by Eugen Bacon Editor’s note: This piece is part of an occasional series titled Writing by Other Means, in which authors share personal experiences and industry intel around different production contexts and writing tools. You have a novel, a novella, a short story in your head—you just need to write it. The muse is humming, […]
by Marie Croke Editor’s note: This piece is part of an occasional series titled Writing by Other Means, in which authors share personal experiences and industry intel around different production contexts and writing tools. From phones and tablets to computers, we all tend to fall into habits once we turn the power on, whether those […]
by Austin Conrad How do you move forward when stuck on telling a story? Sometimes the best way is to play your story at the gaming table. A roleplaying game’s collaborative creativity is a fun and effective method of discovery “writing” your way through writer’s block. Better yet, this can be used whether you’re writing […]
By Austin Conrad Writing in the genre of tabletop games has a lot of similarities to fiction writing when it comes to character, plot, and setting. However, the needs of interactive fiction require the adventure game writer to adapt how they approach narrative structure and typographical presentation. To understand how these two creative endeavors differ, […]
By Holly Henderson As much as science fiction and fantasy writers love wandering the vast worlds that exist in our imaginations, the journey there can be difficult when we have the weight of daily life to carry with us. Forge a shortcut by creating a writing ambience that’s custom-made for your story. Getting all your […]
By Ursula Whitcher My first fictional love was tabletop role-playing games, from Dungeons & Dragons and ’90s classics like Vampire: The Masquerade to indie hits such as Visigoths vs. Mall Goths. After all that gaming, I thought I knew how to tell stories. But when I began trying to write and sell short fiction, I […]
By Kim Zarins When I was a child, I snuck out to the backyard, made a little circle of stones, and jumped inside the circle. The goal was to get to Narnia, which I loved intensely. But I have never pictured Narnia or its characters in my mind. I’m an aphant, that is, someone with […]
by Hunter Liguore Creating new characters takes a careful eye. When an idea comes, we might rely on familiar images to fashion characters that aren’t truly our own, but rather influenced through media images or by people we’ve encountered or known well. What is often missed in the early drafting of characters is the up-close […]
By Anessa Kemna Science fiction and fantasy should be the perfect places for disability representation. Writers make the rules in their worlds. But it’s difficult to find disabled characters and even harder to find quality representation in the SFF genres. It’s difficult in mainstream fiction too, but a genre built on imagination should have higher […]
by R. K. Thorne Worldbuilding is a fun aspect of writing fantasy and science fiction. It is so tempting to get lost in drawing maps, hoarding pictures, plotting lineages, or researching how that awesome weapon system could actually work. Our efforts often focus on geography, history, and politics. But part of worldbuilding should be envisioning […]
This sweeping urban fantasy explores what it means to be human in a world where humanity itself may be optional, where ancient gods run pawn shops, and where the difference between monster and hero often depends on which side of the story you’re telling.
Eugen Bacon is an African Australian author. She’s a British Fantasy Award winner, a twice World Fantasy Award finalist, and a finalist in the Shirley Jackson, Philip K. Dick Award, and Nommo Awards for speculative fiction by Africans.
