Hi all! Julie here. Recently I blogged about How to Finish Your Book, focusing on tips on how to get to The End when writing a first draft. In the comments, I was asked a great question about tracking progress during the outlining and revising stages of the writing process. The reason I think this is such a great question is because tracking outlining and revising is definitely trickier than tracking drafting. When getting a […]
Tag Archives | World Building
GUEST POST: The Writer as Tour Guide
Beginner Resources, Guest Post, Speakeasy Sharing, Writers Toolbox
The Writer as Tour Guide 6 Tips for Writing Outside Your Own Culture Let’s say that you run a tour company where you serve as bus driver and tour guide for people who want to have an intense, immersive experience of a fascinating city. Ideally, you should know that city intimately. But what if you’ve never been there? You could hire a local bus driver and tour guide—someone who’s familiar with the history, the streets, […]
Stories for All: Inclusive World Building with Tara Sim
Writers Toolbox
There are so many aspects to consider when you’re crafting secondary fantasy worlds. The first place you might start is figuring out how many countries there are, what the world is called, where the oceans are in relation to your setting, and so on. Then you dive deeper to figure out the cultures, the people, the government, the relationships between each nation. Honestly, I could talk for days about world building (and I’m pretty sure […]
Gender Roles and the Heroine
Beginner Resources, Inspiration, Writers Toolbox, Writing Life
Your world is your own; traditional gender roles need not apply. This means that even if your fantasy is inspired by 1300s France, you can still have women being professors at universities or leading armies. A classic image that comes to mind of a woman in history is the passive homemaker waiting for her husband to come back from war. There were certainly quite a few of those, but that image doesn’t account for what […]
Guest Post: Creating an Authentic Historical Atmosphere with Elizabeth May
Guest Post, Writers Toolbox
One of the most challenging aspects of writing historical fiction is building a believable atmosphere that resonates with contemporary readers. What many people don’t realize is that the farther back a book’s historical period goes, the more you might have the same difficulties a fantasy author might: worldbuilding and authenticity – only with the added pressure of being constrained by historical social rules and events. So here are some tips that might help get you […]