The Long Road
Last week I talked about how sometimes ideas assail me, story concepts or character ideas that want to make the difficult transition from idle fancy to fully-fleshed reality. It is really easy to just daydream the good bits: the dramatic confrontations, the epic climaxes, awful betrayals, heartbreaking deaths, hard-earned victories. And any amount of acid-tongued …
Continue reading Why I Write Fantasy: To Connect the Dots…
So a while ago you will recall I chatted on Jesper Schmidt’s YouTube channel about Morality in World building. See it here, if you missed it! My blog series on morality in fantasy starts here. Well, he mentioned that it was not a topic he’d ever come across when discussing fantasy fiction before, so I …
Continue reading The Writing Life: Finding Yourself Involved in a Comic Con
I write fantasy stories because ideas for them keep popping into my head, almost always when I am in no position to write them down or record them. Life’s ironic like that. When I’m half-awake is a classic, that’s when ideas for dramatic situations come to me, cliffhangers without the set up that my still …
Continue reading Why I Write Fantasy: The Recurring Ideas That Won’t Let Go
You can check out earlier discussions of morality in fantasy writing here, here, and here. This one goes long, as I felt the need for examples to make sense of what I was saying, so saddle up! This week let’s talk about something a little tricky – the minefield where morality and ethics meet, because …
Continue reading Why I Write Fantasy: A Question of Morality, Part 4: A Clash of Codes
Hello there! I’m a writer of fantasy. This is the genre in which I have always wanted to work, into which my intuition and imagination have drawn me. I cannot conceive of doing anything else. However. There is much to be learned from other genres: the well crafted misdirect of murder mystery, the connection of …
I’ve talked about various inspirations and influences that led me to writing fantasy, an urge that has stuck with me since childhood, but it seems to me that at times I am endlessly circling around the central question of this series without ever answering it. I think in part because I’m answering it piecemeal, a …
Continue reading Why I Write Fantasy: To be an Original, Baby
Brace yourselves lads and ladesses, we're going in! If something is missing from your life, it might be me in glorious technicolour! You can view me waffl- er, talking about issues around morality in fantasy, and how it can influence world building, character development and conflict. With random dubious digressions into world history. Extemporising is …
Over the last couple of weeks I’ve looked at morality in fantasy writing and world building. This week I’m going to look at what kinds of things a moral framework or viewpoint could be based upon, what people may experience as the root of their morality. In fantasy, as in the real world, there can …
Continue reading Why I Write Fantasy: A Question of Morality, Part 3: Upon What Authority?
Last week I chatted about the idea that morality in fantasy fiction is often either taken for granted, (painted in simple terms of big evil versus plucky underdog good) or oddly out of step. (Why would 20th and 21st century Western morals be the norm in a variety of quasi-medieval settings?) I also mentioned that …
Continue reading Why I Write Fantasy: A Question of Morality, Part 2: Beyond Good and Evil
Today I had the pleasure of talking with Jesper Schmidt about morality in fantasy world building, one part in an extended series of discussions on this topic that are well worth watching. He has a great YouTube channel dedicated to all things fantasy writing related – check it out here! He also helps to run …
Continue reading Why I Write Fantasy: A Question of Morality, Part 1
