Recent content by Prince of Spires

I have a bunch of lovely notebooks which I would love to use for something. I just don't really have any use for them. I'm a computer first kind of person. All my notes end up on there. I really should find something to take notes about just to be able to use them.

Since A. E. Lowan has (disappointingly...) failed to give you any homework, I guess it's now up to the rest of us to do so. Check out the writing excuses podcast (they have loads of great advice by the way), and then specifically 11.32: The Element of Humor I think that's a good starting point...

I love listening to these kinds of people telling stories of their experiences. I find it endlessly captivating to hear about everything they've been through. Though the interesting things are never the generic details of going from A to B, but always the specifics of feelings and experiences...

How to get better? Same way as with everything else: practice. I think it was Jerry Seinfelt who said that when he was starting out, he wrote a minimum of 1 joke per day. He was intentional about it, the same way many writers try to write something every day. So if you want to be funny, or...

Lots to unpack. First of, Tolkien never definitively settled on the origin of orcs. Them being corrupted elves comes from the Silmarillion. It's one of the ideas Tolkien toyed with and it appears in some of the writing , which ended up in the Silmarillion. However, it's important to note that...

Maybe I'm just getting old, but I have no idea what specifically you mean here. Other than that, I agree with pmmg in that you should just start writing the story and see how it goes. And it doesn't matter if your first draft isn't consistent all the way through. That's what the second draft...

One thing I'm wondering about and which I noticed for myself is that there's a difference in maps for ebooks and physical books. With a physical book, I find myself going back to a map a lot more often than with an ebook. At least in the case when multiple characters are travelling to multiple...

For me, for any story where there's a lot of travel involved, I need a map. It helps to keep track of how far it is from point A to B, and where both are in relation to C. It prevents messing up give the same river two names or two rivers the same names, etc. If you're mainly in a single...

Welcome. And congrats on finishing the first draft. That's an amazing achievement you can be proud of. Tips for editing: First, read through it. Don't edit (much at least...). On this read-through, you have 2 jobs: - The first is, be honest with yourself about how good the book is (both the...

They can run a business and still gate-keep. I agree that publishers are out there to make money, and publishing is expensive. So they're only going to take on books they love and they think will make them money. And they have a lot to choose from. However, that doesn't mean they aren't...

Thanks for all the work and maintenance you guys are putting in to keep the site running

I now really want to see this one. I had no idea this was coming. Looks awsome! And I'm with you on the Asterix characters. I'll join you. Other fictional world to visit would be Middle Earth. Having a chat with Elrond in Rivendell sounds amazing for instance.

It's a good reminder, though fairly basic and not very deep. A lot of words to say money always flows to the author. The author never pays the publisher for anything. And there are 2 ways of publishing, trad publishing, where the publisher is someone else, who then pays for everything. And...

Though I don't have any books being translated into other languages, I agree with Mad Swede. A good translation for entertainment purposes is an interpretation as much as it is a translation. A one-on-one translation is only really something you'd want to use in a more academic setting, like...

In general for main characters I begin with a rough idea of what the character is like, and then I just write them and let them develop their character through their actions. And then when editing, I go through the whole thing and make their traits more specific and stand out more. For side...