Tag: Writing
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New Project: The Towers at Time’s End
Hello, lovely readers! Where have I been the past two months, you may ask? The answer: Writing a book! I am excited to announce the completion of the first draft of a new project, an adult high fantasy by the name of The Towers at Time’s End. There are several reasons why I’m particularly excited…
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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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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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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…
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Reader is Always Right: 3 Questions to Ask Your Beta Readers to Make Your Writing Better
Now you might be confused when you read this title and think: Isn’t that the opposite of what you said in an article last month? Why yes, yes it is. That article was about how to approach worldbuilding, as well as telling your own story. The long and the short of it: You are the…
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Punctuation in Dialogue Tags: 4 Guidelines for Correct Punctuation in Dialogue
Full disclosure: I’m a nitpicker. Or, in a more flattering light, you could say I’ve got an eye for detail. This was only encouraged during my college days (farewell oh my college days of five weeks ago) as a writing center tutor, and also being in a major that highly emphasized technical writing. I mean,…
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How to Write Compelling Battlefield Tactics: 3 Things to Consider Before Your Characters Grab Their Swords
You know how you have a couple topics that you’ll pick apart when you see other writers writing them wrong? Me. This topic. I’ve seen too many writers consider battle just to be a huge clash between opposing forces and not consider even the tiniest little bit battlefield tactics and strategy. Now, I’m not a…