Logan Shadowhand presented some challenges for me as he evolved from a roleplaying game character into a fantasy fiction protagonist. I had no literary aspirations for the character until I recreated him as a non-player character for one of my Dungeons & Dragons campaigns. He and his elf partner (who was also destined to become [...]

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It’s pretty rare to find a stand-alone fantasy novel anymore. Fantasy fiction tends to come in sets: trilogies, episodic series, or some epic number of volumes. Part of this is marketing, the building of a brand and fostering reader loyalty to that brand. The artist in me prefers to think of it in terms of [...]

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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 [...]

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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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Fantasy worlds take all shapes and sizes. The physical landscape of your story’s setting plays a large part in its uniqueness. Creating fantastical geography involves more than just drawing maps, however.
Determine the Scope
Building an entire fantasy world can be daunting, and unnecessary. No need to create entire continents if your hero will only be gallivanting [...]

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