Anyone unfortunate enough to have lived through the Star Wars prequels knows that a bad character arc can ruin the story. We love watching characters grow and change over time, but when that change feels forced, contrived, or otherwise unbelievable, it’s worse than no arc … read more »
Some books, such as The Lord of the Rings, Pride and Prejudice, and the Philip Marlowe series, become so iconic that they spawn entire subgenres. But they also include powerful tropes that are often lost. By underplaying these surprising elements, the new works run the … read more »
A few weeks ago, I discussed some helpful tips on successfully portraying an autistic character. In that article, I mentioned characters like Sheldon Cooper, who aren’t stated to be autistic but who are coded as such. Since there were some comments about this, in this … read more »
Building new cultures from scratch is a cornerstone of speculative fiction. From the fictional nations of high fantasy, to the interstellar empires of space opera, to the shadow kiths of urban fantasy, we authors are always crafting new societies to thrill and amaze. But for … read more »
We often think of worldbuilding in terms of creating entire new worlds from the ground up, but there are other options. That’s why today we’re dissecting the worldbuilding in Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series. Her setting doesn’t have a fancy name because it’s set on our … read more »
When building a magic system, authors are faced with a balancing act. If they restrict their magic too much, then it won’t be cool and interesting. That defeats the whole point of magic! On the other hand, if an author doesn’t put enough restrictions on … read more »
Previously, we’ve taken apart Act I and Act II to see how they tick. Now it’s time to watch the film bring its three throughlines to an effective finish. When we left off, Dr. Horrible had decided to break his no-murder code to finish off … read more »
Worldbuilding is a critical component of speculative fiction no matter the genre. From constructing entire space empires in military scifi to planning a good masquerade in urban fantasy, every author will need to make choices about what to include in their world and how to … read more »
Last week, I broke down the opening act of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. We went over the three plot arcs holding the whole film together, also known as the throughlines: Dr. Horrible’s quest to enter the Evil League of Evil Dr. Horrible’s romance with Penny … read more »
Anyone who’s ever applied for a business license or contested a traffic ticket can tell you that the law is incredibly complicated. It often doesn’t work the way we think it does, and since new laws get passed all the time, it keeps changing, too. … read more »
