Recent content by Vincent Lakes

In my world, the major species are definitely humanoids, colored by different kinds of distinctive features that set them apart from each other, just like in real world. I basically like the lack of limitations in fantasy, but I also like to have something to relate to. I've noticed that if a...

I hear ya. A lot of good pointers, which is greatly appreciated. I just finished the last chapter yesterday. It came out of nowhere as I suddenly realized I had a major loose end in the story. I'm beginning the process of proof reading / editing it as a complete story. I've done the initial...

I don't think I can stop writing. Published or not, I'm a writer and will stay way. Originally I wasn't even going to try, but just write for my own amusement, share my work on the internet and things like that. But it's amazing what a few supportive and positive feedbacks can do, and well, it...

Thank you for this insightful reply. I actually didn't realize how big of a deal the query letter is, but it makes sense. I'm not afraid of the work, and I'm in no rush to make it happen, but I was missing a starting point, which left me wondering "well, what do I need to do next?" I will begin...

Hello, My name is Vincent Lakes and I'm a writer. I'm writing low fantasy with magic bound to letters and words, so no dragons or krakens roaring in my story. It's about this abused young child of a nobleman, who is forced to marry a man she dislikes. As a means to counter her lack of...

As I'm writing my first novel at the moment, it's difficult for me to define the process as it has been a lot of trying out things and learning through mistakes. I've been to it for two and a half years now, and the whole process, which may have been clear and structured in the beginning, has...

It's a species, not a race, which means it's spelled with a lower case e. If you have a species called tree people, you may have Ents, Dryads, Oakbeards and whatever you can come up with in that group of similar beings. I guess a good example is the humans, and then within that species you have...

I'm writing on whatever is available at the moment. Usually it's my trusty old desktop, but also increasingly my new laptop. I use cloud to share my unfinished works between everything connected to my wifi network. I don't like writing on tablets, so those are for quick notes at most. One dream...

Do you ever feel burned out because you've put so much effort and time into your story that it's about to drive you insane? I'm currently writing my first novel, and it's closing in to the finish line. I've spent about 2,5 years on it now, writing on and off throughout the years. I stop from...

Stephen King once said he writes approximately 2000 words a day, which is quite respectable. Writing 5000 makes me wonder how good it can be, but without further knowledge I assume you know what you're doing and keep myself from diving any deeper into it. Personally I've stopped staring at word...

I picked this line straight out of wikipedia, which is not always the most reliable source, but I think it shows that it's absolutely fine to use the term Men instead of Humans, which sounds a little awkward to me. There are other sources that indicate this as well (Merriam-Webster's one...

I wrote this story from a first person perspective through the eyes of two different people, a husband and a wife, switching between the two scene by scene. The purpose of this was to describe the emotions and feelings through both as they experience the shared happiness, hardships, and eventual...

This is so true. In my earlier post I was trying to give out a little how I've built my setting just to offer some helpful thoughts, but I missed the one that should have been there, and here it is! Without a good story and interesting character development it doesn't matter how unique or...

I can really only tell how I began building my setting, maybe it gives you something to work with. Then again, I'm not sure how well I've managed at that, but I went the long way because I think if you're going to use that same setting over and over again there should be a fair amount of details...

Thank you for the warm welcomes. Caged Maiden, it surely was not an easy decision to switch languages. I was very concerned over things like how well I would be able to tell a story, capture the mood, describe the environments - all of it - in a language I didn't grow up speaking, but rather...