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I’m one of those proud nerds who loves looking at a map when I open a book. So when I created the world of Koleth, of course I wanted to include maps.
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Traditionally, I’ve done a new year’s resolution post on this day. This year, I’m going to not do that– because isn’t making and breaking traditions what today is about? Instead, I give you the first writing prompt of the new year: Your character finds a genie, and they are given a wish. Just one. But
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Just now I was working on a minor transition scene: our heroes were sitting in a diner and unwittingly witnessed the villain making a deal. In order to more subtly plant the villain in the diner, I listed off the restaurant’s other patrons: a boy in a college hoodie, a homeless man, the villain’s henchman,
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Let’s start with a vocabulary lesson: A person who is Demisexual typically doesn’t experience sexual attraction to someone unless they have a strong bond with them first. On a similar note, a person who is Demiromantic typically won’t fall in love with a person without that same kind of strong bond. It’s on the same gradient
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I don’t know what your childhood was like, but when I was a kid, the world was divided into very few categories. The people I knew were either friends, family, that amorphous mass that comprises my extended family, and teachers. That was it. Fast forward twenty years. Now I have online friends and local friends, I
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The amazing thing about being a writer is that you learn to spot the ideas and ‘what if’s that other people would normally pass by. They’re everywhere, and they’re incredible. And they can also be incredibly frustrating. You can get incredibly intricate and detailed ideas in your head, but for the life of you, you
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((image via Know Your Meme)) If you’re a nerd, you know a nerd, or you’ve spent any amount of time on the internet, you’ve probably seen some variation of the above image. It’s a chart of the standard Dungeons & Dragons character alignments, which goes by the theory that any given character can be charted a
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It’s our protagonist’s first day at a new school. She’s frazzled and distracted, her mind heavy with plot-relevant drama– and BAM! runs headfirst into someone, sending her books flying. She and this stranger look into each other’s eyes, and the readers are given a lavish description of how good-looking he is. Their hands brush as
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One of the awkward things about writing is that we become acutely aware of some of the words we use, especially the ones we use most often. “Said” can make us physically cringe, even though readers often glaze over it. In the same way, saying the same character’s name over and over and over again
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Worldbuilding is essential to sci-fi and fantasy. Even if your story takes place in modern New York City with some vampires, you still need to build the “world” of those vampires– their culture, their history, their biology, their strengths and weaknesses, their mindsets, and so forth. One way to add flavor to a new culture
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There’s a piece of wisdom passed along the writing circles of this day and age: to round up your linking verbs and off ’em like turkeys on the week before Thanksgiving. At first glance it’s good advice– after all, the natural opposite of a static ‘was’ sentence would be an active sentence, right? Right? Not always.
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