I finished the rewrite of “Relvan’s Rescue” on Friday. The manuscript sits just shy of 11,400 words. That’s almost 4,000 words more than the original version I submitted to several markets a year ago. The story is in the hands of some beta readers, one of whom has been tasked with trying to find ways [...]

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Lady Touvree Temmere is Janner Kohl’s love interest in “Relvan’s Rescue”. She was a bit player in the version of the story I submitted to various markets early last year, a few lines of conversation in the third scene that alluded to a shared past. Her part now would be considered leading lady material, a [...]

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Janner Kohl is supposed to be my Solomon Kane, a wandering, sword-and-sorcery hero whose tales I would chronicle in episodic short stories. The setup was perfect: a mercenary of principles in a world transitioning from medieval dark ages to enlightened renaissance; where magic exists more as myth than reality, but still could be stumbled across [...]

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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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