The Ternion Order

A little over a month ago, I released First Moon, the first book of my new contemporary paranormal fantasy series, the Ternion Order. This article is for readers who are interested in knowing more about the Ternion Order than I reveal in First Moon. One of my reviewers was kind enough to say, “I loved […]

The Rangers of Mundia

Thanks to J.R.R. Tolkien, father of high fantasy, most fantasy readers (and fantasy RPG players) have at least a passing familiarity with what kind of character I mean when I use the term “ranger.” On the whole, the rangers of Mundia (my story world setting for The Vaetra Chronicles) bear a strong resemblance to Strider/Aragorn […]

The Women of the Vaetra Chronicles

One of my goals with the Vaetra Chronicles is to portray the primary female characters as strong, intelligent, and capable people. You won’t find any “shrinking violets” among my main characters, but you also won’t find giant Amazon women dressed in “bikini armor.” My own experience has shown me that the real world includes plenty […]

Kindle X-Ray and the Vaetra Unveiled Cast of Characters

One of my beta readers for Vaetra Unveiled suggested that I include a glossary of character names in the book. It was a good suggestion, but I was so wrapped up in revisions that I forgot about it until after the book was published. However, it’s never too late to publish the information on the […]

Be the Casting Director for Your Characters

I had a fun idea this week on how to bring characters to life in my writing. I decided to play casting director, and I started casting specific actors in the roles of my characters. I know this isn’t an original idea, but it’s not a suggestion I’ve run across yet, so it’s new to […]

Sex and Sexism in Science Fiction and Fantasy

Over the past week or so, the subjects of sex and sexism came up on Magical Words, one of the blogs I follow. As is often the case with MW, both articles were thought-provoking, and the blog readers poured many of their own thoughts into the comments. Twice as Many Male Authors Science Fiction and […]

Got Personality?

This past week has been about characters. The blogs I follow have had posts relating to developing character, and the fiction writing book I’m currently reading, Plot versus Character by Jeff Gerke, is covering character development as well. One of the tools for developing character is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), based on the works […]