Grey Characters: No Moral Absolutes
One of the comments I get about my books is that all the characters are grey. That means that you can't just plunk a black or white hat on them and say definitively whether they are good or evil. Go through the people in your life and try to list which ones are good...
7 Male Love Interests
(note: This is regarding male romantic interests for female characters. There are many potential relationship pairings, and to keep things simple, I'm examining them one type at a time) One of the first things to consider when you are considering creating a romantic...
Steampunk: the Engineer in the Writer
As I wind my way through the final stages of getting The Mad Tinker's Daughter ready to publish, I thought it might be a good time to reflect on my choice of setting. Continuing in my Twinborn Universe, which previously consisted of the worlds Veydrus (medieval) and...
7 Female Love Interests
Note: This is regarding female love interests for male characters. There are many potential relationship pairings, and to keep things simple, I'm examining them one type at a time. One of the first things to consider when you are considering creating a romantic...
Worldbuilding: Creating Fictional Cultures
When you create a world, you need to create its inhabitants. If you are writing in a historically accurate version of Earth, you have established cultures into which to fit those inhabitants. However, if you write any sort of speculative fiction, you have the...
New Year, New Look
It's 2014 now, and to go along with the change in calendar, I've updated the covers for the Twinborn Trilogy. With the success of the series, I thought it was time to reinvest in better cover layouts. I've always loved Duncan Long's artwork for the series, but it was...
Writers are Readers Too
It's the retrospective time of year, when we engage in rampant ruing and reminiscing, considering the sum total of the year about to drift away behind us. Though it is an arbitrary point, it's also the time when many of us look to make course corrections for the...
What is a Reader?
A reader is a solitary creature by nature. When engaged in their eponymous activity, readers travel via unknown means to another place, time, or both. While in that other place, their physical bodies are often ignored for hours on end. While their bodies still require...
Fantasy Tropes: Love Them and Hate Them
Fantasy is a genre notorious for its tropes. For better or worse, they are what people who read/watch a lot of fantasy have seen a million times. Some of them are tired and worn out, but others still keep their charm despite being battered and bruised by ham-handed...
Amazon Power Tip: How to Give an eBook as a Gift
Have an avid reader of ebooks on your gift list this year? Despair not! Just because you know a voracious reader who has switched over to a Kindle doesn't mean that you can't give her a book for the holidays - Amazon actually makes it quite easy. Give an ebook as a...