Recent content by The Dark One

For me the key defining characteristic of fantasy is that the supernatural is possible. That can happen in any setting - which is why urban fantasy is a thing and also sci-fi / fantasy blends (like Star Wars). All you have to do is build your world consistently (unlike Tolkien, who refers to...

Exactly. People in stories make choices that (most) people IRL wouldn't dare.

As a person who's had a few books published I get asked for advice all the time - which I'm happy to give - but I always draw the line when people ask me to read their stuff and give feedback. Partly, because I have agreed to read stuff in the past and it was pretty much crap across the board...

Way too much of a vague generalisation for me. Where's his evidence? I would have thought that we novelists (presumably with imagination) can only thrive in a world where the majority have less imagination and want access to our stories.

In real life, every second kid (in Australia at least) has a weird made-up name. Life imitates art once again.

You accept a talking sponge but draw the line at a submarine squirrel? Okay...

An error I didn't realise until after publication (pointed out by a reader) was that I had bluebells flowering in the wrong month. Pesky readers notice everything.

Writing historical fiction requires never-ending research - so easy to slip up with anachronistic details. While editing my novel set in 1060 - 66 some errors I discovered were: - reference to a pumpkin, when pumpkins came from the New World centuries later - reference to chess in England...

I should add, I never referred to her as a druid (quite deliberately). He made his own connection.

As I've said before, I don't write fantasy but I do write historical and speculative fiction. Even one of my crime novels has a decent spec fiction aspect to it (set in 2030). Historical does take a massive amount of research and no matter how hard you try you won't satisfy everyone. My only...

I doubt whether a legit film rights buyer would give up easily. And the reality is, most (not all, I grant you) writers whose books are pursued for film rights will have agents.

If you get an email you weren't expecting regarding your work... No matter how exciting, 999 times out of a thousand, it's a scam.

Well done MS. It's always exciting having a new book on the shelves and that's a very decent print run. My biggest was 5k (and there was no second run). Grrrr....

I get heaps of scam emails - mainly about wanting to help me market my work. I always delete immediately. A writer friend stupidly got drawn in and paid a thousand dollars for marketing services which never happened. The really insidious aspect of these emails is that they use AI to scrape...

When does sarcasm become just being an arse? When it's not funny.