Posts

To Plot or Not To Plot?

I've been reading this ebook - How To Defeat Writers Block - So, it's saying, sometimes it's great to not plot at all - just write. And I'm thinking, yeah that might really work. But here's the thing; Nearly all books you read to help with your novel are written by authors of contemporary.  When you're just writing about the ups and downs of someone's life, with love, social problems or even crime, you can manage to do this. But I write fantasy. Let's think, for example, about Sarah J Maas. There are so many clues in earlier books or chapters in both of her series, that when you find out something later on you're like "Of course, 'cos when..." In all the best YA fantasy and sci-fi, the plot is really complicated. If I don't map my plot, there will be no surprises, "of course cos when..." s, unless I go back and put them in, or just write down the occasional note. No, I want my book to be FULL of "Of course!...

Fantasy or High Fantasy? The basics.

I'm a big fantasy lover, and I can't help noticing when people tag things as # fantasy , and they are  high fantasy . Obviously, it's still  fantasy , so do tag that. But tag  #highfantasy  as well. And one more thing,  high fantasy is a sub-genre of regular fantasy . It's still fantasy, guys. Sooooo... I'm going to start by giving an example of  regular fantasy ; Twilight. Though more of a romance, Twilight is indeed  fantasy . I mean, vampires don't really exist. Another example is The Mortal Instruments. They are amazing and have a lot more  fantasy  aspects than Twilight, but they aren't  high fantasy.  Neither is Harry Potter, Percy Jackson or Hush Hush. A few key points of  fantasy,  though not always true, fantasy often has: Set in this world, but is hidden from normal people Has species such as wizards, vampires, werewolves and shapeshifters Has an ordinary person (or are they normal?) finding out ab...