Browsing all articles by Amy Rose Davis.
Bringing the Funny: Weaving Humor Into Your World
Of all the subjective subjects to tackle, I think humor is the toughest, perhaps even tougher than religion. It’s with a great deal of trepidation that I wade into this topic, because I know that what’s hilarious to me won’t necessarily work for anyone else. To prove my point, I went to Amazon and read […]
Literary Devices: Plot Devices
Continuing my series on using literary devices in fantasy, we come to one that’s sure to create a little controversy in the comments. For some folks on both the writing and reading side of literature, plot devices are nothing more than clichés that need to die. However, plot devices are an important part of fiction, […]
Literary Devices: Allusion
One of the most powerful literary devices in the writer’s arsenal is allusion. An allusion is a brief mention of an event, person, story, myth, legend, date, etc. that exists somewhere in the cultural knowledgebase of the author’s target audience. Allusions have the power to evoke powerful primal responses in an audience that our words […]
Literary Devices: Foreshadowing
It’s every high school English Lit teacher’s first lesson on criticism, it seems. One of those things that’s fairly easy to teach, understand, and look for, foreshadowing is, at its simplest, a literary device where the author gives hints or clues about plot developments that occur later in the story. I think most people who’ve […]
Literary Devices: Motif
If any of you follow my blog or know me on other social media (especially Facebook), you know that I’m a “yarnie”—that is, I’m addicted to yarn. I’ve had a renewed interest in knitting and crocheting this year, and I’ve been posting pictures on Facebook for months. Apparently, being a spec-fic geek wasn’t nerdy enough […]
Literary Devices: Themes
As a fan of fantastic fiction, I’ve heard it all: Fantasy is for kids and nerds. Science fiction is for geeks. Speculative fiction isn’t deep enough—it has none of the qualities of literary fiction. Speculative fiction is too formulaic. It can’t be hard to write—I mean, just throw in a few swords and dragons, right? […]
The Language of Fantasy, Part 2
Two weeks ago, I started this series on language and ended with a promise to look at some of the major language families this week. I’ve changed my mind. After several of you posted some really insightful and educated comments in response to my article, I’d like to humbly request that one of the […]
Commas With Amy
I started a series on fantasy language last week, but since I’m still feeling a bit awash in terms of researching that huge topic, and because the Overlord very nicely asked someone to write an article about how to avoid comma overuse, I’m taking a break from the language series for a week. By the […]
The Language of Fantasy: An Introduction
As I continue down my list of suggested topics for writing articles, I come to one that fills me with more trepidation than even the one about religion. This time, my fear comes not from offending anyone, but from a total lack of expertise in the subject matter! What is this topic I’ll be bumbling […]
Writing Fantasy Songs: Part 3
For my last two articles about fantasy songs, I’ve focused on lyrics. The obvious reason for this is that people are reading your work, not listening to it. Especially if you’re an amateur musician or poet—or not even an amateur, but a struggling beginner—there’s no reason to focus too much on the music to accompany […]
Writing Fantasy Songs: Part 2
Last week, I started this series with a brief look at the function of songs in fantasy stories. Someone pointed out in the comments that I left out love songs. Yikes! With my particular leanings toward writing romantic storylines, how on EARTH could I miss love songs?? Yes, absolutely, there are millions of love songs […]
Writing Fantasy Songs: Part 1
Ever since I created my list of topics for this column based on your requests, I’ve been mulling over this topic. The suggested topic was “I’d find an article on how to write songs useful. What makes a song great or a bit of a fail?” First, I have to just give one of my […]
