It’s not unheard of for fantasy fiction writers to spend a lot of time and effort on world-building. Character-building, on the other hand, often takes a back seat, resulting in one-dimensional archetypes instead of a cast with personality and motivations. Imagine the depth and complexity fantasy fiction characters might have if writers spent as much [...]
Building a fantasy fiction character
Filed under Tips & Tools on June 23, 2009
Tagged: character motivation, character traits, character-building, fantasy fiction, origin story
Relativism in fantasy fiction
Filed under Soapbox on March 17, 2009
Tagged: character motivation, fantasy fiction, relativism
A common praise I hear of George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice series is its “realism.” Take this recent comment from a mailing list I subscribe to: By real, I mean that there is no good or evil, everyone has a motive for his or her actions…. That isn’t realism, that’s [...]
