I was looking around for alpha readers for the first third (or so) of my book. When I mentioned it to one of my acquaintances, he asked if I had read Dungeon Crawler Carl. Not only had I not read it, I’d never heard of it. Lo, these many weeks later, I’m in a bookstoreContinue reading “Bestseller? Seriously?”
Tag Archives: fantasy
Life as a Werewolf
In the normal course of events, this is the sort of discussion one has with people. I don’t have people, so you, my vast internet audience, will just have to do. I’m not sure where I want my werewolf series to go. I know the beginning. I know the thousands-of-years-later state, which is not reallyContinue reading “Life as a Werewolf”
Dungeons
What is a dungeon? From a utilitarian perspective: A training ground. One can run about in the real world killing things (monsters, humans, random animals), but there are consequences. Even systemized worlds need ecosystems. If people wander around killing everything, the ecosystem will collapse. Dungeons are for training. One can kill everything inside without worryingContinue reading “Dungeons”
Enlightened, Monsters, and Animals
I’m not a big fan of the term “enlightened races”, but it exists and it’s convenient, so I’m adopting it. This refers to those races who naturally (without system fuckery) form societies. Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Aliens, etc… This is not quite synonymous with “sapient”. Leaving aside the offspring question (i.e. are human babies sapient? It’sContinue reading “Enlightened, Monsters, and Animals”
How Does Magic Work?
This comes up in the context of a fight scene in Industrial Mage. Our intrepid hero casts a tornado-ish air shield around himself and it moves with him. Instead of a fireball, he creates a fire-whip, which behaves mostly like an actual whip. He casts water bullets at the bad spider creature, targeting the joints,Continue reading “How Does Magic Work?”
Learning 2 Write – XII
Scope Continuing the post on Endings – the irony of which does not escape me – I had a thought: It’s not (usually) that I get tired of a series, it’s that the series changes out from under me. Many stories (not just LitRPG) start with the struggles of our intrepid hero. As he overcomesContinue reading “Learning 2 Write – XII”
Learning 2 Write – XI
Titles It occurs to me that I need both series and book titles. I have only one criterion: Book Title + Series Title + book number MUST be readable. Browsing through my Kindle for examples… Jack of All: LitRPG, Isekai, Survival Adventure (Book 1) fails in two ways. If one is looking at multiple books,Continue reading “Learning 2 Write – XI”
Learning 2 Write – X
Endings I just finished Ithria Book 15. It ended as I feared: Cliff-hanger. Sort-of. There’s enough said that there is no doubt whatsoever about what will happen (the bad guys are going to get their ass severely kicked), but the actual happening will be in book 16. This is more a case of “the lastContinue reading “Learning 2 Write – X”
Learning 2 Write – VIII
Repercussions This is a short one. A note to myself more than anything. I just ran across this: [He] knew from his limited reading on the subject that because of their longevity elves had built a society with a massive emphasis on conflict resolution. Something that made sense when he thought about it. For whenContinue reading “Learning 2 Write – VIII”
Learning 2 Write – V
Time This may be the hardest part about writing a novel – other than actually typing it out. Authors get this wrong a LOT. Time in novels must be “stretchy” simply due to the medium. As a counter example, movie scenes must run in real-time because we’re watching people do things – including talk toContinue reading “Learning 2 Write – V”
Marked Up 