1) 25 Ways to Tie a Scarf in 4.5 Minutes. Whether you care about scarves or not, it’s an entertaining video.
2) The Stephen King story universe flow chart.
4) I guess if you’ve already spent the money on the photos, you might as well do this. Er, #35 is “special.”
6) Political attack ads in Westeros.
7) The ten most ridiculous rules in first ed. D&D. I see that no one will acknowledge the elephant in the room: armor class. via Mike Cole
As promised, here is the comic fantasy “novel” that my son wrote as a home-school project. I’ve decided to split it in half because cliffhangers are fun and ten thousand words in a single blog post is a bit much. The first half went online yesterday.
Here’s a brief post about the project, in case you’re aching for some background. For the record, this is his work, only lightly edited by me.
The Twin Swords of Zordain
Chapter 5
I ran to the fire and threw the contents of my canteen over the raging flames, extinguishing them.
Cass ducked into the cabin and started casting spells through the door while Garth grabbed a shield and blocked the next blast of flames, melting the shield completely in the process.
I ran back next to Garth and drew my sword. Cass suddenly stopped casting spells. I almost turned and asked her why, but I saw the dragon land in front of us on the ship, crushing various boxes. Without the blinding sunlight in my eyes, I was able to take a look at it. It was a dark red dragon, not much bigger than me, with small red eyes that seemed to carefully inspect the environment around us. From the minute I saw it I knew it wasn’t a common dragon from Casanopala that evolved with more brute force than smarts to survive against various wars going through the area, but a clever dragon that came from far away, where you had to scare off a single knight a year to preserve your treasure and stay alive. It must have come through a portal made by one of the swords. It growled at me. Then I noticed it had an emerald green sash over its shoulder. The sash was as oversized as Garth’s helmet (which, at the moment was lying face-down in the cabin) and had a badge that said: reserved for elite team.
That told me that this dragon was very clever.
”Why do you fight for those Invastigan fools?” I asked it.
“Because they have archers locked onto me every second!” the dragon replied in a different voice than I had expected that suited a stand-up-comedian more than a dragon.
“Okaaaaaay,” I replied. “And are dragons afraid of archers?”
“No.”
“Are you a dragon?”
“Yeah”
Everyone was silent for a moment then the dragon ripped the sash off his shoulder and tore it to shreds with his claws. Continue reading
As promised, here is the comic fantasy “novel” that my son wrote as a home-school project. I’ve decided to split it in half because cliffhangers are fun and ten thousand words in a single blog post is a bit much. Look for the second half tomorrow.
Here’s a brief post about the project, in case you’re aching for some background. For the record, this is his work, only lightly edited by me.
UPDATE: My son offered to share this book as one of the stretch goals of my Kickstarter for The Great Way, so it’s now available to read in a variety of (DRM-free) ebook formats, if people would rather not read it as a pair of blog posts.
Also, the book now has cover art by the amazing Kathleen Kuchera, fine artist and children’s book illustrator. Here’s the cover:
Download links for your tablet, phone, or e-reader:
Kindle-friendly .mobi
Everything else-friendly .epub
Printable .pdf
All three formats above combined into one zip file
Or you can read the story below inside the blog.
The Twin Swords of Zordain
Chapter 1
Nack Town, a small village. Not a lot of interesting things happen. This seemed to be one of those very un-interesting days. Continue reading
Lev Grossman has a fun list of 20 things he wants to see characters in fantasy novels do more often. Someday I’ll do a list of all the reasons the internet is about lists, but this one is pretty fun.
However, I don’t much need to see characters peeing, unless it’s important to the story. Are they trapped somewhere for a long time? Are they showing their contempt for someone? Go for it. Otherwise, leave it implied.
Also, number 1, forgetting things, wouldn’t fit the sort of stories I like to read or write. For most of us, the expectation is that characters will perform to the best of their abilities. If the troll army is marching through a forest, the elven ranger might be able to successfully elude them while the city tax collector could not, but we expect both to do their best. This is why we invented the term “idiot plot.”
Frankly, fiction is artificial enough without adding complications from obstacles like “I swear I packed our weapons!” It seems too much like author manipulation.
As for number 19, I figure worlds on the other sides of portals would be pretty much like ours, in the most basic way. I mean, if I’m not taking up arms against the Dark Lards in our world, why would I believe myself capable of doing it in another?
All around cool guy Saladin Ahmed is giving away a Sword & Sorcery tale on his website, with a request for donations. Times are tough for a lot of people, but as someone with out-of-date prescription glasses, I can tell you how incredibly hard it is for a writer who struggles to see text.
Give the story a read and, if you like it, send a couple of bucks his way.
In other news, I just paid for the right to publish my son’s first “novel” on my blog. It’s a comic fantasy called “The Twin Swords of Zordain,” and it’s almost ten thousand words long. I haven’t decided if I’m going to post it all in one post (behind a cut, obviously) or break it up.
I just need to format it a bit and I’ll post it.
Want a free book? Well, I have a free book and I intend to give it away.
My contributor copies for the Don’t Read This Book anthology have arrived, and I’m going to give one (signed by me) away. Anthology, you say? Here’s a list of the contributors:
Stephen Blackmoore
Harry Connolly
Rich Dansky
Matt Forbeck
Laura Anne Gilman
Will Hindmarch
Mur Lafferty
Robin D. Laws
Ryan Macklin
C. E. Murphy
Josh Roby
Greg Stolze
Monica Valentinelli
Chuck Wendig is the editor. The stories are set in the nightmare world (literally) of the Don’t Rest Your Head rpg. Oh look! A picture of the books!
I’m keeping two.
Anyway, if you want to be entered for a chance to win one, sign up for my newsletter by Friday. At that time, I’ll send an incredibly easy question to everyone on the list, and will randomly choose a winner from the responses.
Yes, this is a naked attempt to get people to sign up for my newsletter. Hey, I hope to have even more new books out soon, and I figure that anyone interested in this anthology would want to hear about them, too. Of course, after the drawing you can ask to be taken off the list again. Also, due to the costs of international shipping, this is going to have to be U.S. only.
You have until late Friday to sign up. Free book!
Pixar, right? They make good movies that are affecting and also make sense. Sort of a rare thing now.
Anyway, Pixar story artist Emma Coats has been basic story “rules”.
Now, I’ve mentioned before that there is really only one rule: Be interesting. However! Her advice is pretty good. I especially like #6 and #15, and I’ve recommended people do #10, #12, and #20 already. I should probably be better about #2 and #5.
But it’s good stuff.
Here’s an idea I didn’t really consider when I read and reviewed The Eye of the World: that it’s a meta-fictional take on the fantasy genre.
Aidan Moher linked to my writeup on Reddit and let’s just say the reception wasn’t warm. That’s cool by me; I’m not all that concerned with having everyone agree with me. And while some of the reactions were dumb…
Meta-fiction? Or is that being a savvy munchkin about the rules of your own setting? Or something else?
Obviously I haven’t read the whole series but I’m sure some of you have. What do you think? Comments on the blog are turned off due to spam, but you can reply by tweet, on Facebook, or join the conversations on LiveJournal.
I started The Eye of the World weeks ago, but only just finished it this weekend. A lot of people love it, I know, but to be honest I found it a bit of a slog. However! I am keenly aware that it was incredibly popular at the time of its original release (1990) and continues to be so today after the author’s death.
It’s one of those series people complain about all the time; that’s a sure sign of success. But why was it a success?
I want to talk about what I liked, what I disliked, and what qualities it has that I believe made it popular.
ObDisclaimer: Saying: “These are the qualities that made this book a best-seller” is not the same as saying: “These are the only qualities that make a best-seller.” This may seem obvious, but this is the internet. What interests me here is the way this book is similar to mainstream bestsellers by people like Patterson, Koontz, etc.
Spoilers, obviously. Continue reading