For me, writing is a lonely activity. It’s paradoxical to think I spend long periods in solitude, writing about made-up people and their social interactions with other made-up people. Am I missing out on experiencing interactions with real people? Or am I learning more about myself and the human condition through the writing process? Imagination …
Our ego is similar to a fictional story. It is our perception of ourselves in our reality. We write out the parts we feel do not matter to the overall story, and anything which doesn’t align with the narrative is skewed or ignored. This article is about taking a step back and viewing our lives …
Read more “Using your editing skills to check in on your mental health and rewrite your own story”
What is Polarity? Polarity is something with two poles with many degrees of separation between them. One pole cannot exist without the other. Duality holds a similar meaning, but instead of being seen as the poles of one thing, each is its own separate entity. Let’s take the example of good and evil. Duality sees …
Scrivener was a game changer for my writing process. Before, I confined my stories to word processing programs like Word or Pages, which became a struggle when I clocked over a hundred thousand words in a single document. Scrivener puts everything into one place. Moving a scene is a simple drag and drop. It contains …
There is a high chance your characters will go travelling, especially the adventurous types who love a good quest. I have discussed geography in world building in an earlier blog. This one will look at how best to traverse it. Walking Walking is the simplest and cheapest method of getting A to B. A stout …
Beta Readers are invaluable to writers. They put their trust in them to read and critique their work. So what have I learnt since becoming a beta reader? 1) Stick to guidelines and deadlines Writers should give you guidance on what they want from you. Ask first if they would like you to offer help …
Read more “Five things which have helped me become a better beta reader”
Twitter has a wonderful writing community. I think the best part is the hashtag prompts. Take #vssnature, which I host, as an example. The aim is to write a tweet-sized very short story (vss) on the prompt word. I limited this prompt to nature words, but there are other daily and weekly hashtag prompts to …
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The easiest way to approach geography in world building is to cut it down into three sections: The physical structure of the world, The climate, How the population affects and is affected by 1 and 2. You don’t need a geography degree to design a plausible landscape. By focusing on how your characters affect and …
Religion is a significant part of world building in fantasy because every society has its own origin story. Even in places where the popularity of religion is fading, it still heavily imprints on society. It is the story of creation and how your characters perceive how they fit within it. Developing a framework Getting the …
The delight (and bane) of writing fantasy is world building. As well as writing the story, the author must also become a tour guide, knowledgeable in the environment, people, cultures, and much more. Alongside the book, there will be hundreds of notes compiling the equivalent of a Lonely Planet guide to your fantasy realm. How …
Read more “An Introductory Guide to World Building in Fantasy”