Themes & Inspiration of My Fantasy

[Ned Marcus]

I blog on the inspiration for my stories and the themes behind them.

I often describe my location as the Hills of Shiding. Although it sounds like a fantasy location, it's real. My second novel is a kind of journey to the centre of the planet, and I imagined the old, enclosed market near my house existing deep beneath the surface. The rich nature of the hills has also seeps into the stories.

Here's my post about Shiding.

 

[Ned Marcus]

I've used my martial arts experience to help me develop my magical systems, and surprisingly (to me) my post on Martial Magic has made it into the first page of search results on Yahoo and Bing. Don't care too much about the pictures of me practicing the point of the article is simply to show how it's possible to take regular activities and use them in fantasy world building.

 

[Ned Marcus]

I recently posted about Magic Forests in Fantasy & Myth.

A lot of the fantasy I write is set in forest worlds, so I thought it'd be fun to look at forests in fantasy in general.

 

[Ned Marcus]

I posted a piece of fantasy flash fiction yesterday. Only 414 words, so a very short read.

If interested, you can read An Offer of Redemption here.

 

[Ned Marcus]

I've recently signed up to Masterclass (some of you will probably have seen their ads on FB) for their classes on writing. But some of the other classes are great, and some of them remind me of some of the reasons I write. One such class is by Jane Goodall on Conservation.

In this article, Green Aina, I talk about a long short story I wrote (Young Aina) which was influenced by some of my concerns for the environment.

 

[Ned Marcus]

I enjoy reading what top fantasy authors say about fantasy and have collected a number of quotes. Read the article here. I'll be adding more in the future.

 

[Ned Marcus]

Here's a short story I entered in a contest (over at Fantasy Faction). I came joint second. Anyway, here's the story, The Boatmen, on my site. I've included the picture of an Indian coracle (to show how big they can get—and I've seen bigger). I tweaked the ending

 

[Ned Marcus]

Fantasy often concerns itself with good vs. evil, and sometimes with the nature of good and evil, and I thought it'd be interesting to collect some good and evil quotes—some of which have informed the nature of evil in my stories.

 

[Ned Marcus]

I've put together all the cover designs (past & present) for my Blue Prometheus series if you're interested in taking a look. Two of the covers have made it to the finals of the 2019 Kobo Indie Book Contest. It's neck and neck at the moment with Young Aina in second place! Votes close at 3PM on the 31st.

 

[skip.knox]

Voted. FWIW, I think your fantasy covers beat all the competition. Most of them were either muddy or hokey or just plain dull.

 

[Ned Marcus]

Thank you!

Young Aina came second in its category but because it got enough votes overall it's reached the grand final (for all genres combined). The competition is tougher now. If anyone still wants to vote, you can do so here.

 

[Pemry Janes]

Voted as well, and noted that one cover seems to be getting a lot more votes than any other.

 

[Ned Marcus]

Voted as well, and noted that one cover seems to be getting a lot more votes than any other.

Thanks. I noticed the cover with so many votes, too.

 

[Ned Marcus]

For fun, I've just written a 25 word short story based on a Masterclass writing prompt. Shorter than my normal fiction

You can read Many Things Grow On Trees here.

 

[Ned Marcus]

Here's a short post about Chess Strategy in Fantasy. When I was stuck writing the climax to the third novel in my trilogy, I turned to advice from Garry Kasparov (something I heard in his Masterclass).

 

[Ned Marcus]

I've been getting back into blogging with short-to-medium-length posts. Here's a longer one about my upcoming novel Orange Storm.

 

[Ned Marcus]

I recently set myself a 30-day flash fiction challenge where I wrote or tried to write, a short story every day. It went quite well, and I wrote a story (a few times I deepened one) every day except two. You can read about my flash fiction challenge and what I learnt from it here.

 

[Ned Marcus]

I've just told a secret about myself that few people know—not something I've written about in public before.

 

[pmmg]

We'll definitely keep your secrets.

 

[BJ Swabb]

Hey Ned, It be so cool if you could get your books into Books A Million. That is where I buy most of my books now a days. It's like a Barnes and Noble. I would totally go by your Prometeus books as they look really interesting. Young Aina looks really cool.