Category: Uncategorized
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Brainstorming Plot Ideas
So you’ve finished your fantasy book. Now what about a sequel? If you’re an Indy author, people expect you to write sequels. If you’ve done your world building well, your readers are already invested in the characters and the universe. They want to go back and play in your world…
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Second Draft Writing Critiques?
Imagine this scenario: You invite a small group of friends over for dinner. You prepare an elaborate meal for them, and you all have a great time eating, laughing, and talking together. Your friends are also cooks, so they give you tips and suggestions for how the food might be…
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Lessons Learned from Writing 500 Words of Fiction Per Day
On January 1, 2021, I took a chance and publicly posted a set of New Year’s resolutions. Among other things, I resolved to continue writing 500 words of original fiction per day until I finished the first draft of our current novel: Prophecy’s Malignant Son. It is now March and…
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A Few Thoughts About the Word “Wizard”
Merlin, Gandalf, Harry Potter…wizards are staple characters in fantasy novels. Wizards are also common in fantasy-based rpgs, in video games, in anime, in movies, and pretty much everywhere you look these days. As a fantasy author, I’ve always worried about using the word “wizard” in a novel for fear of…
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Book Titles by Committee
With normality finally on the horizon and a small possibility that there might actually be a live Comicon in San Diego this coming summer, the authors of Emerald Cove are once again turning attention to our shared universe anthology. As I mentioned in a much earlier blog post, the stories…
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Yay!! Cover Art
Writing a book is fun and enjoyable, despite the work, but seeing the cover really makes it exciting! The first draft of Prophecy’s Malignant Son is now about 90% complete, and is still on schedule to be finished next month. In the meantime, John and I have begun thinking about…
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Which Swycaffer Book Should You Read First?
The most prolific writer of the Emerald Cove authors is also one of my oldest friends. Jefferson Swycaffer and I first met while I was visiting his sister back in the late 1970’s. The next day after our first meeting (or a couple of days later), we happened to run…
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Don’t Do This By Yourself
Writing is a solo activity best done with friends. Yeah, that sounds contradictory. Frankly, it is contradictory. In my experience, however, I have found it to be true. Writing is more fun when someone else is reading what you write. In a prior blog post, I spoke about the importance…
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How Are Those Writing Resolutions Coming?
We are now approximately one month into 2021. It’s a good time to take a moment and assess how well your New Year’s resolutions are coming. On January 1, everybody talks about them, but then we all seem to forget very quickly. How often do we follow up on those…
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A Few Points About Multiple Viewpoints
So whose novel is it anyway? Well, yes, of course, it’s the author’s book. But which character or characters are the focus of the story? Whose thoughts and observations drive the narrative? From which character’s point of view is the story told? When I first started writing, I did not…
Susan and John Ruff, Fantasy Authors 