From time to time I’ll recommend—not review, mind you, but recommend, and yes, there is a difference—books I think authors should have on their shelves. Some may be new and still in print, some may be difficult to find, but all will be, at least in my humble opinion, essential texts for any author, so worth looking for. Over the course of this month I slowly worked my way through the short book Novelist as a Vocation, by one of my favorite authors of all time, Haruki Murakami, as the first of what I hope will be monthly group reads at the Fantasy Author’s Handbook GoodReads group. My ..read more

I don’t do this every year, the Thanksgiving post, but I don’t know, why not…? I suppose one reason not to could be better explained by my post from two weeks ago, “Authorship in the Post-privacy Age,” in which I said I don’t like to talk about myself much. Then this morning I flipped back through some previous Thanksgiving posts, going all the way back to 2009, when I was still at Wizards of the Coast and dutifully encouraging y’all to buy and play 4th edition D&D, which now just feels weirdly hilarious. From these posts someone could, for reasons I could not possibly fathom, constru ..read more

I’ve started reading Novelist as a Vocation along with my Fantasy Author’s Handbook GoodReads group, and was immediately struck by this sentiment from author Haruki Murakami: I have a pretty strong desire not to try to explain my novels to others. Talking about my own works always comes off sounding kind of apologetic, or boastful, or as if I’m trying to justify myself. Even if I don’t want to sound that way, it still leaves that impression. For all I talk about writing and the stuff I’ve written—especially my writing about writing—here and now on YouTube, and in person at con ..read more

You know I don’t just write about writing fantasy here at Fantasy Author’s Handbook, right? I’ve talked horror quite often here, and in honor of Halloween falling on a Tuesday, how about a look back and some scary stuff from Fantasy Horror Author’s Handbook’s past? First of all, anything from 2009-2013 can now be found in The Best of Fantasy Author’s Handbook, Volume I, including… “Cross & Mix Genres” …fantasy and horror, for instance. “Legion: A Study in Inconsistency & Implausibility” …a horror movie shows us what not to do. And still readable in their e ..read more

A few days ago I posted a video on the FAH YouTube channel looking at fantasy sub-genres. I started with my definition of the fantasy genre in general: Fantasy is any story in which the impossible is made possible by use of some kind of magic. From there I proposed three sub-genres—epic fantasy, high fantasy, and sword & sorcery—based on the primary motivation of the principle characters. If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s that video… So far, people seem to be more or less with me, but then there are all these sub-genres out there, and it seems like new ones are being added all ..read more

…because in this context, that’s exactly what you are! My father was a salesman and he used to tell me—pretty much over and over again—that everyone is a salesman, that in most situations in your life, you’re selling something, and usually what you’re selling is yourself. You can imagine the deaf ears this fell on when delivered to 1985 post-punk artiste Phil. Firmly rejected. But now I’m post-post-punk post-artiste Phil, so am I about to say he was right? No, but he was kinda right. He was right in certain contexts. Most of the hours of my days are spent not selling, myself or anyth ..read more

I’ve written short stories using writing prompts before and found it a useful exercise just to get started writing something. Prompts tend to be all about how a story starts, it’s a brief setup to push you into a story. I’ve written about writing prompts in more detail in “Random Plots & Writing Prompts,” which I followed up a couple weeks later with the short story “Lala in the Basement” based on the random online writing prompt: At midnight, a strange woman, a biologist, and a young witch explore an asylum haunted by the spirit of a serial killer while searching for a disturbing teddy b ..read more

Two years ago I wrote a post here at Fantasy Author’s Handbook entitled: BLOG POST DCXL TOO MUCH INFORMATION IN YOUR CHAPTER STARTS 11:19 am PST, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2021 CE SAMMAMISH, WA “Come ye, all Authors and Hear, for Wisdom shall be granted upon thee by the hand of the Not At All Mighty that thou might Hearest.” —Lord Philus Athansusus, the 63rd Lord Viscount of the City of Citiphus in the Duchy of Blackriverwaterberg of the Kingdom of Forevermore, Part XVII, Chapter 24, paragraph 83 of the third volume of the Collected Writings of Lord Philus Athansusus, the 63rd Lord Viscount of th ..read more

Big things are happening at Fantasy Author’s Handbook! It’s not just the little blog that could anymore. I’m bringing it out into new vistas. Never fear, though, the weekly Tuesday blog will continue—is continuing, in fact. But so far two new iterations of the FAH “brand” are up and running, if still in their preliminary stages, and I’d like to take this Tuesday to nudge you in their direction, not instead of but in addition to the blog. First of all, as I premiered here a few weeks ago, the Fantasy Author’s Handbook YouTube channel is up and running, starting with a series of videos ..read more

Am I about to put up a full chapter of Leo Tolstoy’s War & Peace as an example of what not to do? Isn’t this one of the greatest works of literature of all time? Surely it can only be used as a source of positive examples, to show us lesser authors how to do this thing, right? Wrong. Whatever your feelings are of War & Peace, and whatever mine might be (I’m still trudging my way through it, since January 1) let’s please at least stipulate that the novel as an art form has evolved considerably since War & Peace was first published in full book ..read more