50 Types of Minor Characters (Part 1, 50-41)
You've got your heroes and your villains. You've even got a sidekick. But who inhabits the rest of the world? World-building is as much about people and cultures as it is about geography and magic. Minor characters are like mannequins that you can dress up in your...
Read ‘Em All, You Might Learn Something
"It's good but depressing" is the headline of the first 3-star review I received for Firehurler, just the other day. I've got as thin a skin as the next author, so after receiving almost exclusively positive feedback for my books so far, I cringed a bit. "Have I...
Worldbuilding: Science in Fantasy
So you're going with fantasy as your genre of choice? I guess that means you don't need to worry about science. WRONG! Just because you presuppose supernatural forces to exist, doesn't mean that there can't be science alongside them. What "No Science" would actually...
The Secret to Stretching Your Entertainment Dollar
The entertainment world is full of options. With enough money, you can indulge in just about any form of leisure imaginable. But what if you don't have an unlimited budget? Most of us don't. What's the best value for your hard-earned money? I've taken a look at some...
6 Things to Do After Writing a Book: A Thumb-Twiddling Primer
Hooray! Your book is finished. The hours/weeks/months/years of work have resulted in a manuscript that was sent off to your editor just moments ago. What now? Let's face it: your editor needs some time. How much will vary of course, but unless your manuscript fit on...
Sourcethief Cover Reveal
This is it! The cover for Sourcethief, the third and final book in the Twinborn Trilogy. Duncan Long has done another excellent job in illustrating the covers for the series. For those who are curious, the scene is from the Battle of the Dead Earth, a key moment in...
Cats and Internet Marketing
Host: We have with us today one of the great minds of our generation, Dr. David Steinbaur, Head of Complicated Research at the National Smartness Institute. He's here to talk about his Nobel Prize nominated theory on nanoparticles. Dr. Steinbaur: Thank you for having...
Sidekicks: Who’s got your back?
The sidekick is a time-honored tradition in storytelling. They are often found as the lone companion to otherwise solitary heroes, or as tag-alongs looking to follow in the hero's footsteps one day. They add a dash of flavor to a one-note main character, serve to...
Completing a Trilogy
Over the weekend, I finished the manuscript for Sourcethief, the final book of the Twinborn Trilogy. It finished at a svelte 188k words (only by comparison to Firehurler's 235k and Aethersmith's 225k), making for roughly 650k words for the series as a whole. Writing...
Off-Camera Antics
Books and movies share a common element in storytelling: Point of View. The camera or the narrator of a scene (whether it be a character or a third person) has a particular spot from which it views the events taking place. No matter how many points of view (POV) you...