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Intro Spooky Season is here, so I thought that now would be the perfect time to talk about character fears. Fears are one of those things that I think a lot of people tend to overlook when they’re coming up with a character—and I’m often among those people. It’s understandable; when compared to all the…
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Intro If you’re a fantasy reader—or even a reader of certain types of sci-fi—you probably know that fictional religions are very common. Which makes sense, considering that religion has been an extremely important part of a lot of real people’s lives for a very long time; it’s only natural that writers want to create something…
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Intro If you’ve read my books—or even just the books I’ve recommended here on the blog—you probably know that I’ve got a thing for classic fantasy creatures. Elves, dwarves, orcs, and dragons are all awesome—which is why it’s always sad to me whenever I see other fantasy authors and readers ripping on them. (I mean,…
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Intro Power levels are something that not every genre has to deal with but, if you’re writing sci-fi, fantasy, or superhero, it may be one of the trickiest things you’re going to have to tackle. For those of you who don’t know what I mean by “power levels”, I’ll explain. In many sci-fi, fantasy, and…
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Intro If you write fantasy or sci-fi, you’re likely going to find yourself dealing with characters who speak languages that don’t exist in the real world. Maybe there are going to be aliens or orcs or even just regular old humans who, for one reason or another, don’t speak a regular Earth language. Which means…
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Intro I’ve always had a soft spot for mentor characters—I don’t know why. Maybe I like that experience-born confidence that they so often have, or seeing the relationships between them and their protégés. Maybe I just like them because they’re already cool and accomplished by the time the story starts, so they can work that…
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Intro Nothing is more important to the process of character creation than coming up with the personality. A character’s personality defines who they are, and is the biggest thing that’s going to help readers connect with them. And, if you can get readers to connect with your character, then they’re that much more likely to…
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Intro There are lots of different brainstorming methods out there, and different ones work better for different people. Like all parts of the writing process, there is no right or wrong way to do it—that’s especially true with something that’s as behind-the-scenes as brainstorming. The way I do it is pretty simple: I dump all…
