There is a knife edge difference at the border between scary and hilarious. Understanding this difference – and the fact that comedy and horror are essentially the same skills – will make you a better writer. If the theory of writing is something that interests you, I write about it …
Sometimes I like to write scary stories. Usually, they are pretty short. Rather than start a new “story” each time I want to share a short I have created a new collection called “Anthology of Madness“. Most of those short stories have a twist and some of them are a …
While I have not deliberately attempted to follow Propp’s Functions of Folktales as a pattern, nevertheless Legend does fit it very well (but not perfectly). Russian formalist Vladimir Propp described (somewhat abstractly) a set of recurring plot devices that he found in a certain genre of Russian folk tales. He …
After something of a long break, which is entirely down to me being distracted, I have published chapter 6 of Legend. The chapter has been ready since before chapter 5 was released and yet, life, and stuff. In this chapter, we meet the King of the Undersea People. Malial is …
I’ve been musing a lot lately about non-linear storytelling. Particularly the different forms of non-linear story. As anyone who reads the Author Buzz Dev Blog knows, I am a huge geek. I grew up reading Choose your own Adventure and Fighting Fantasy books. These books and alter Interactive Fiction titles …
Thanet Creative Writers suggested we writers blog about favourite lines cut from our work. Of the list of enough platform building suggestions to last a year, that was one that I contributed so I had better write about it. This excerpt is a passage that I think is really funny …
Unless you grew up near the sea this particular reference to a mermaid’s purse might leave you scratching your head. Malial was certainly confused. In reality, a mermaid’s purse does not really come from a mermaid it is something called Chondrichthyes which is a kind of egg sack. The mermaid’s purse …
While collecting mushrooms Malial encounters an urisk. What is an urisk and where are they found? The urisk is a mythical household spirit from English and Scottish folklore. You may be more familiar with another name that urisks are known by – the brownie. However, to the Lowland Scots, they were known as urisks so that is what we …
In a fit of productivity, I have published not one but two new entries for the story “Legend”. These two sections deal with what went wrong while Malial was searching for pearls and what he did about it. We also meet an important new character.
Sometimes, when you are writing, you want an oath or swear but without any actual swearing. In preparation for the time when I would need such a fictional word, I created a fictional dictionary with these words in it. For the last three or so years I have been collecting conjugated …
