At a recent writing convention, I saw a panel entitled “Not Another F***ing Elf” in which four authors discussed the tropes of fantasy writing. There was an interesting moment in the discussion when it was suggested that many twentieth century…
Blog Archives
Know Your World
Posted in 2012, How-to's, Writing Tagged with: Blake Crouch, collaborative, continuity, Draculas, F Paul Wilson, Jeff Strand, Joe Konrath, JRR Tolkien, setting, sitcom, world building
Building Worlds and Making Rules
What is world building? Any act of creative writing is an act of world building. The moment we begin to tell a story, we are inviting our audience into a world that is not theirs. It may have enormous…
Posted in 2012, How-to's, Writing Tagged with: Bishop Berkeley, creativity, development of ideas, Diana Wynne Jones, genre, imagination, rules, setting, world building
Hell: A Visitor’s Guide
In our story, Satan has been fired from his diabolical management position and evicted from hell. In our current plans, one possible reason for his removal from office is that some other fiendish individual wishes to seize the reins of…
Approaches to Writing
I want to write a number of blog posts about how we might go about plotting this story of Satan’s life as a mere mortal. However, that requires me to explain (to myself, if no one else) what my approach…
Posted in 2011, Writing Tagged with: A Reich that will last a thousand years, Collaborative writing, creating characters, index cards, organic writing, planning, plot, setting
