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Saggy Middle Syndrome: Symptoms and Cures for Pantsers and Plotters
Have you ever been immediately drawn into a book, only to start to get bored about halfway through? Maybe you had no idea where the book was going, and it felt like the characters were meandering about waiting for the plot to find them. Or maybe you knew exactly where the book was going, and […]
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Review: Plot Fails to Carry the Concept in The Gauntlet
I want to begin with I really, really wanted to like Karuna Riazi’s The Gauntlet. I first bought it a couple of years ago based on this review and I’ve read it a couple of times since then. The concept sounds amazing: Sucked into a board game with your two best friends? Having to save […]
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Binding the 2nd Draft of An Insignificant Drop of Ink
Hello everyone! I’m excited to announce that I have officially completed the second draft of An Insignificant Drop of Ink at 133,000 words. The first draft was written during the onset of the pandemic in 2020, but needed a lot of rewrites. Due to the craziness of finishing up university, I didn’t get around to […]
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Summoning Images and Evoking Emotion in Descriptive Writing
Have you ever struggled with writing description for a scene? Setting is a vital pillar of storytelling, and everyone wants to have at least an idea of what the key characters look like. But sometimes the act of describing something leaves the reader staring blankly at the screen, or repeatedly slamming their forehead into the […]
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Building Antarctica 2: Birth of Governments and Economies
Welcome back to my series about worldbuilding Antarctica! This is a series where I discuss behind-the-scenes worldbuilding details about my series Post-Third Apocalypse (PTA). In my previous article, I discussed the inspiration for PTA and also my purposes for including the three different apocalypses that shook the world. Of course, being a (former) political science […]
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Four Methods for Overcoming Writer’s Block
So you are suffering from the malady of writer’s block. The gods must favor you to inflict you with such an illness, to try to turn you from the path of being a writer. Why, you ask? Surely, if you’ve made it this far, then you know: Being a writer is a cursed existence. To […]
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Building Antarctica 1: Inspiration and the Apocalypses
In my most recent article, I promised to share how the concept of neomedievalism influenced the worldbuilding of my middle-grade adventure series Post-Third Apocalypse (PTA). But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that writing that article would be like dumping my reader into the middle of a book with no context. […]
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Where Does the Power Come From? Of Churches and States and Worldbuilding Sovereignty
Who has the power? When writing political intrigue—whether set in this world, a fantasy world, or a science fiction universe—this is the first question you have to be able to answer. Who has the power—and where does that power come from? In this post, I’m going to be looking specifically at one potential source for […]
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Writer-Character Conflation Syndrome
While I was at the writers conference, I had the weirdest experience. I was standing in line for the cafeteria dinner when I spotted the menu and my heart immediately leapt in happiness—Brussel sprouts! Then I frowned. Because, you see, I don’t like Brussel sprouts. It’s my caterpillar character, Shuapoka, who likes Brussel sprouts. And […]
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Review: Battle Tactics in Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of Kings
If you’ve read my previous article on battlefield tactics, you’ve probably realized by now that I just can’t leave the topic alone. So here’s another article on battlefield tactics – but this time I want to talk about tactics done right. I first read Brandon Sanderson’s Way of Kings last summer (along with the other […]