Unusual Places | Unusual Places To Visit Around the World The Initial Steps of Worldbuilding: Architect, Gardener, Tourist Monday, March 17, 2014 Listening to the news in the real world – that horrid place where dragons are small and kept in vivaria and pixie is just a kind of haircut – it is very apparent that life is a very complicated place. Anything from the politics between two warring countries, down to a neighbourly dispute on a single street, the world we live in is complicated, intertwined and gorgeously abundant with issue. So, when you sit down ready to begin that next big fantasy epic – like I decided to do about a year ago – how do you make sure that your disputes between elves and goblins are as interesting and in depth as reality itself. In another sense, how do you make your world feel real, when it is populated with the exact opposite? Now, sitting in front of lists of “how do’s” in writing, can leave me feeling a bit empty. There are two very easy answers to this question. An architect will sit for hours, days, weeks, planning every intricate detail of a world. I come to this conclusion.
How To Worldbuild Magic: Short Rules for Real Worlds Fantasy writers take a significant amount of crap from SF writers for what the SF writers perceive as their “fluffy bunny” worldbuilding and their use of magic as an easy out for solving their characters’ problems. In fact, however, magic is no more of an easy way out for well-written fantasy than physics is an easy way out for well-written SF. The following are ten rules that will make your use of magic in your fantasy novel rigorous, and will save you from the “fluffy-bunny” label — and will, at the same time, make your story better, more entertaining, and more exciting. 1. Also known as There Ain’t No Free Lunch. 2a. When your characters start using magic, they must be made to pay for it in some way. 2b. This rule is the storyteller’s best friend – in fantasy, in SF, in mainstream… anywhere. 3. The most obdurate magical stone wall created by the mightiest evil wizard had better have a crack in it that a determined, intelligent hero can find with effort. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.
How to Make Readers Feel Emotion on January 30th, 2011 by Fiction Editor Beth Hill and last modified on February 8, 2011 I wrote an article on the importance of creating emotions in readers, but I’ve noticed that writers are looking for specifics on how to accomplish that. So, this article complements that first one, presents practical tips on how to stir the reader’s emotions. Readers like to be touched, moved, by story. Fiction, whether in book or film or games, allows people to not only step into other worlds, but to experience those worlds. Since readers want to immerse themselves in other worlds and other lives, what can writers do to make that experience authentic, to make the fictional world real for a few hours? One technique the writer can make use of to create reality out of fiction is to induce emotion in readers, make them feel something of what the characters are experiencing. But how can a writer accomplish this? 1. This is a major key for rousing reader emotions. 2. Help your readers know your characters.
365 Creative Writing Prompts - ThinkWritten Sharing is caring! As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for your support! If you want to become a better writer, the best thing you can do is practice writing every single day. Writing prompts are useful because we know sometimes it can be hard to think of what to write about! To help you brainstorm, we put together this list of 365 creative writing prompts to give you something to write about daily. Whether you write short stories, poems, or like to keep a journal – these will stretch your imagination and give you some ideas for topics to write about! Want to Download these prompts? Don’t want the printable version? Here are 365 Creative Writing Prompts to Inspire: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51: Sunrise/Sunset: The sun comes up, the sun goes down. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64.
25 Fantasy Writing Prompts If you wait for inspiration to strike before you start writing, you might never put pen to paper or fingers to keys. That’s where writing prompts can help. Since I write scifi and fantasy, I’ve put together a list of 25 fantasy writing prompts to get you started. These are various ideas that have been bouncing around in my head or taking up space in my notebooks. Some are just quotes—a few even borrowed from a few of my favorite shows—while others are more elaborate prompts. They’re mostly contemporary fantasy ideas: supernatural, magic, vampires, stuff like that. A working-dad desperate for money to feed his family turns to robbery, only to find that he’s chosen a wizard as his victim.A man comes home from work one evening to find that his couch is missing. 25 Fantasy Writing Prompts by Justin McLachlan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Fantasy Brent Weeks | 2. Writing Fantasy: Tools & Techniques a. World Building i. Tips/strategies ii. Tools for building your world b. i.How do you write a bad guy? c. d. e. a. i. A lot of writers have different takes on your question than I do. But my answer is that the story is what matters. There are more and less elegant solutions to the problem of how you set up an entire world and lay the ground rules quickly. ii. I’m not going to be able to do justice to your question about world-building in one short post here. The world-building has to occur along sort of two tracks: first, you need to set up a lot of things that you absolutely know about the world. Secondly, you’re going to have to think about just how the world works. So along that first track of thinking, you, outside of the fiction, need to make all of these decisions about how the world actually works. Third, do things differently. Fourth, now you have to put all of this into practice. Go forth and build worlds! b. I’m not going to snow you here. So, how do you write great characters?
Fantasy Clichés to Avoid - What Beginners Do in Fantasy Fiction Fantasy Fiction Clichés to Avoid - What Beginners Do in Fantasy Fiction [First, my profound apologies to the vast majority of readers who don't steal content, but I have to state the following. This article and all content on this website belongs to Val Kovalin, copyright © Obsidianbookshelf.com, except where noted. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without written permission from Val Kovalin is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Val Kovalin and Obsidianbookshelf.com with a return link to the original content.] Here at Obsidianbookshelf.com, I always have to keep these clichés in mind. Architecture.An historic castle is sometimes really tiny! In reality, those castles and keeps were sometimes built small to be easy to defend. Appearance of character.Keep it to a minimum.I'm all for not describing your character at all, and letting your readers fill in their own picture. For example, I have a sergeant.
Creative Uses of Magic in Your Fantasy Story Creative Uses of Magic in Your Fantasy Story by Philip Martin Return to Speculative Fiction · Print/Mobile-Friendly Version How can you create an interesting form of magic for your fantasy story? Or will you have several forms, as Tolkien did in The Lord of the Rings, where the dark forces use magic like a bulldozer to gain power, while the elves have a wonderful nature that is magic simply because everything they do is "more effortless, more quick, more complete" than the abilities of those around them? In fantasy fiction, magic is the central nervous system. Magic doesn't need to be plausible, but it has to work well. 1. Magic needs to work according to firm rules. Everything should be set in place long in advance. 2. For dramatic impact, as important as the powers of magic are its limitations. In the Harry Potter books, Harry's nemesis, Lord Voldemort, has great powers, but even so, those powers are limited. What will the limitations on magic be? 3. 4. This should be obvious. 5. 6.
Fantasy writing tips, how to write a fantasy novel, creative wri Sign up to my mailing list, and choose a FREE EBOOK as a gift. Join here. A Creative Writing Ebook AVAILABLE NOW from $0.99