Keeping the Fun in Science Fiction – Guest Blog by Joseph Brassey
Joseph Brassey
Islands sit suspended in an endless heaven, drifting amidst clouds and storms, high above a distant abyss below. Cities crouch upon the edges of cliffs, their walls jutting out into…
writing advice
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…
2,000 to 10,000 and 5,000 Words Per Hour – Reviews and Comparison
Eric Christensen
I think it’s safe to say that most writers wish they could write more. We block out time to write before work, during our lunch hours, and before bed. But…
The Pros and Cons of a Macro Timescale
Nicola Alter
Most fantasy and science fiction series tend to be, by their very nature, large in scope. We expect stories about the fate of worlds, the rise and fall of empires,…
10 Tips for Self-Published Authors
Duncan M. Hamilton
In publishing there are outliers who release a book straight to the top of the charts, but they are few and far between. Happily, you don’t need this to happen…
How The Other Half Successfully Self-Publish
Michael McClung
Uncle Mike has some things to say, people, and you’re not prying this karaoke mic from his hand until he’s done. Is this thing on? Right, okay. Hello. My name…
On Character Development
Aaron Miles
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…
Worlds Within Worlds – Part Three: Magic Warfare
Christopher Mahon
Fallout taught fans that war…war never changes. Military historians, however, argue otherwise. Case in point: the stirrup. Before firearms dominated the battlefield, it’s generally agreed that the stirrup was the…
Writing A Successful Query Letter
Jeremy Szal
If you’ve heard about query letters, no doubt you’ve heard how annoying, infuriatingly difficult, and soul-sucking they are to write. And every word of that is true. Writing my query…
Worlds Within Worlds – Part One: Writing a Good Game into a Good Book
T. Eric Bakutis
Humanity has played games for as long as we’ve been able to make up rules and keep score. As we’ve developed as a species, we’ve created thousands of games, and…
Is This Normal Around Here?
So you get home to your enchanted castle, hand your coat to the golem butler who waits by the door, tut sadly at Markus; the caretaker who’s trying to fill…
Exploring Vvardenfell: How Morrowind Created an Immersive Secondary World
Back in 2012, I was sitting with a group of fantasy writers at the PNWA conference in Seattle. Everyone had begun rolling off their favorite authors, and soon there were…
