11 Tips For Writing Fantasy

Woo hoo! Fantasy is sweet!

Nicholas C. Rossis

Image: Pixabay

My entire Pearseus series (five books) is sci-fi/fantasy, as are some of my short stories. So I was pretty excited when I came across a post on Reedsy with some great tips on writing fantasy. I’m summarizing here (and adding a few tips of my own), but be sure to check out (and bookmark) the full post on Reedsy.

1. Identify your market

If you don’t know your market, you’ve already made a mistake. “Oh, my market is fantasy,” you might say. But is your story steampunk, urban, or dark fantasy? Are there elves or tech? Is it set in the modern world, or is it a re-imagining of an alternate past? No-one would instinctively group Harry Potter and Stephen King’s The Dark Tower in the same category.

Indeed, “fantasy” is such a broad genre that you’ll need to dig deeper to find your niche. Your subgenre…

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For Goodness Sake: Stop Blaming the Consumer!

Consider this quote: “The reader is a friend, not an adversary, not a spectator.” 🙂
And yet another fav line I plucked: “readers are not the problem, out of touch creators are.” That is often so very, very true. I may or may not in the near future write my own post in a similar vein and bleed along the screen/page about my own reflections. Happy Sunday #SharingIsCaring

the orang-utan librarian

So way back in the summer, I saw an article that kind of bugged me. The gist of the piece was that author Howard Jacobson believed that when it came down to literary fiction sales “the problem is the reader”. His argument essentially boiled down to blaming limited attention spans and the consequent need to coerce readers to try more “serious” works.

Aside from the blatant genre snobbery, it will probably come as no surprise that I don’t believe Jacobson is on the right track. Saying that the “novel is in good health” doesn’t make it so. At random I can take a popular genre author like Steven King or Sarah J Maas, have a peek at their ratings on Goodreads and find it’s usually above 3.5 (often above 4 and as high as 4.69 for Maas), whereas a literary author like Jacobson will typically get below 3.5 (some…

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NO FEE Submission call + editor interview – The Maynard, DEADLINE: Always open

Trish Hopkinson

The Maynard is an online poetry journal. They publish two issues per year on April 15 (Spring issue) and October 15 (Fall issue) and are always open to submissions of poetry and cover art.

I wondered how and why this poetry journal came to be, so I asked founder and Feature Editor Jami Macarty and she kindly replied. See my interview with Macarty and a link to submission guidelines below.

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HOPKINSON: Tell me a little bit about The Maynard.

MACARTY: The Maynard, an online poetry journal published twice yearly, is a space for emerging and experienced writers from Canada and around the world. Issue editors, comprised of Advisory and Editorial Board members, strive to feature work that challenges perceived boundaries (lyric, narrative, formal, experimental, etc.) of the written word. Rather than themes, each issue of The Maynard showcases artistic conversations represented via shared or disparate aesthetics, subjects, voices, and styles.

In…

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Navigating Lit Mags: Why and Where to Publish – guest blog rewind by Bernard Grant

Trish Hopkinson

Navigating the world of literary magazines was difficult for me in the beginning. I initially set out to publish anywhere, so desperate for publication, I actually Googled easiest literary magazines to the publish in, or something to that extent, and came across visual and literary artist’s Michael Alexander Chaney’s “Top Lit Mags that REALLY do Publish Emerging Authors.” Some of the magazines on his list include Baltimore Review, Bayou Magazine, New England Review, River Teeth. For each one, Chaney includes short anecdotes, quotations, and descriptions—proof essentially—that these top-tier lit mags have, indeed, published emerging writers, and have given some writers their first publications.

Despite, and maybe because of that article, I became more aware of the level of prestige each journal carried, and after a few rejections from them, I decided to aim low, believing I had no chance with those big journals and, even worse, that I…

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November 9 post: Deep POV is shallow (and harming fantastic fiction)

A Potential Case Against Deep POV? A very interesting read.

Emperor's Notepad

I don’t feel like writing a story today so I’ll make a post on writing. This post will pull together different issues I have hinted or referenced in other posts, focusing on what I believe has become a serious problem in fiction literature, especially what is known as ‘genre writing’: the death of the narrator. I blame what is known as Deep Point of View, although perhaps a new term would be needed for what I will talk about, perhaps Character-Only Narrative, but Deep POV will have to do because nobody would know what I’m talking about if I start talking about CON.

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The Many Ways YA Books & The Community Isolates Teens

Vicky Who Reads

I think (I know) some people will probably disagree with me on this, but a fundamental assumption made in this post is that first and foremost, YA’s audience are teens ages 13-18.

This isn’t supposed to be a “adults can’t read YA!!!” post, nor is it supposed to argue who YA is for. I’m telling you straight out that I think YA is first & foremost for teens, and if you can’t at least understand (not necessarily agree, but understand) this assumption for the rest of this post, then it’s probably best to stop reading while you’re ahead.

Because I’m not here to talk about who YA is for–I believe it’s for teens. I’m here to talk about how given the fact that it’s for teens, the YA book community canstill . . . have a lack of thought towards teenagers.

Honestly, I’ve been nervous to…

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