One of the reasons that writer’s block strikes is because we don’t know what the heck our character is doing, or how to get them to do what they’re supposed to do. For example, maybe your novel needs your character to punch someone – a mean classmate, a cocky co-worker – but they just won’t […]
When you know your character, writing gets easier Read More »
It happens to all of us. No matter how much you love writing, no matter how excited you are about your story and your characters, sometimes you will not be in the mood. And that’s okay! It happens to everyone – yes, even your favourite writer. If the words don’t come, you might just need
Open the door to writing Read More »
Over this course, you’ll have planned out how much detail and worldbuilding you need to know in order to write your novel. In this last part, let’s look at how much you need to put in the novel, specifically how much detail you need to go into. The frantic mining of the oceans in the
Worldbuilding 101 for fantasy and scifi writers – Part six Read More »
One way to get on top of all this is to make a novel (or series) bible. This comes from screenwriting, where a show would have a series bible to make sure that all of the different people working on the show were working on the same thing. There’s probably just you working on your
Worldbuilding 101 for fantasy and scifi writers – Part five Read More »
In previous parts of the Worldbuilding 101 series we’ve talked about how to start and the kinds of things that you need to know. But how much do you need to know? When you’re building a world for your novel, it’s easy to get lost in the mires of detail. What measures of weight do
Worldbuilding 101 for fantasy and scifi writers – Part four Read More »
Sometimes when you’re planning your novel, you can have all the facts and figures about your world but it just feels clinical. Like a textbook rather than something on which to build a story. Feeling like this can make it hard to make the leap from planning to starting to write. All those details can
Worldbuilding 101 for fantasy and scifi writers – Part three Read More »
Now that we’ve gone over some basic thoughts about worldbuilding, let’s dig deeper and do a couple of exercises. Last time we talked about just how many different things there are to think about when you’re building a world. It can be overwhelming. If you can do anything, how do you choose what to do?
Worldbuilding 101 for fantasy and scifi writers – Part two Read More »
One of the hardest things about writing a fantasy novel (or science fiction novel for that matter) is that you have to make up an entire world. Even if you’re basing it loosely on Mediaeval Europe or Ming dynasty China, you still need to figure out what exactly is different – how having magic or
Worldbuilding 101 for fantasy and scifi writers – Part one Read More »
I started playing around with a new novel idea lately. It’s very exciting – a new project is always exciting – and I’ve been having great fun playing around and planning. One of the great things about creating my own workbooks and writing planners is that I get to use all of them as much
Have fun writing – by writing fanfic of your novel Read More »
Wanting to write but feeling uninspired is the worst. You want to finish the chapter you’re working on. You want to get to a certain scene. Maybe you’re even about to write that scene you’ve been itching to write since you started this thing but it’s like there’s a five-foot-thick wall between you and your
How to work on your novel when you don’t want to write Read More »
