Writing Food
Michael R. Underwood
Everybody eats. And in many cases, eating scenes can be a great way to liven up your fiction. It’s easy to write a conversation that becomes nothing more than a…
writing advice
The Chaotic Champion – Part Six: The Protector Hero
Nyki Blatchley
The town of Tombstone is in turmoil. The countryside around is ruled by bandits, and ranchers who are little better, and the small group of men who stand between the…
Tactical vs. Tactile: Writing Fantasy Battles
Aaron Miles
Like many people who read fantasy novels, one of the reasons I love the genre is because it contains epic battles with vast armies fighting it out. Whether it’s more…
Dealing With Rejection
Adrian Faulkner
It can sometimes seem a little crazy. We live in a world governed by metrics. From end of year performance reviews to hospital waiting times, everything in our lives seems…
The Chaotic Champion – Part Five: The Outlaw Hero
In a scene early in the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde, when the duo have barely started on their criminal career, they come across a family sitting by the roadside…
Accepting Rejection
Eric Christensen
“You have to know how to accept rejection and reject acceptance.” – Ray Bradbury Like many writers, I’ve slaved over short stories. I’ve revised mercilessly, hacking away at excess verbiage,…
10 Things New Writers Should Be Doing
So I’m in full writing mode at the moment, and I can’t help but kick myself for not starting some things sooner. Here’s a short list of things I wish…
The Fantasy Assassin
Victoria Hooper
Assassins seem to have been steadily rising in popularity, wrapped in dark hooded cloaks and lurking in the pages of sword and sorcery, epic and urban fantasy, and YA, as…
The Chaotic Champion – Part Four: The Outsider Hero
Just when all seems lost, the Batmobile screeches to a halt and the Caped Crusader leaps out to put paid to the latest dastardly scheme of the Joker, the Penguin…
It’s All In The Name
Michael Everest
Time for another Creative Writing 101, but this time I’d like to focus on something a little different. I had thought to write an entry dedicated to Character Creation for…
Worldbuilding: Thinking Inside The Box
The idea of worldbuilding is familiar to any fantasy writer, and goes with the genre like pointy ears go with elves. There are writers like Tolkien who go all out…
Consider the Start of Your Story a.k.a. The Hook and The Arm It’s Attached To
Is the hare really faster than the tortoise? Did the chicken come before the egg? Green means go, red means stop, but yellow means something in the middle – so…