If you can get your hands on it, Swords and Dark Magic (an anthology on the sword-and-sorcery genre) has an excellent story that takes an old...
It's rather difficult to isolate a book where the descriptions shine and the other elements are poorly conceived or executed. I think you'll also...
One of the fun things about language is that it's not just about vocabulary and making up your own--there are lots of little squirrelly details...
For an excellent and thorough discussion of villain tropes, I recommend looking to Writing the Paranormal Novel. The way the discussion is staged...
One approach that comes to mind is that you could create your own pop culture. Whenever a group of people live and thrive near other people,...
How to approach plot seems to usually be a matter of taste--it comes down to determining whether you want your work to be plot- or...
Given the responses I'm reading here, it seems like it might be impossible not to draw inspiration from the real world!
Being in college, I get exposed to a lot of disparate concepts, and sometimes they make their ways into my stories. I try and keep it broad in an...
I realize that most fiction tries to emulate reality, for valid reasons--so that the reader can relate to it, and see something in their selves...
For my story, I thought a good starting point for a fatal character flaw (sticking to one for the moment, for simplicity) was to go Biblical with...
My personal pet peeve is the abuse of "metaphor," which I believe is much maligned because of its application in academia. At its base, it usually...
The book... I've picked up NaNoWriMo book from the library in preparation for November. I had read it once years ago but didn't take much away...
One of the considerations I like to that, whether writing first or third person, are the details that your character notices. Are they paying...
One of the most skillful renderings of unlikable protagonists is by Joe Abercrombie, especially in The Blade Itself. The book starts out with a...
I think perhaps I am following a rather traditional route: taking the familiar and making it new in some way. Or the classic Goethe quote about...
In traditional fairy lore, it seems like fairies really take the fall for whatever cannot be logically explained; whenever something mysterious...
A handy book for all aspects of the medieval times Get this from your local library and use it as an incredibly handy reference: Amazon.com:...
Being a new writer...It's tricky to make a word count when the inspiration isn't there. If I'm not working on a story, I try to at least record my...
Read a really juicy fantasy, which for me is any of the Harry Potter series. Reading takes your mind off the current road block with your work and...
This does sound a bit like a classic problem--where you only have one magic element that the book hinges on, and therefore you have to explain it...
