I received an email from Wizards of the Coast publishing on Tuesday, notifying me that they are declaring Maiden of Pain out of print. This is pretty common practice for publishers. Unless you’re a bestseller or under contract for future titles, you’re a candidate for pruning. I fall under neither category.
The email stirred up quite a bit of emotion for me, and not all of it positive. I’m grateful to my wife for helping me discard a lot the dross and finding the wake up call.
I need to get published again. …Read the rest»
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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 was reading through the submission guidelines of a fantasy e-zine recently and found this:
“We are not looking for . . . retellings of D&D campaigns.”
Granted, this particular market doesn’t publish epic fantasy or sword-and-sorcery. Of the five short stories featured, all of them were set in our modern world and contained a single, fantastical element or theme. I’d label them as literary stories with fantasy aspirations. However, this isn’t the first time I’ve seen Dungeons and Dragons used in the guidelines of a fantasy market as an example of what not to submit. …Read the rest»
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It’s important, from time to time, to stop and do a self-assessment of the direction your life is taking: personally, professionally, spiritually. Are you investing your resources in the areas that you really want to? Are you making progress toward the goals you set six months ago? A year ago? Five years ago? The past month has been such a time for me.
This month will mark three years since Maiden of Pain was published. I should be four years into my five year plan. Instead, I’ve spent the last two years developing a multiplayer, turn-based strategy Flash game, and the only fantasy fiction story I got published was in a non-professional market.
Something’s not right with this picture. …Read the rest»
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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 course, it wouldn’t be a fantasy world without magic.
Much like methods for world-building, how a writer handles magic generally falls somewhere between two poles: a system of extensive rules or no explanation whatsoever. Unlike world-building, where you can find a happy medium somewhere along the continuum, if you stray to far from the poles with magic, you’ll end up with confused and dissatisfied readers. …Read the rest»
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Now that you’ve determined the geography of your fantasy world and developed its history, it’s time to create the cultures that exist therein. “Cultures” really means people, and includes factors such as races, religions, forms of government, and social mores that define who they are. These topics all shape how the inhabitants of your fantasy world behave–in a general sense–and can help set up the personal conflicts that make for powerful inter-character relationships.
Races
My early attempts at world-building for the Chronicles of Jord were heavily influenced by Dungeons & Dragons. I had subterranean, metalsmithing dwarves; tree-hugging, long-lived elves; and pseudo-European humans for the good races. Orcs and goblins represented the evil races–all pulled straight from the Monster Manual. Even my implementation of dragons followed the entries for chromatics. …Read the rest»
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