The non-human characters I have created as a fantasy writer have varied from the goddess Rhiannon/Epona in The Sword-Edged Blonde to the vampires of Blood Groove and The Girls with Games of Blood, and most currently the Tufa of The Hum and the Shiver. Below is a list of things for you to keep in mind when … [Read more…]
One of the cliches of science fiction, fantasy, and horror writing is the tradition of unpronounceable character names. You know the kind I mean: a string of consonants and, instead of vowels, various punctuation marks. Examples are Lord K’lghn, Gy-v’nly from the planet Y’jhtrg, and the awful Q’vintg from beyond the black depths (okay, I made … [Read more…]
I read a recent horror novel in which the hero, having bought a creepy old house, receives a scrapbook from the previous owner loaded with photos and clues to its history. Our hero spies something disturbing in one of the photos, and his reaction? He throws the whole scrapbook in the fire. This horror plot device … [Read more…]
One problem with writing fantasy novels in which heroes and heroines wield swords, shields and sundry other objets d’mayhem, is that most of us have no idea what using those things is actually like. Luckily, it’s almost a moot point–most of our readers have little experience in this area as well, and so don’t know … [Read more…]
When writing villains in fantasy, always remember one thing… One may smile, and smile, and be a villain.* I once taught a class for young writers in which a student read from the prologue to her fantasy epic. Her black-clad, black-haired villain strode the black hallways of his black castle until he reached his black … [Read more…]