Recent content by skip.knox

I agree with the last three lines, but I'm pretty sure that print requires better than 600x800. Scale to a larger size for print; you can always downsize for the e-readers. The usual advice is 300dpi, which is not the same as pixel ratios. Here's a reference Common Map and Book Sizes for RPGs: A...

Writings belong over in the Story Showcase or in the Critique Requests forum. This forum (Writing Discussion) is for talking about writing in general. Take a look at the threads to see what I mean. Just FYI. No need to repost, unless you specifically want a critique.

Congratulations on having completed a draft. That's a huge accomplishment in itself. When you get discouraged (and you will), remind yourself of this. Several of your comments are grounds to believe you will do well on the rewrite. Not many newbies are able to look at their own work and see the...

Welcome. You should consider posting over in the Worldbuilding forum and there put specific questions. You could say what you have so far and where you have particular questions or ideas.

Maps and more maps. Not just maps of the world, but maps of a particular city, a map of a building within that city, and even a map of a room where action happens. In drama it's called blocking: you can have your scene, but you need to know how it plays on this particular stage which has a...

I have acres of notebooks, going back to the early 1970s. I keep them in order to curse my children with them. My current favorite notebooks are Septcouleur. The paper is good quality and holds anything from a ball point to a fountain pen without bleeding (though I have to be careful with gel...

Seems odd to me to arrange them so that none of the spines show. How on earth do you actually find something?

Why are you showing it? Are you looking for just a vague "I liked it, you can dance to it" reaction? Are you looking for detailed editorial comments? Are you showing it because the other person is kith or kin and they want to see what you've written? All this will affect not only what you show...

Prince of Spires has the right of it: much depends on the era. To which I would add much depends, too, on which peoples. Do you mean to have, say, carpentry be the same for humans, dwarves, elves, orcs? Or will trades vary (which of course means shops and buildings will vary). Now, cutting up...

Sounds like graphics card, which is not great news, There was a cartoon, many and many a year ago, that has ever held true. When there's trouble First look up Then look down Then look in your wallet. [minor edit: I think the line was, Look at your shoes. I can still see the line-drawn...

We welcome reality, fantasy, alternate reality, and alternate fantasy. And even alternate historical fantasy!

It can be separate, but I would call it a hobby only if the person involved never actually wrote stories. Worldbuilding for a game, or simply as a pastime, is unrelated to the act of writing books (or short stories). If it is part of the writing process, then no. Or, at least insofar as the...

In this as with pretty much all other "what's another word for..." questions, I suggest temporarily stop looking. Instead, look at the phrases you have. Start with those four. For example, when you have "a land of magic" what are you trying to impart at that point in the story? Is it a land...

I have a couple of Chosen One tropes that has never even made it to sketch stage. One is, Wrong Guy stumbles into a place or finds a thing that marks him as the Chosen One. He doesn't want it, but everyone around him keeps relying on him and then getting pissed when things don't work out. It's...

Another vote for cables. Back in the CRT days I encountered this when people would shove those huge monitors as far back on their desktop as they could, pinching the cable against the wall. They were astounded when a cable jiggle and scooting the monitor forward fixed it. Ah, the 1980s....