Monthly Archives:: September 2013

On Religions

September 29, 2013 PaulineMRoss Brightmoon world, The Fire Mages, The Incursors, The Plains of Kallanash 0

Most fantasy worlds include some sort of religious belief. It’s such an ingrained part of real-world culture that it can be very hard to conceive of a world without some kind of spiritual element. Some authors use the opportunity to explore aspects of belief that are difficult to address in contemporary fiction, since real religions carry so much historical baggage. Some throw in as many different forms of worship as they can, for depth or to create conflict between groups. Occasionally a fantasy world has no religion at all (like Anne McCaffrey’s Pern series).

More thoughts on Scribophile

September 21, 2013 PaulineMRoss The Fire Mages, Writing musings 0

[Edited on 17th November 2013] So a few days after posting the first chapter of The Fire Mages, I’ve had five critiques. They’ve ranged from quite negative to extremely positive, full of glowing praise. But from the five crits together, I’ve got a great deal of feedback, both large and small. Some of it I feel safe in ignoring. The critters who wanted the main character named and setting described within the first few lines – it’s a common principle, but it’s hard to do in a first person point of view, and really, fantasy readers in particular are quite happy to wait a while longer to find out about the world (in fact, they enjoy having it revealed in tiny snippets along the way).

On Scribophile and other online critique groups

September 9, 2013 PaulineMRoss Writing musings 2

[Edited 17th November 2013] As I inch closer towards editing The Plains of Kallanash (Work #2), I realise I’m going to need other eyes to look over it, both at a low level (for typos and other errors) and at the structural level. That’s part of the reason for putting it out on this blog in the first place, but that’s rather a scattershot approach; maybe no one will read it? If they do, they may not provide any constructive criticism.

On Posting a Story to Wattpad

September 4, 2013 PaulineMRoss Publishing/marketing 0

Wattpad is a website where authors can post their writing and readers can read it, free of charge. It’s been touted as a great way to bring your writing to readers’ attention, especially if you have a series of books out and are prepared to essentially give away the first in the series to draw in readers to the rest of the series. It can also work if you have novellas or short stories set in the same world.