Taming MICE – The MICE Quotient and Storytelling
Aaron Miles
Fantasy is a genre of strange and diverse stories covering countless themes, concepts and ideas, in order to gain a better understanding of how our stories work and the nature…
characters
The Problem with Abandoning the “Strong Female Character”
A. M. Justice
Yet another descriptor has been caught in the verboten term net. Recently, several essays have appeared arguing that people should stop using the term “strong female character” (SFC) or “strong…
Creating a Fantasy Race
The fantasy genre is filled with an astonishing array of wildly different races that populate our stories. Some are drawn from older myths and legends like elves and dwarfs while…
Locked Up Abroad: Lessons From the Streets of Fantasy – Guest Blog by K. S. Villoso
K. S. Villoso
You ever wonder if a fantasy novel can actually help you survive in a real life situation? I don’t mean teach you about sword-fighting and how to slay dragons, or…
The Ten Strangest Races in Fantasy Literature
Richard Marpole
To me one of the most wonderful things about reading fantasy is the chance to encounter strange and magical beings that couldn’t possibly exist in the real world. Ferocious and…
Tough Travels: Snarky Sidekicks
Laura M. Hughes
This is not an April Fools’ Day trick. Tough Travelling is back! Since April, at the start of every month Fantasy-Faction has led you (yes, YOU!) on a tour of…
Trees in Fantasy – Part One: Trees as Symbols
Steff Humm
Magic in fantasy, myth and legend usually occurs as a natural phenomenon, with its own place in the world of the story outside of what is created by mankind and…
Tough Travels: Minions
At the start of every month, Fantasy-Faction will lead you (yes, YOU!) on a tour of the fantasy genre. From high to low, from classics to new releases, from epic…
Swinging the Scythe
Death is an essential part of many of our stories, whether it’s just the threat of it to provide peril for our protagonists, or having some of the characters actually…
How The Belgariad Taught Me To Write A Cyberpunk Dystopia – Guest Blog by Ferrett Steinmetz
Ferrett Steinmetz
Full confession: I thought my new novel The Uploaded was a dystopian novel about the miseries that happen five hundred years after humanity perfects brain-uploading. But my publisher Angry Robot…
Worlds Within Worlds – Part Four: Old Grey Beards
Christopher Mahon
If you ask someone on the street to name the first three wizards that come to mind, you’ll probably hear the names Gandalf, Merlin, and Dumbledore (or Rincewind, if they’re…
On Character Development
A broken soldier overcoming his failings to make a stand for his home, a powerful sorceress corrupted by her magic and falling into darkness, a boy embarking on a journey…