I've talked about this before, but I want to briefly go over how I ended up as an illustrator. After falling out of uni with an English/History degree and no plan whatsoever, I ended up freelance writing for basically peanuts. That dried up, I had a months-long crisis of drafting a novel and no income… Continue reading A Year As A Freelance Mapmaker
Tag: Fantasy
How Medieval Guilds Worked
Guilds are a staple feature of fantasy fiction, especially video games. Players enjoy rising through the ranks by doing missions for the guild, eventually becoming guildmaster. But how did they work in real life? St George's Guildhall, King's Lynn, built around 1428. Funnily enough, fantasy gets some stuff right here. They usually use the terms… Continue reading How Medieval Guilds Worked
Inspiration: How Medieval Towns Worked
A lot of fantasy writers draw inspiration from medieval Europe - or what they think is medieval Europe. This means kings with absolute authority, dirty peasants, shifty merchants, grubby towns and - besides a handful of inept town guards who seem to work directly for the king or local lord - a total lack of… Continue reading Inspiration: How Medieval Towns Worked
Creating Interesting Post-Apocalyptic Countries
For no reason at all related to current events, I've been thinking about post-apocalyptic settings recently. In a lot of post-apoc fiction, the focus isn't on the apocalypse itself. Most of the time, it sits in the background: sometimes it's ancient history, and sometimes it's been forgotten about entirely. The Hunger Games is a kind… Continue reading Creating Interesting Post-Apocalyptic Countries
Siren
Baltis followed the crowd of other initiates down the cobbled path. They were wearing their charcoal-grey academic robes, just like he was. The twin suns were bearing down on them, and he was sweating heavily beneath the folds of cloth. “Come along,” their guide said, an older man with grey hair and a pinched face.… Continue reading Siren
Minneapolis Bookstores In Need of Help
The tragedy that's befallen Minneapolis this week is awful. It's hard to watch, even from over here in the UK. I can't even imagine what it's like living through it. I haven't said much on social media because I didn't see how I could add anything to the debate. But it's since emerged that two… Continue reading Minneapolis Bookstores In Need of Help
Fantasy Isn’t Embarrassing Anymore
Sometimes things move fast, sometimes they move slowly. Fantasy's rise to the throne of mainstreamness has happened incredibly quickly. I'm not old, but when I was at school, fantasy was not cool. (Nor were video games for that matter, but now it seems nearly every kid owns a console - which is not a bad… Continue reading Fantasy Isn’t Embarrassing Anymore
My First YouTube Video (Why I Like Fantasy)
Yeah, I bit the bullet and made a video. The first one I attemped wasn't very good. I read from a script, and it really sounded like it. Blah. But I have like 30 draft blog posts for this blog now (most are just titles or notes for when I come to write them). I… Continue reading My First YouTube Video (Why I Like Fantasy)
To People Who Think Adult Fantasy Has No Value
I'm not mad at you, don't worry. But I do think you're wrong. There are two arguments I see people trot out when they're bashing fantasy. They are: In a fantasy story, anything can happen, so you can't make a plot with stakes. And: Fantasy fiction has no bearing on the real world, so it… Continue reading To People Who Think Adult Fantasy Has No Value
What I Wrote in April 2020
Hey folks, it's that time again! A new month is upon us, so I'm looking back on everything I wrote in April. It was quite a busy month for me. I'd set up a couple of projects: the Castle Tour and #CampNaNoWriMo. Camp NaNo is basically a smaller version of the big National Novel Writing… Continue reading What I Wrote in April 2020
