We’ve all read that novel where at some point you put it down and forget it ever existed until you trip over it one day and then in a state of annoyance donate it to the charity shop. It failed to grip you, to compel you to go on. Often the culprit is a lack of suspense—the glue that binds the reader’s hands to the covers.
When all you have for counsel is yourself, you can never be sure if a re-write is the right thing to do. What if the original version is better? What if I’ve made it worse? There are, however, some things we can do to help make this crucial and difficult decision a little easier.
Merely communicating how something looks or sounds isn’t enough to bring a story to life. Many people experience things through smells, touch, taste. In fact, these oft forgotten senses are some of the most powerful forms of description, things which can enrich a story and give it life.
As a creative writing teacher, a common question I get asked is “what is prose in writing?” The term prose simply refers to written or
Welcome to another instalment of Fantasy Fridays. Today we’re looking at the lives of the medieval peasantry, a class of people somewhat shrouded in mystery—peasants weren’t good note-takers. In exploring the lives of the peasantry we’ll uncover what it was like to be one of them, the kinds of houses and towns they lived in, and what their day to day lives involved. There’s plenty of nuggets of information for you to pick up along the way which you can use to enrich your fantasy stories.
The medieval setting has become almost synonymous with the fantasy genre (to the dismay of some), and there are no greater features on a medieval
Siege warfare played a massive role in history. Some of the most iconic battles in our past have involved sieges. This has crept into the
I’ve learned many harsh lessons since I began writing fiction, all of which have helped me improve as a writer. In this article I thought I’d share how I came to learn those lessons.
We’ve lost more than we know, but what we have retained has inspired some, if not all, of the greatest fantasy stories in one way or another. Taking the time to do a bit of research on what you’re writing about will empower your storytelling and, hopefully, enthral your readers. Today we’re besieging the fortifications which dominated the Middle Ages, and of course which feature in our beloved fantasy genre.
For Fantasy Friday this week, I thought we’d return to medieval warfare and to something I don’t come across all too often in the fantasy stories I read: the cannon. This article covers the development of European cannons, how they were made, the gunpowder used, and how they fared in battle. Hopefully, it’ll give you a few ideas for your own tales!
