Good ol’ stand-bys, ubiquitous fantasy tropes, are difficult to avoid. And sometimes we don’t want to avoid them. Goddammit, sometimes you just need a good, solid prophecy to write the story your want to write. “It’s not my fault all these other people before me have written prophecies, too!” you say. And you’d be right. Unfortunately, theyContinue reading “using prophecies in fantasy without making eyes roll”
Tag Archives: writing
characters as worldbuilding tools
“DON’T INFO DUMP,” said every writing-advice-giver ever. And that advice is so annoying, isn’t it? You’re going along, writing your first draft…or maybe you’re revising your old draft…whatever stage your in, if you’re trying to build a world in a well-paced, interesting story, then it can be difficult to find places for brief bouts ofContinue reading “characters as worldbuilding tools”
so you have too much worldbuilding exposition…
How do I know if I have too much exposition? ex·po·si·tionˌekspəˈziSH(ə)n/ (noun) a comprehensive description and explanation of an idea or theory As a basic rule of thumb: if your exposition distracts from the main narrative, then it’s too much. That sounds a lot simpler than it actually is, though, doesn’t it? Because it’s difficultContinue reading “so you have too much worldbuilding exposition…”
H.J. Swinford 