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What’s to love about fantasy? The magic, of course!
As a “geriatric millenial,” as I’ve heard my age described, I discovered Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone my freshman year of high school. (Book 3 had just come out). I’ve loved fantasy ever since . . . Lord of the Rings, King Arthur, dragons, sorcerers, spells and curses . . . I am a…
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Respecting your readers means respecting the characters they care about
(Cue Aretha, right? It’s all about that R-E-S-P-E-C-T!) It is easy enough to SAY that as fiction writers, we need to respect and acknowledge the attachments readers will form to our characters. It’s easy enough to SAY that we should acknowledge the reality that readers will like or admire this character but dislike that one.…
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What writing fiction taught me about how God works with us
My journey with God has certainly has its ups and downs, from a whirlwind conversion experience in 2014, to entering the monastery, to deciding to leave religious formation nine months later. Now, my fiction is NOT, in explicit terms, Christian fiction. I write sword and sorcery fantasy, most of the time in an action/adventure vein.…
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On evil: why it’s drab, and how to write a villain
I don’t find it surprising that there is something about J.R.R. Tolkien’s Sauron that has always gripped me, while the REAL “big baddie” of Middle Earth (named Melkor or Morgoth) has never intrigued me at all. I’ll begin this post with this contrast because it’s perfect (and if you’re not a fan of Tolkien, I’ll…
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One good reason your word count might go up while revising
Like almost all writers, I follow the #WritingCommunity hashtag on Twitter, and someone posted an interesting question recently. He said that he noticed that his word count has been going up while editing/revising his draft. Was this okay? He was concerned because he’d always heard that word count should go down while revising. Generally speaking,…
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Kora finds out about Zalski Forzythe: excerpt from “The Crimson League: The Fight for Hope”
Yesterday, we explored the narrative technique of in media res and what inspired the character of Kora Porteg and her brother, Zacry. One fun aspect of that technique is that it allows for flashback scenes: such as when protagonist Kora, seventeen years old, reflects on the moment when she first learned that sorcerer Zalski Forzythe…
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Thoughts on “in media res” (and how “The Crimson League: The Fight for Hope” began)
I remember learning the term “in media res” in middle school, when we were learning about Homer, “The Iliad,” and “The Odyssey.” The teacher told us that “in media res” in a narrative technique in which a story starts in the middle of the action. I was much older when I started studying Latin and…
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Mark your calendars: “The Crimson League: The Fight for Hope” releases June 15, 2023!
Not a soul in Herezoth is safe while evil sorcerer, Zalski Forzythe, reigns supreme. There was a time when the magicked and commoners lived in peace. The Hall of Sorcery hidden high in the mountains was a place of reverence . . . Until the vicious sorcerer Hansrelto came to call. His attempted overthrow may…
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On real feminine strength in fiction
I recently watched this You Tube video on Eowyn and feminine strength, and why her big moment against the Witch King of Angmar WORKS so well in Tolkien’s “The Return of the King.” I was hoping it might get me thinking about the craft of good, inspiring, believable fiction, especially seeing the first novel in…
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Update on “The Crimson League”
It’s been a while since I’ve written a blog post, so I thought I would give you some updates on where things are regarding release and what I’ve been doing. It’s kind of “the calm before the storm.” I’m hoping to get my manuscript back from the editor by November. That would give me two…
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Creative Writing with the Crimson League 