Making up things for characters to wear can be tedious sometimes, especially for a culture that has no earth analogue. Do we default to Medieval-normal (which wasn’t very normal at all), stick to the faux-Medieval we are most familiar with from endless movies and illustrations, or strike out on our own into new territory? Sometimes …
There’s no doubt the Harry Potter series of books is one of the world’s most popular fantasy epics, transcending age, nationality, and socioeconomic status. Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl, which I reviewed here, features a similar series called Simon Snow as a plot element, Simon Snow being a boy wizard at an English boarding school for magic. …
Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell St. Martin’s Press, 2013 I had high hopes for Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl when I bought it, but because of disappointments with other YA books, I tempered my expectations. But it turns out I didn’t need to. I enjoyed Fangirl every bit as much as I’d hoped I would, and then some. …
Nothing is quite so deliciously freeing as caving to your instincts.For centuries, shapeshifters have personified our impulse to bow to our animalistic nature. From lycans to skin-walkers and everything in between, shapeshifters give us a chance to connect with our inner-selves and celebrate our intriguing differences, our passions, and ultimately our humanity through their necessity …
Inspired by a thread on the useful AbsoluteWrite Water Cooler forums. Magic can be used for a lot of things, but rarely in a story is it mentioned for cooking… and Medieval cooking often sorely needed it. Here are some randomly-generated food-related items to have fun with. Food-related Magic Items Nose of the Chef: This …
When writing fantasy, which is a genre that must be larger than life, your villains should be larger than life, too… and that means an evocative name, something to let the reader know they are, indeed, the villain, in whatever made-up language or naming system you’re using. Let’s look at a few. In the Harry …
Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi Balzer + Bray, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2015 Tomi Adeyemi’s West African fantasy Children of Blood and Bone is one of the most talked-about YA releases of 2018, scoring the author a seven figure movie deal. Reviews have been gushing, but is it worth all the …
Anne McCaffrey wrote a long-running series of books about the backward planet of Pern and its giant, telepathic dragons used to combat “thread” – an invasive space spore that filtered down from an adjacent orbiting body — by burning from the air with their fiery breath. Pern had a pseudo-Medieval culture and the dragons a …
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