Recent content by psychotick

Hi, So nearly finished another urban sci fi. Not sure of the title. But it's about a bunch of alien squids who come to Earth and start genetically altering people. Then fooled around on Deep Dream and got this! (Sorry I'll have to use a facebook page since I can't seem to just upload the image...

Hi, Hell's teeth this is old! And I haven't spent the last eight years thinking about this post / thread. But I have had the cataracts in my eyes done, which lets me now see all the mistakes I typed before!!! However, more on topic, I like the last couple of posts. A lot of these battles could...

Hi, Are you talking about betel nut chewing? Because while I'm sure it's a narcotic and soldiers chew it in the bucket loads, I don't think it makes them fearless. It's mostly described as a self-administered, highly addictive, anti-depressant. I suspect soldiers on it would just be sort of...

Hi, Just a thought - but there's an entire military group devoted to breaking in to fortresses - sappers. So if they managed to burrow under the walls successfully, at night, you could manage to win the battle with smaller numbers of troops. And two thousand fearless warriors - I'm thinking...

Hi, Yeah, I barely remembered writing my post - but my have things changed. I still use Photoshop to edit images, but my primary cover image generator is now Deep Dream (All hail our AI overlords!). Cheers, Greg.

Hi, I've used scrying quite often in my epic fantasies. (also pigeons and pony express!) But mostly if you have separate parties, I think not knowing what other groups are doing, would be a big part of your plot. Cheers, Greg.

Hi, Just a suggestion from a pure pantster. Ignore the characters and the world build. Ignore the plot too. Start with a scene. You have a character - it doesn't matter who he or she is, and it doesn't matter where he or she is either. He's in a situation. My first book I had my main character...

Hi, Since we're being shameless, I can tell you there's always hope. Just finished "Freaksville" after more than a year of restarting it, rewriting it, screaming in horror at the laptop, and giving up on it! It's only 136k, but I'm guessing I wrote over a million words to get to those 136,000...

Hi, Damn, I think I feel guilty having misspelled his name after having spelled it correctly. And I wouldn't have even realized it if it wasn't for all the other posts. Apologies to Neil - and love his work. Cheers, Greg.

Hi, As far as I know it is a quote from Gaimon, taken from his work "Coraline". (I just double checked it.) Meanwhile as for Plato, his allegory of the cave clearly shows his position on whether we can actually know the truth. He says no. We can't know what's beyond the cave - and that...

Hi, I think I'd stick with that great intellectual philosopher Neil Gaiman on this: "Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten." There is truth in art, and it's not always three orders removed from the...

Hi, For me the thing I hate most about a lot of recent fantasy is the whole Grimdark thing. And I absolutely hate the rationale behind it - that it's just so much more real. It's not. It's just a reaction to the old theme of heroic fantasy - which is better in my view, but still comes with...

Hi Aldarion, I hear what you're saying. And so some of the original works do include attempts at nerfing the monsters. But we've still got the basic problems with growth. So maybe the strigoi are originally nerfed. But are strigoi really vampires? Granted they're what the Stoker version comes...

Hi, Slightly off topic, but in my view if you do want to stick to the source material of your critters, that makes sense to me. And I really didn't like the sparkly vampires. But I think sometimes you actually have to change original characters simply to write a story that makes sense...

Hi Ban, I'm not sure we're talking purely about story. We're talking about the interaction of the story with the audience. I'm guessing that for you being on the tall side of the equation putting yourself in the shoes of a shorter character is psychologically easier, because even as you're...