My flimsy excuse for posting this on a writing blog is that one thing science fiction writers do, a lot, is invent strange cultures and describe how they change. And too often the changes are not convincing; they amount to everybody saying, "Oh, now that you explain it, I can see that how we've always... Continue Reading →
Worldbuilding and Writing Style– Jason Fuesting
Guest post by my friend and fellow author, Jason Fuesting. He had a book come out yesterday, and I had asked him for a guest post. You should definitely look up his stuff, and there is more coming soon! Book 1 in the series, By Dawn's Early Light Even though I'd scribbled words many years... Continue Reading →
Guest Post: Worldbuilding
Please welcome an up-and-coming writer, Logan Kearsley. We connected through LTUE and I was happy to get a post from him on the way he creates worlds. It's always interesting to get a glimpse into someone's creative processes. Thanks, Logan! Worldbuilding can start from a lot of different places. Consider, for example, how people communicate... Continue Reading →
Influences
The question came up in a writing group: who are your influences? And being writers and overthinking everything (it's what we do!), the question mutated to cover stories that made you think, even if your thoughts ended in a completely different direction than the author intended. And again, to cover authors you hated, whose influence... Continue Reading →
Alien Invader to Home Defense
While Cedar's busy with Real Life, let's talk about a topic that she and I often geek out together: biology, gardening, and the wider implications on terraforming! Looks like we're going to be dragging Laura Montgomery into our extended geekery sections on the incredible utility of fungi, why we really will have to import spiders... Continue Reading →
Other Projects
I’m pretty solidly blocked on Scrap Star, right now. Not entirely sure why, and haven’t taken the time to work through it. I’m absolutely certain it has nothing at all to do with my poor sleep habits, lousy diet, and nonexistent exercise regimen. I figure it’s because of holidays, and travel, and children. So I’m... Continue Reading →
Greasing Mental Gears
I hope everybody has survived the Annual Feast of Gratitude followed by the Annual Frenzy of Materialism. I managed to find several virtual opportunities to replace or upgrade items, which was nice. I also ate too much. There was pie. Most of it happened for breakfast the following morning. I also stumbled into one of... Continue Reading →
On worldbuilding, sequels and keeping it all straight
As I was trying to figure out what to write about today, I came across this article. It's a fairly good short -- note the short -- description of some of the problems writers fall into when sticking to worldbuilding tropes. I don't necessarily agree with all of them but, as with anything, if you... Continue Reading →
The Queen is Dead (What the hell do we do now?)
*I got this all written up, then realized this is the first time it's been my privilege to post on MGC. I'd be more concerned about starting with a post on death, but for a couple things. Thing the first is that I'm rocking this uncaffeinated, and it was an early morning. Thing the second:... Continue Reading →
World-building
Happy 4th Americans 🙂 "There’s a world outside my window..." I was peripheral to a discussion the other day asking authors to commend good examples of world building for a class on the same to wannabe writers. Unfortunately the discussion followed another in which a lady author told us that she’d looked at a number... Continue Reading →