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Mythcreants dwells a lot on ANTS, the four effects that make stories engaging. But while we’ve devoted whole articles to specific aspects of attachment, tension, and satisfaction, novelty hasn’t gotten as much time in the limelight. The problem is that anything in the story can … read more »
Dear Oren/Chris, I’m an amateur fantasy writer and a rising college freshman working on the second draft of a high fantasy novel. Some context for the question: 1. The main character lives on a different continent than the magical school she ends up going to, … read more »
Some topics are so good they just keep coming back, almost as if they won’t stay dead, which is why today we’re talking about resurrections. You’ve probably heard that bringing a character back from the dead will create problems for your story, and it certainly … read more »
Recently, I went over the naval tactics your characters might use in a world without gunpowder. This raises the natural question, what happens when gunpowder is introduced? As you might imagine, the answer is complicated. Gunpowder isn’t a single toggle switch. There are hundreds, possibly … read more »
You’ve poured your heart and soul into a fanwork, and lo and behold, it’s caught on with other fans. While success is great, it’s not paying the bills. To financially benefit from all that labor you put in, you’ve decided it’s time to retool your … read more »
Hi! Sorry to spam your inbox. I promise to get it out of my system! With the goal of creating a fantasy world in which the forms of oppression and discrimination we see in our world and history are absent, I am pretty sure I … read more »
In the land between writer and reader, there lies the copy editor. But what is a copy editor? What do they do? For that matter, what do they not do? That’s our topic for this week, and with at least one copy editor on the … read more »
Conflict between characters is a vital tool of storytelling, but it can also be tricky, especially when both characters are on Team Good. Authors often have difficulty constructing conflicts where neither character is obviously at fault, or they have difficulty dealing with the implications when … read more »
So your first-level Fighter just took a sword to the chest. Are you so wounded you can hardly fight anymore, even though you’re still alive? Do you get powered up for a devastating counterattack? Maybe you suffer no consequences at all besides losing some hitpoints. … read more »
One of the lasting tropes from 20th-century pulp fiction is of the city where “East meets West,” places like Shanghai and Hong Kong. There’s a romanticism to that idea of a wealthy, cosmopolitan, dangerous city where the rules aren’t quite what you’d expect—but obviously all … read more »