It’s been more than a year since I’ve posted here and the website has been in neglect. So, imagine my delight and chagrin when I discovered it’s taken on a life of its own. While I’ve been off studying my navel, all you followers and acolytes have been patiently trying to get my attention. More than 1,400 messages have come in to the site, many of a time-sensitive nature. At
The other night at a writers’ group, the question came up of whether writing fantasy might be less restrictive than other types of fiction. With fantasy, the author is freer to make up the facts, details and history of their world. The author is also the ultimate arbiter of what makes sense. By contrast, contemporary or historical novels are grounded in our own reality. There are always readers who will
Last time we touched on the concept of world-building. Basically, for any fantasy or sci-fi story, the author imagines a place or a time where certain things are different than in our own world. Then comes the fun exercise of speculating on how those differences would trickle through the reality of that world, impacting technology, religion, social norms, food production, power and so on. World-building for science fiction intimidates me,
Over the past couple of months I’ve been “world building” for my new novel, which will be a low fantasy set on an alternate planet. In the process, I’ve run into some pretty interesting stuff online, leading down one thought-provoking rabbit hole after another. Since I’m relaunching my blog here, I thought it would be fun to start exploring a bit of this material, as well as the appeal of