First off, let me admit I'm going to break the rules. I've decided these '11-question' games or memes or whatever you call them offer too much fodder for discussion to be used up in a single blog post. So instead I'm going to use each question as a launching point for a single post. And … Continue reading If I could live in a fictional world…
Another WIP Wednesday, and today I'm going to talk about one aspect of the fantasy genre you just can't escape from: Worldbuilding. This is perhaps one of the most attractive aspects of writing and reading fantasy for me. I just love the opportunity to explore amazing worlds, and when an author gets it right, it's … Continue reading Two touchstones for worldbuilding
A familiar trope often found in fantasy stories is the riding of horses as part of a journey or quest. These days the genre is diverse enough that the presence of horses is not inevitable, but many writers (including me) still find this method of transport -- and the idea of journeying across the imagined … Continue reading Horse camp
After a fairly solid month of writing, I've produced an opening chunk of the new novel project. It's rather rough in parts (as previously noted), but I'm starting to feel the story take shape. The decision now is whether to keep going with a literally rough draft, or whether to dive back into the opening … Continue reading Rough draft or solid opening?
Well, fate snickered at me a week ago when, despite my earlier upbeat words about targets and optimising the wordmachine, production came to a grinding halt. Sparks flew and wheels screeched as the brakes were slammed on in response to my sudden realisation that the MS I was working on was not the MS I should be working … Continue reading Changing direction
Literary agent Rachelle Gardner recently ran a readership poll on her extremely popular blog and has now published the results. Of particular interest to me (and her, as it turns out) is that 26% of writerly survey respondents write science-fiction/fantasy (SFF), making it the most popular represented genre. The next most popular was general/'non-genre' fiction (21%), followed … Continue reading Why I write fantasy
E V Gregory 