Okay, while we are all on
the “New Year” phase of making resolutions and so forth I will add my two
cents. We writers often start a new year off with the vow that we will finish
our book. We write the goal number count on a calendar, set a deadline for the
first draft, and restock the kitchen with our caffeine drug/poison of choice.
Odd thing is, we proudly boast such things but some genres we come across in
writing confuse us.
Never fear, fellow
writers. As per my goal for 2015, I will pass along tips and the names of
writing books that I will use this year and can’t imagine my library without.
Since this writer is still teary-eyed over the deaths of a few dwarves (“Why
must my favorite characters in stories all ways die?”) January is Fantasy
month. Without further ado, I present my Fantasy lifeline.
I
have bought dozens (literally, dozens)
of books to teach me how to write fantasy books flawlessly. In addition to that
I’ve read hundreds of articles and have a textbook on the topic. The Complete
Fantasy Guide is my favorite because it doesn’t have one author, it has loads
of fantasy authors. Plus there’s a section of the book where they list online
resources. This fantasy-writing series is written like a magazine. (Double plus
for we college students who don’t have loads of time to read.) Each author
gives the readers the perfect amount of information without overwhelming us.
The articles give a different depth to world building that covers topics that
we writers wouldn’t have thought of until you’ve written yourself into a
corner. (Bad thing by the way, potentially great stories die in the corner.)
The
key of fantasy writing is world building. The authors of the guide give advice
from how to write the magical rules of the world to social systems and then the
tinier details such as clothes and weapons. My favorite piece of advice is on
how to write the world’s backstory. Which means the world’s creation story,
religions, civilization building, and the history. This can be one of the
trickiest parts about writing author notes on and is something that when not
done well can be the end to an idea. I’ve actually scrapped novel ideas because
of messing up during writing my author notes because I didn’t write a loophole
free world or magic rule. So when I first found this book was beyond elated to
find out what I could do to fix it.
This
is definitely a series I could not live without. Seriously, this series is a
fantasy writer’s best friend.
Next time: Ann’s #1
fantasy tip...
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