And We’re Walking: Making Travel in Fantasy More Interesting
Kellie Doherty
What can you do as a writer to make the travel experience more interesting?
Writing
You Are Writing Medieval Fantasy Wrong
Richard Marpole
*Disclaimer* This is not an academic essay. It’s a series of very shallow cuts that completely fails to delve into the complex histories it touches upon. It bounces around the…
Autumn Deities
As a writer, inspiration can come from anywhere, and researching your chosen subject can be a useful tool. When creating a new world, researching geographical maps and landmarks is a…
How to Create Fantasy Villains
Fantasy villains. Either you love them or you hate them, but good villains are memorable either way. However, writing good villains is hard! I know. I’ve written two fantasy books…
On Character Voice
As many of you know, I love science fiction. I originally got into sci-fi through the world of television: Star Trek, Stargate, Firefly. Then when I finally dove into reading…
On Writing Flash Fiction
December was a really fun month for us nerds here at Fantasy-Faction. In October 2020, we had a call for microfiction submissions from our existing pool of contributing writers as…
Becoming an Author: With Advice from Those Who’ve Done It
S. H. Paulus
Introduction You might have a lot of time on your hands due to 2020’s pandemic and have been meaning to finish that novel you’ve been dreaming about publishing. You might…
On Writing Fanfiction
Fanfiction is amazing. Hard stop. For those readers who don’t know what fanfiction is, basically it’s where fans of an intellectual property use that property as a basis for their…
On Character Agency
Aaron Miles
What will a character do next? What can they do next? These are the questions that drive the narrative of a story forward and determine what direction it will follow.…
Writing Fantasy Saved My Mental State
Fantasy is sometimes referred to as “escapism” and it comes in many forms—whether that be reading a novel, getting immersed in a movie, or even playing a video game. That…
As I Learn: How Your Story-Beast Moves
Gibril Kerefah
In the wild, lions live and hunt in prides. An adult male can weigh as much as 200 kg (mostly muscle), and an adult female can reach top speeds of…
Worldbuilding Through Characterization
When somebody mentions worldbuilding the first thing you’ll think of is probably a lavishly detailed map, something filled with interesting geography, the locations of important cities, and maybe a dragon…