Sympathy for the protagonist is a great tool for drawing readers into a story. If the reader can identify with the character’s struggles and desires, they become invested in what happens. That leads to late nights of anxious page-turning. A sympathetic character has obstacles they must overcome. These can be internal or external, but the [...]

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I envision a scene in my head first then write. The more vivid the pictures in my mind, the easier it is for me to write. Of course, this method comes with drawbacks. If my mental vision is muddied, I struggle putting words down. My descriptions also tend to rely on visual cues more than [...]

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Never submit a story to a market without reading the submission guidelines first. It’s also important to read work previously published in that market so you can get an idea of what types of stories the editors like. I always do the former, but tend to neglect the latter unless samples are offered online. I [...]

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If you haven’t read my previous posts on building a fantasy fiction world, you’ve missed out on discussions about using geography to support your story, integrating the history of your fantasy world without resorting to large information dumps, and creating dynamic inter-character relationships by developing cultural factors like race, religion, government and social mores. Of [...]

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Now that you’ve determined the geography of your fantasy world and developed its history, it’s time to create the cultures that exist therein. “Cultures” really means people, and includes factors such as races, religions, forms of government, and social mores that define who they are. These topics all shape how the inhabitants of your fantasy [...]

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