Category: World-Building

World-Building: Captivate Readers & Never Let Go

World-building is essential for every story, but obviously genre will have a major influence on how much our story requires. Setting can add an entirely new level of dimension to our stories.

So Very Cheesy: the Fantasy Diet

Kristen is away at a conference in San Francisco….so that means today, you get ME! And despite what the title implies, I’m not here to talk about the failed New Year’s diet (ask me if I even bothered). No, today, you get a super special fun rant from me about food in the fantasy genre. …

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DysFUNctional: World-Building from Orwell to Apocalypse

world-building

Say it with me: world-building is fun. Seriously! It’s the only way—aside from global domination—we will ever get to arrange the world exactly as we want. Don’t like green peppers on your supreme pizza? Banish them! Hate people who squeeze the toothpaste tube from the middle? Declare them subversive enemies of the regime! Yet, some …

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Bring on the BINGE! Creating Villains Audiences Can’t Get Enough Of

Many of us have been there. It’s late. We know we have “adulting” to do in the morning (which is in two hours). Our sensible self has been nagging us to get our @$$ to bed so long we smothered it with a pillow around midnight. Whether it’s a book, or Netflix or HBO or …

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There & Back Again—Using Distance to Up the Story Stakes and Pace

It’s Squatter’s Rights Wednesday with me, Cait Reynolds. Today, we are going to go the distance. Literally. No matter what genre we write, our characters generally go places. The physical distance between these places impacts the timelines of our stories, pacing, and tension. Distance, great or small, can also be used to create atmosphere or …

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