wikipedia article, and apparently it's actually about a Utahraptor, not a Velociraptor.. So, yes, a much larger dromaeosaurid, perfectly ordinary for its species, and while closer than Velociraptor to the animal...

"Raptor Red" by Robert Bakker is, IIRC, about a perfectly ordinary Velociraptor.

Here's our current pitch for Camlann: "Two estranged brothers must work together to restore their dishonored family before war and politics bring them to ruin." Super vague, yeah?

This is much better! My only quibble would be the repetition of Muus' name. I'd change that sentence to "Now bound to the shard, he..." Also, tangentially, how is "Muus" pronounced? To me it's reminiscent of "Mouse" (which is good for a Hero's Journey-type story), and "Muse". Pretty sweet.

I like this one best. It strikes me as a *little* wordy, but every time I tried to cut something out I realized that the sentence lost something. The most I could do was wonder if we need to know that the cult has been at war with his people for centuries -- you don't mention it in your other...

Oh, certainly -- YMMV, in the reading or the writing. However, I'm pretty sure the effect is deliberate in Wright's case, so it might be helpful for writers attempting the same, if it feels appropriate for the story. Not a technique to rely on, but there is a place and time for it, of course.

"The Night Land" by William Hope Hodgeson. Published in 1912, it is a eerie, dreamlike dark fantasy in the dying world genre, and though it has some flaws, it's really spectacular and well worth reading. Also, "Till We Have Faces". Even though it was written by C. S. Lewis, I feel like very...

One of my favorite uses of the Wall of Made-Up Words method is at the start of John C. Wright's "The Golden Age". It's a two page introduction to the setting which serves to completely disorient the new reader. Everything gets explained at a much easier pace in chapter one and following, but the...

Might I recommend the Story Games Names Project? There's a section in it regarding historical Japan. Free PDF: http://www.bullypulpitgames.com/projects/names/book/sgnp_final_05_no_art.pdf

Hello everyone! My name is Michael. I'm 31 years old, and I live in Chicago with my wife, Janelle. We've been married for about a month and a half now. I've always been a fan of fantasy fiction, ever since my dad read the Chronicles of Narnia to my brothers and me when we were little. The...