On this channel, I share the best fantasy writing advice that I've learned from publishing four novels and a bestselling video game.
My published books include Kingdom of Dragons, The Thunder Heist, Across the Broken Stars, Fires of the Dead. I also wrote Siege of Treboulain - an epic fantasy video game.
I've also worked personally with over 80 fantasy writers to help them improve their stories. For some of these writers, I've edited their entire novels; for others, I have helped them outline and structure their stories. On top of that, I've done well over 150+ coaching calls with authors as well.
All of this coaching experience has given me a lot of insight into the most common struggles that new fantasy writers face. I run this channel to share my learnings to help you improve as an author.
For business enquiries, please contact me using the email below.
Opening a fantasy story with the antagonist works IF the hero/protagonist has already been set up as the focus on the story. Otherwise, it looks like the antagonist is the main character.
This video has assured me that I’m at the very least going in the right direction with the magic system I’m currently making, that I have a solid foundation at the moment.
Magic is not a bunch of superpowers. The biggest mistake is writing about magic as if it's something out of a video game or, worse yet, D&D or other tabletop RPG where the spells described are listed with combat stats - max range, max casting time, max duration, magic point cost, and every combatant's all "spot the mage in the party and gank him first." If you're reading the story and you can practically hear a spreadsheet crunching numbers and the sound of dice being rolled, or you hear "It's Super Effective!" - you're not describing magic. You're just verbalising some special CGI effect in post. The watchword is "uncanny." If it doesn't freak you out, it isn't magic. If it doesn't surprise you as you're writing it, it isn't magic.
My Top 3 would have been (sorry I can't spare $1K for each of these): 1. Aaron: Soil of the Ancients - The worldbuilding potential here is off the charts. Religions, factions, tensions, our relationship to the past and to the sacred, spiritual worthiness, the will to power, politics. It's all there. 2. Briana: Star Weaving - Magic being a forbidden or sacrilegious art leads to so many wonderful types of conflict both internally and externally. Done well, this would be a story that could reach a very wide audience and explore themes that ring true in the real world. 3. Jakob: The Blood Right of the 12 Gods - The Lore and history behind the 12 various bloodlines is something that will indeed capture an audience. I can see games, dramas and connected book series stemming from this. Runners up: 1. Alan: Mnemancy - Amazing idea. I would read the book written about this to see what memories people would choose to use to access magic. The story twist and story potential are amazing here. 2. Holly: The Law of Conservation of Magic: Great limitation. A wonderful story twist might be that sacrifices can be made to replenish expended magic. Also the consequences of going outside the boundaries is great. So many fun scenes could be written about this.
No, anyone who’s worked foodservice can tell you the reason is that after the order is finished, you don’t need to remember it anymore and move on to memorizing the next one.
Mhm... the book doesn't do it that way, but i want to mention that the Opening if the Lord of the Rings the Fellowship of the Ring does essentially start with 2 Antagonist displays, with sauron and with smeagol, essentially even 3 if you count the sentients of the ring and a foreshadowing with the ring corrupting 2 people already, foreshadowing Boromirs and Frodos corruption through it.
11:42 something I like to do is start on a normal appearing day and then rip that away from the readers, so they get a sense of mcs day in the life, and they get the plot kicked off
The best thing to start a story with is what you want the reader to see first. Whatever that is, whatever you want the hook or interest to be, it should be something you want to show that sets up expectations that you plan to promise in on or subvert later. This applies to every single one of the things listed in this video
The book cover for my novel is already picked out before I even finish my book . I'm actually STEALING my book cover from someone else . And nobody's gonna know that I stole it .
Would somebody please rate my idea for my first sentence of my book? Please give honest criticism. The sentence is, "Five different people, from five different countries, were all traveling to one city, on one night."
In one of my favorite books Saintess Summons Skeletons it is really good on the limitations and the unique ways to solve problems with magic. Her first offensive ability is called [Angelic Bolt] and while powerful it costs a lot of mana and can only be used while airborne the first way she thinks is to fall then she gains a slow fall ring then eventually she gets wings that allow her to fly wherever mana is eventually she gets rid of the restriction but it was really interesting to see her work around it! Another is that while it uses the system magic thing magic still just exists and people can’t just endlessly power up but when reaching higher and higher tests are played for the right to get stronger and rewards besides the level up are given for going above and beyond!
14:35 The secret societies of *Yale* use dark magic to manipulate the stock market, predict the future, and do necromancy? That's just the real-life Skull & Bones/Russell Trust society!
