Sinking Into The World
Aaron Miles
In the fantasy genre, many writers love to indulge in worldbuilding, they may have produced stacks of files, papers and (of course) maps before they’ve written the first chapter. While…
Writing
9 Things I Wish I’d Known about Writing from the Beginning
Rebekah Loper
The other day, I had a lovely conversation with a friend who is also a writer. We both have very similar writing styles, but arrived there from two completely different…
Writing Fight Scenes – What an Editor Wants to See
Hierath
As an editor, something I’ve discovered when I’m editing books for other people is I’m making the same comments over and over again in relation to action scenes. I thought…
Setting as a Character
Ryan Howse
One of the joys of writing second-world fantasy is the ability to create your own world. You can set up spectacular vistas, ancient empires, mysterious ruins, or whatever else you’d…
Killing Ten Rats – Why A Writing Career Is Like Playing An MMO
Adrian Faulkner
As a fantasy fan it’s hard to avoid MMORPGs. Even if you’re not personally a fan of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games, it’s likely you’ve heard of games such as…
Lights, Camera, Action!
Thomas A. Knight
The cornerstone of almost all great fantasy books is the action scenes held within them. This is also one of the skills that many authors of today have trouble with.…
How to Write Good Dialogue: Courtesy of Mass Effect
Marc Turner
Here’s a question for you. You’re reading a book and the pace starts to drag, but you’re still curious to know what happens next. What do you do? The answer…
Monthly Short Story Winner: Science Fiction
Xiagan
We’re as far in the future as we’ve ever been – what a good reason to write a science fictional story. wikipedia: Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing…
Monthly Short Story Winner: Religion
December. The darkest month with the longest night of the year. Harsh and cold days and mankind struggling in winter’s iron grip. Separated through walls of snow from others, one…
Monthly Short Story Winner: Joker Month
We had a lot great contest themes this year and I know that some people didn’t manage to finish their stories on time for some of the contests or didn’t…
A Look At Points Of View
What point of view to write from is one of the most significant decisions a writer can make about their work, yet with so many aspects of writing craft to…
Monthly Short Story Winner: Abandoned Places
We’ve been getting such good feedback for the short stories our members have submitted in our Monthly Short Story Competition that we have decided to post them on the main…