Tag: Craft

LK LohanLeave a comment

The Short Story Conundrum

One of the ways to catch an agent’s eye is to publish short stories in online and/or offline magazines or even on your own website. More than just a few writers have started out that way. And there are plenty of writers, especially in the more literary corners of the Fantasy realm – you know, where the awards are handed out – who seamlessly switch between short stories and novels. I thoroughly admire their ease in adapting to the needs of either form. Even Brandon Sanderson, the overlord of the 1,200-page book realm, writes the occasional short fiction. How do Read More …

LK LohanLeave a comment

Writing Is for Control Freaks

Writing Fantasy is the perfect pastime for us control freaks. We get to play god in our own universe. We control every aspect of the environment. Fauna. Flora. Physics. Magic. Everything. We control every single character. Their abilities, their behavior, their thoughts, their emotions. We also control the beings (human or otherwise) they come in touch with, and we determine the story events. We put our characters through hell (or not), we hurt them, we redeem them, we send them their soulmate – or their worst nightmare. We can even write our own worst enemies into our stories and ridicule Read More …

LK LohanLeave a comment

Worldbuilding

Worldbuilding is the bread and butter of any fantasy writer. Of any writer, really. In fantasy, though, only our imagination is the limit. The idea of making up my own rules, of playing god in my own world, has always appealed to the control freak in me. Also, I never liked to do the in-depth, meticulous research I’d have to do if I wanted to credibly set a story in a place that actually exists. That doesn’t mean, though, that as fantasy writers we’re spared any research. In my own writing, I take elements from our world, natural or cultural, Read More …

LK Lohan

Are You a Plotter or Are You a Pantser?

Are you a plotter, or are you a pantser? As much as I resist being categorized, this one’s an exception. I fit squarely into the pantsing box. Actually, I prefer to call myself a “discovery writer”*. In my ongoing quest of learning the craft of writing, I’ve devoured a large number of books (yes, it’s a pattern). Most of the instruction came squarely down on the plotting side. Three-act structure. Hero’s journey. Plot points to be checked off somewhere between page 50 and 60. Hey, what’s the matter? That’s a whole TEN PAGES of leeway. I tried. I really did, Read More …

LK Lohan

The Story behind the Stories

I’ve been writing for a long time. A much longer time, in fact, than I’m willing to admit. For most of that time, publication wasn’t even a smudge on the horizon. All I wanted was to see what might happen to those really cool characters who just stood in the doorway of my mind one day and demanded to be given life. I wrote hundreds of thousands of words worth of vignettes; just occurrences in the characters’ lives. Imagine the worst of purple prose, stacked upon melodrama. A plot? A story arc? A character arc? WTF? And that was fine. Read More …