How to Kill (Your Characters)
The worlds we write can be dark and dangerous places. In many cases, these dangers are a key element of the plot. Sword fights, monster attacks, magical duels and harrowing escapes are all staples of the fantasy genre - and those are just the dangers that come at your...
7 Types of Heroes
You don't need a hero to have a story, but if you want to write about heroic deeds you're going to end up with one somewhere along the lines. Whether you decide on the hero first and let the story follow him from there or work out the plot and fill in with the...
Earth: A Failure of World-Building
There are many elements that go into making a world fit for fantasy storytelling. World-building is a skill any good fantasy writer needs to possess. The beef I'd like to share here though is with the shoddy job someone has done with Earth. It might have once served...
Speech: The High Road and the Low Road
You hear a voice over the phone, a complete stranger. Within moments there are a lot of things you can tell about that person on the other end, even if they tell you nothing outright. You can probably tell gender and what part of the country (or world) they call home....
Amateur Cartography: the Duty of the Fantasy Author
View a larger version of the map From the Shire to Mordor, the Wall to King's Landing and every journey in between, readers have been dragged hither and yon by epic fantasy writers for generations. Back in Homer's day, you didn't need a separate map to keep track of...
A Storm is Coming: Weather in Fiction
I sit here at the time I write this, being buried beneath the snows of winter storm Nemo. This No-Name storm got me thinking about weather in a more literary sense. Weather is something so common that it plays a part in the daily life of nearly everyone on Earth. It...
A Sense of Self-Publication
A funny thing happened on the way to formatting my novel Firehurler for ebook publication: It ended up published. To say that the process went off without a hitch and was far easier than I had expected speaks mainly to the fact that I didn't have to do it myself. My...
Games and Why We Play Them
Games are a recurring theme in Firehurler. I used them for a number of purposes. First of all, it is a normal part of people's lives. Not all leisure time is outdoorsy or debauched. There isn't a festival, a court ball or a a dinner party every night, and even if...
The Power of Fantasy: The World is Yours (even if it’s still sort of England)
I recently heard someone complaining that all fantasy seemed to be set in medieval England. While obviously there are plenty of fantasy stories that do not, there is a fair share that evokes that feel: conflicts among noblemen and monarchs, knights and squires, a...
Aether: the Basis of the Magic System
In the worlds of the Twinborn Trilogy, aether is the stuff that lends power to magic. But what do we know about it? Where does it come from? Aether comes from living things. It is produced by the Source, the mystical being of every creature and plant. It is both a...