Don’t Let Naming Slow You Down: How to Grow and Find your Characters’ Names
Naming characters is hard, and not nearly as fun as telling their stories. And, often, it’s not just less fun… it gets in the way of writing. Some writers freeze…
“Commitment to the bit:” What Writers and Worldbuilders can learn from Terry Pratchett’s “The Light Fantastic”
(Quick heads-up before we start: this article contains some light spoilers for the endings to both The Light Fantastic and The Color of Magic.) The Light Fantastic is the second…
Long-Distance Communication for Writers and Worldbuilders (Part 3): Complex, Nuanced Messaging
(Part 1 can be read here)(Part 2 can be read here) Long-distance communication is an important topic for writers to grasp. Stories are moved by conflict, and most of that…
Long-Distance Communication for Writers and Worldbuilders (Part 2): Simple and Coded Communication
(Part 1 of this series can be found here)(Part 3 of this series can be found here) Welcome, all, to a communications course that you aren’t getting a lick of…
Long-Distance Communication For Writers and Worldbuilders (Part 1): Binary and Pre-Arranged Signals
(Part 2 of this series can be found here)(Part 3 of this series can be found here) When I started doing research for this series of articles, I’d planned on…
Plagues In Worldbuilding: How They Form, What They Do, and How to Use Them
There aren’t enough plagues in writing. Epidemic diseases have shaped our world more than almost any other force, whether we’re aware of it or not. They egged on the “Dark…
Interaction-Based Worldbuilding: How to Breathe Life into Your World
I’ve been writing a ton of fantasy short stories lately, and bouncing between so many worlds has made me think about the mechanics of worldbuilding. After the last few weeks,…