Symbols: A Vital Worldbuilding Tool
B. Pine
A few days before writing this post, an old acquaintance reached out to me by text to wish me a happy new year. I texted her back, asking how her…
writing advice
What Makes a Good Badass?
Victoria Hooper
Everyone loves a good badass, and, let’s admit it, our genre is full of them! But what makes a successful badass and how do they fit into our stories? Well,…
Plotting The A-Team Way
Geoff Matthews
< Dum Dum Du Du De Dum (you’ll just have imagine the tune) > In 1972 a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a…
The Start Of All New Things
Nicole Singer
With the New Year not long gone in our rear-view mirrors, it’s a perfect time to ponder “fresh starts” in fantasy. Usually, they signal a momentous turning point in the…
Diary of a NaNoWriMo Virgin
Nick Clark
NaNoWriMo, ah yes. To some, it is just a baffling not-quite-word that clogs up the Twitter trends every November. To others, it is a golden chalice; to partake from its…
Five Reasons You Didn’t Fail NaNoWriMo
Adrian Faulkner
So no doubt your social media streams have been filled over the last few weeks by people celebrating their NaNoWriMo success. Undoubtedly, there’s a lot of high-fiving and statuses being…
Fantasy Worldbuilding – Ideas for Designing a Civilization
The period in history between the fifth and fifteenth centuries, the period we call the Middle Ages, seem to go hand in hand with epic fantasy. Of course, there are…
Collecting Data On Your Writing
If you have any sort of science background, one of the most surprising things about trying to achieve success as a writer is the lack of metrics to gauge your…
Dictionary of Phrase and Fable by Ebenezer Cobham Brewer
Eric Christensen
In August of last year, I wrote about a variety of resources that might be useful to fantasy writers. Recently, I came across another resource that I found so amusing,…
So What’s The Fuss About Scapple?
If you have been writing for any length of time it is inevitable that you have come across those writers who treat the act of writing as if it is…
The Magic of Our Day to Day Lives: Snowflake Vignettes
Nathan T. Dean
I. So many times I have sat down at my laptop (or typewriter) recently and found the words I wish would flow just do not emerge in a fashion I…
The Villain With A Thousand Faces – Part One: Cardboard Cut-Outs
Stephen Deas
About The Author: Her Holiness the Dragon Queen Zafir, Speaker of the Nine Realms, has played both pro- and antagonist roles in her career as a fictional character. She is…