An Exiguous Exploration of Exposition in Expansive Epics
Faith M. Boughan
Thousand-page fantasy novels… a ten-volume series… appendices of historical detail… characters who feel the need to blow hot wind across the pages of every third chapter… what do these have…
writing advice
Worldbuilding A Religion – Part Three: How Religion Shapes Characters
Rebekah Loper
In Part Two, we learned how religion can affect society and culture as a whole. But you can’t have either of those things without the individual people who comprise them,…
So What’s The Fuss About Aeon Timeline?
Adrian Faulkner
Timelines – they are the bane of many a writer. Whether it be discovering that your character has to be half a world away in a day with only a…
Worldbuilding A Religion – Part Two: How Religion Shapes Culture
In Worldbuilding A Religion – Part One, we went over the basic differences between religions and cults, and some of the ways they can enrich your worlds and stories. Cults…
Character Immersion And The Narrative Voice
Aaron Miles
The protagonists in a story are the reader’s window into the world, and getting the narrative voice of your character right is one of the hardest techniques to master. If…
Using Questions To Expand Your Story
Nicholas Schmiedicker
I think it’s safe to say that we are all daydreamers. Whether you only enjoy reading fantasy or you write your own stories, we all enjoy getting lost in our…
So What’s The Fuss About Scrivener?
If you’re a writer, whether you are unpublished or a bestseller, it’s likely that you’ve heard of the writing software called Scrivener. It’s possible that you’ve heard some of your…
The Tolkien Archives at Marquette: A Glimpse At His Original Manuscripts
Nicole Singer
Through a stroke of luck and the foresight of their one-time curator, the Marquette University libraries house the original manuscripts for J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the…
Is It Better To Be A Blank Slate Or To Have Some Character?
Eric Christensen
In a recent blog post, Mark Lawrence commented on the trade offs of creating a blank slate character versus a more defined, idiosyncratic character. In the post (and I highly…
Worldbuilding: Food For The People
B. Pine
We all need food to live. Even in fiction, food plays a part in most stories, whether it is a simple supper at a boarding house or a grand wedding…
Combating Cynicism
I was watching the most recent Karate Kid film, the one with Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith – I got to the scene with the chopsticks where Chan is eating…
Women Write Fantasy
Overlord
There have always been serious issues revolving around gender parity and sexism in the fantasy community. Whether this is the depiction of women – as little more than damsels in…