Originally posted on Notes From The Slush Pile:
Every drama needs a supporting cast. In my time as a First Reader with Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores, I’ve come across far too many stories that fail to give sufficient thought or depth to secondary characters. An unfortunate, but easy mistake to make when writing short…
Originally posted on Notes From The Slush Pile:
So you’ve got a great idea for your speculative fiction story. You’ve envisioned a fantastic future or a mythical realm, and presumably given some thoughts to it’s inhabitants and the problem they’ll need to solve in order to drive the plot forward. Good start. Now, what character’s…
Originally posted on Notes From The Slush Pile:
A big part of any good speculative fiction story is building a believable world. A bit ironic, considering that the genres of science fiction and fantasy are built around the willing suspension of disbelief, but there it is. This isn’t to say that the setting for any…
Originally posted on Notes From The Slush Pile:
So submissions for Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores reopened recently, and I’ve already spotted a trend in the Slush Pile irritating enough to make me jump back into the blog, despite still being on holiday. Unconvincing and poorly written characters and settings can ruin any story. I…
Brilliant article from Tor.com in a series about the women of Harry Potter. Written by Sarah Gailey. Born to a man who can’t possibly understand, and the woman who chose him over her magic. Born to take care of two brothers who have powers they must, at all costs, hide. Born to leadership. Born to […]
Read More Women of Harry Potter: Minerva McGonagall, Bright and BurningFrom the Wildspace Spelljammer blog, an excerpt from my fan fiction series that takes place in the Spelljammer D&D setting: Spacefarers everywhere agreed: the Rock of Bral was a wretched den of vice, thievery and betrayal; the midden-pit of the Universe. But everyone came there eventually. That’s what Shaundar Sunfall was relying on. Sooner or […]
Read More Book Excerpt: Between the Rock and a Hard PlaceA good article from my friend A.M. Offenwanger about the unreality of realism and why Princesses need pristine hair.
Read More On Princesses and the Unreality of RealismSo I’ve been kicking around this idea for a steampunk/magicpunk series for a few years (since 2012, it turns out). I was intending to sell a couple of stories to some magazines to build interest, then publish a book that was a collection of short stories. But instead I’ve been collecting rejection slips, and those […]
Read More So I’m Writing a Magicpunk Kindle Serial…I apparently read a lot of outstanding books over the course of the year and simply could not pick a top ten list! More than twenty of the 56 that Goodreads tells me I read (my goal was 50,) I gave a rating of five stars to. And choosing which ones stayed with me the most between […]
Read More I Tried to List the Top Ten Books I Read in 2016, But…MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood My rating: 5 of 5 stars Read for the Apocalypse Now! Reading Challenge, the Women of Genre Fiction Reading Challenge and the Second Best Reading Challenge. Method of the world’s destruction: ecological devastation, corporate greed, and a mad scientist’s bioengineered supervirus. This book was my last hurrah for 2016; I’m not […]
Read More Book Review: MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood
