The Paris Review

5 min read

Leonid Pasternak, The Passion of Creation, c. 1880. When does writing begin? The act of committing the first words to a page—as I am doing now—is cited for its difficulty. Though those words might well be deleted from the final draft, the resistance

Writer's Digest

2 min read

David Burns says the reason why fantasy is such an old but thriving literary genre is that fantasy stories speak to emotional truths. “A good fantasy story is going to make you feel something and resonate about subjects such as love, family and the n

Writer's Digest

7 min read

Your protagonist is pinned down, enemy laser cannons blasting into the Venusian rocks she’s hiding behind, hopes of rescuing her fellow astronauts fading toward impossibility. Her need has propelled her this far, into a pursuit outside her normal wor

Mornings with Jesus

1 min read

I GET PUMPED BY MILITARY recruiting commercials that show the buff and burly soldiers pushing through the pain to save a beachhead, dodging bullets to rescue a fellow soldier, or leaping from helicopters into churning dark waters at night. And I did

Mornings with Jesus

1 min read

WE AMERICANS LOVE, LOVE, LOVE superheroes. Check out your local marquee any time of year and you’re sure to find one or more Marvel or DC blockbusters. Kids and adults both clamor for heroics, and caped costumes sell out everywhere for Halloween. I’m

Writing Magazine

6 min read

Every genre has its tropes, and fantasy is no different. We’ve explored archetypes in these pages before, which refer much more to recurring characters and character types. Tropes are more general themes and motifs that occur within an area of fictio

The Critic Magazine

4 min read

NOT KNOWING ST PAUL’S CATHEDRAL very well, and having a break from filming, I decided to have a wander round. One monument in the north transept caught my eye. Sculpted in white marble in the grand Classical tradition and with more than life-size fig

Nomad Africa

1 min read

Our heroes' struggle for political independence teaches us of the sacrifice that must be made. Their heroism must transcend the struggle for political independence, and inspire a new generation of heroes that must sacrifice for the indigenous majorit

Writer's Digest

4 min read

In a business in which irony is a useful tool, it is perhaps unsettling to realize that the term premise—unarguably one of the fundamental elements of storytelling—is so frequently misunderstood and misused within the universal writing conversation.

Writer's Digest

4 min read

Walter Mosley is known for iconic characters. From Easy Rawlins to Leonid McGill and Fearless Jones, his heroes quickly come to life on the page in a way that draws interest and empathy from readers. Their personalities are so distinct that legions o

Nautilus

8 min read

The soccer match hadn’t even started when the cops showed up. On the streets of Marseille, France, the officers—helmeted, shields in hands, batons on belts—charged through a crowd to break up a thicket of English and Russian fans who were hurling bot

Edge

1 min read

The game was not always called Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP. “The working title for the game was Poopsock,” Piotrowski says, laughing. “It was a term for a game that you sit down and play until it’s finished. And what allows you to do that is…”

Popshot Magazine

1 min read

ISSUE 25 — FANTASY AUTUMN 2019 There are no limits on fantasy. Yet, in literature it is so heavily steeped in genre it’s impossible not to think of warring kingdoms, dragons, unicorns, witches and other supernatural tropes. Fantasy with a capital F i

The Guardian

5 min read

Developers and video artists are beginning to break down cliche and sexist gender stereotypes to explore new ideas and storylines

SFX

1 min read

MEET THE COMPLIANCE MANAGER BEHIND YA FANTASY NOVEL KINGDOM OF SOULS Tell us about your protagonist. Arrah hails from a powerful family of witchdoctors, but doesn’t have magic of her own. When the Demon King threatens her kingdom, she must trade year

Beijing Review

2 min read

Jigme Dorje, Du Fuguo and Peng Shilu. These names may sound unfamiliar to the foreign ear, but when their stories are told, everyone will find in them qualities they can identify with. Jigme Dorje is an ethnic Tibetan postal vehicle driver in Sichuan

Writing Magazine

6 min read

You want to write a female character for your novel or screenplay. But is it really necessary to consider gender difference in the 21st century? Surely any character of any gender identity can do or be anything? When my book The Woman in the Story: W

Screen Education

7 min read

Zhang Yimou’s Hero (2002) heralded a new era of Chinese commercial blockbusters that were characterised by a desire to appeal to both a local and a global audience.1 Demonstrating a superlative handle of place-based mise en scène, Zhang transports th

SFX

1 min read

Miles Cameron switches from fantasy to space opera for ARTIFACT SPACE (out now, Gollancz), which centres on a vast merchant vessel. When on-the-run orphan Marca poses as a midshipman on the Greatship Athens, she gets caught up in a plot to destroy th

PC Gamer (US Edition)

2 min read

Two armies hold opposing ends of a battlefield. The sun’s out—it’s a nice day for a fight—and in the background sits a city, nestled behind stalwart walls. It’s the calm before A Total War Saga: Troy’s storm, but any second now a man dressed up as a

The Atlantic

7 min read

Growing up, I was told my favorite comic-book heroine was white. And yet her struggles always seemed uniquely similar to my own.

SFX

1 min read

RELEASED 6 FEBRUARY 352 pages | Paperback/ebook/audiobook Author Luke Arnold Publisher Orbit Fans of Black Sails will likely find the name Luke Arnold familiar. He played John Silver in the pirate series, as well as being a mainstay on numerous other

Writing Magazine

3 min read

Verily is a US web journal for women. The editorial team ‘sifts through the noise of the world to elevate what is honest, real, and beautiful for the modern woman’. Columns requiring subs are Travel with a Local about the ‘hidden gems’ in your neighb

Writer's Digest

7 min read

Too often, we as writers fall back on the basic techniques to showcase point of view. But what if we looked at POV like another facet of character? Instead of sticking to the typical showcases of first person, second person, etc., we can push past in

Literary Hub

2 min read

It is entirely possible that I have never had an accurate sense of what is called realism in that I do not, as a reader, discriminate between it and fantasy. My earliest reading was Greek mythology. As with my prayers, nothing was ever deleted, but

Guardian Weekly

2 min read

By Alastair Reynolds Reynolds is best known as an author of hard science-based space operas, yet his latest novel begins on board a ship sailing up the coastline of Norway in the early 19th century. The mystery deepens as the same group of people, on

PC Gamer

1 min read

Never thought I’d say it, but it’s lovely to play as a goblin. Too much time wasted in the Warhammer fantasy world means I go in expecting to be a jittering, capering villain, only interested in sticking people with sharp things. But Master of Shado

SFX

1 min read

RELEASED OUT NOW! Publisher Marvel Comics Writer Gerry Duggan Artist Mike Deodato Jr. ISSUES 1-3 One of the more incongruous consequences of Marvel regaining the Conan licence is that Robert E Howard’s barbarian has now joined the ranks of Earth’s Mi

Writing Magazine

6 min read

Characters are the beating heart of a story. They are what make us care as we read about a sequence of events. We see the story through their eyes, we feel it through their feelings. Yet sometimes, characters are not used and developed to the greates

Fast Company

1 min read

While the medal has been around in some form since 1861, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society was officially chartered in 1958 by President Eisenhower to create a bond between Recipients and maintain their memories, protect the legacy of the meda