So I went through and edited chapters 28-33 this weekend, re-jigged the ending a bit, got it closer to final. It would do now, but no doubt could be improved. I went back and forth through the last three chapters looking for places to possibly insert a line or two, and ended up not doing …
Tag: Inspiration
Why I Write Fantasy: To go to a School and try to Explain Why I Write Fantasy
I would like to thank Steven Craig and Parker Performing Arts School for inviting myself and the ever excellent Cheryl Carpinello in for a sequence of Q&A sessions with four classes of engaged and enthusiastic pupils today. I really enjoyed meeting the students and burbling on at length about many aspects of writing and fantasy …
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Long overdue Liebster Award
Thank you Kat for nominating me for this months and months ago! Finally - I yield up my answers and trivia! The Rules Acknowledge the person who nominated you! Answer the 11 questions Kat at The Lily Cafe asked me about blogging. 11 random facts about yourself. Nominate 5-11 bloggers. Ask nominated bloggers 11 questions. …
Why I Write Fantasy: Cosmology and History and Geology and Meterology and… as Inspirations. Knowledge is inspiring. Keep learning.
Time for another attempt by me to ramble on randomly about fantasy and see what falls out. No planning for this blog. I should be in bed already! If you don't have time, the title sums it up and you can stop here! (Added this line in last, haha!) When I consider characters, dilemmas, conflicts, …
Taking Stock
Sorry for the lack of blogs, I’ve been deep in the editorial jungle, hacking away with the machete of no remorse. Oh wait, this is the developmental edit – I’ve been adding more than subtracting, as is usual for me! Part of that is recognizing where I the writer take my own knowledge of the …
Why I Write Fantasy: The Three Fours #4: Clearly I Have a Type
So while writing about Highlander, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and The Crow, I couldn’t help but notice the common elements that the movies shared. In no particular order. 1) A narrated opening. All three start with someone speaking, telling you a story. Yes, apparently I’m five, and still like to be tucked up in bed and …
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Why I Write Fantasy: The Three Fours #3: The Crow
More spoilers for a film that this time is a mere 24 years old. The last film that has, so far, made me run back to the cinema three more times after the first viewing was this one. A modern gothic fairytale with yet another fantastic soundtrack, an alternate contemporary world that was close enough …
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Why I Write Fantasy: The Three Fours #2: Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Oh yeah. The music, the costumes, the saturated colours, the visual style that played with realism and then deliriously ignored it to tell its story in its own defiant way, and managed to sweep me up in it. I watched this movie four times in a rather dilapidated cinema in Dundee, complete with decayed but …
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Why I Write Fantasy: The Three Fours #1: Highlander
Spoilers for a 30+ year old movie follow. And for Alien3 too. You've been warned. There are only three movies I’ve paid to see more than once in rapid succession, and each time I ended up seeing the film four times in the theatre. In each case I was lured into the atmosphere of the …
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The Writing Life: Gathering Your Thoughts, or Dealing with Developmental Editorial Feedback
So I received my developmental notes for The Killer and The Dead last week. These notes were a collection of thoughtful comments and suggestions on plot, structure, pacing, writing, setting, and character. Plus a ton of in-text comments on specific aspects of the book, good and bad, pointing out places where improvements could be made, …
Roderick T. Macdonald 