In my opinion, the best writing exercises are ones that take a look at some of the best writing available. That’s why so many writers say the most important thing you can do as a writer is read–being exposed to new ideas, creativity, and well executed writing will help you grow your own skills. Which […]
Tag: creative writing
Hello bookworms! For this post, I want to discuss how authors who work across multiple genres really get to flex their writing skills. Sometimes you’ll notice that an author injects a little bit of their other genres into their various projects. I find that doing this really opens up genres to trope inversions, new ideas, […]
Generations as story telling: How the book does it For those unfamiliar with A Secret History of Witches, the book’s formatting is told in generations. Each section is titled “The Book of _” and told from the POV of one of the women in a line of witches, beginning with Nanette. The chain stretches from […]
First of all, I’d like to start by clarifying what I mean by “legendary objects,” in part because legendary is a label used to classify the rarity of established magical objects in D&D lore. For the purposes of this post, I will not be using legendary in that manner. I will instead be discussing the […]
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D&D Series #11: Preparing a World
Welcome book bees to another Dungeons and Dragons post! Today I want to discuss how as a DM one might prepare a world uniquely for the party. Most of this discussion will be focusing on worlds created by the DM for D&D or other purposes, though some of these aspects can be used by DMs […]
A “tragic” character For this blog post a “tragic” character is one with a truly long, twisting, and awful life. Perhaps they make the most of what they’re given or they succumb to tragedy and despair. The important aspect is that the character suffers quite a lot of terrible events in their life. The majority […]
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D&D Series #8: What is a Session Zero?
Session Zero is… A “session zero” is generally a gathering before the campaign you’re about to embark on begins. These aren’t really useful in the case of a one-shot or one time game, but they can be useful when organizing what will hopefully be a long term campaign, especially when that campaign involves a potentially […]
Hi there book bees. Today I want to talk about posthumous publishing, AKA the publishing of a work by a writer after that writer’s death. Sometimes the publication is of unfinished works, other times of finished but unpublished works. There’s a lot of factors that go into posthumous publishing but one of the major one […]
I’m not going to lie to you book bees, I am an absolute hypocrite. As you may have noticed in my review of Clarissa’s Warning and A Prison in the Sun before that, I really don’t like when authors leave you on a ridiculous cliffhanger with no resolution. It’s part of the reason I’ve gotten […]
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D&D Series #6: Building a Story
What is a D&D Story about? A story in D&D is about people, usually, but also often has themes of an overarching struggle. This struggle may be to find yourself, to save yourself, to save others, to find family, or any number of blended themes in between. In one campaign I played the story was […]
Cups and Cards and Books 