cornerofmadness

And just like that it's over I can't believe four days are gone so fast. And at the same time managed to feel like 4 months. So tired. Today was a shorter day though. We used to have workshops ALL sunday but I think last year it was changed to only half a day because so many had to be home by tomorrow. Met a younger prof from NY and she likes a lot of the same things I do. She wants us to have a fantasy book reading club and wants to beta read my stuff. I don't know if I'll do that but I will absolutely keep in contact

I was back at the hotel by 1 and I did stay the day because I always leave monday and wasn't even thinking but anyhow I decided let's go to the Pittsburgh Aviary. Well so did all of Pittsburgh. No place to park. The onstreet parking is dicey to begin with and as I rolled by I saw there was a line out the door. I don't need birds that bad. I should have gone to the Heinz history museum but it didn't have new exhibits (I went last year) and thought well I have never see ALL of the Pittsburgh Science Center, just the special exhibits. Kind of a waste of my money sadly mostly because it is 100% geared to the 4-11 year old crew which is amazing really but since I have no kids... The special exhibit was on mental health but while inventive, it was wasted on me because it was designed to be experienced in a group. Nothing could be done on your own. Oh well, I was entertained for a couple of hours at least.

And then dinner. OMFG, I saved the best for last and it was also SUPPOSED to be open and it wasn't. See me curled into a ball in the corner. I found some middle eastern/greek thing Ephestus Pizza and got a gyro pizza (onions, tomato, gyro meat and feta on a wood fire pizza sounded good. I've been so used to mediocre gyro meat as of late I was shocked I could smell the lamb (halal) through the box. It was true gyro meat and lots of it (better be given the price) tons of cheese too. Excellent. To make myself less disappointed I got baklava (vegan, I'm assuming butter isn't halal? I don't know. I found out today you couldn't put honey in tea because the heat kills the honey and that's forbidden) Anyhow best baklava I've had in ages.


So obviously no writing anything today. My brain is mush so links only

Open Calls

Plott Hound Magazine

Creepy Corner Season 1

Season’s Grievings: Holiday Travel Stories Gone Wrong

Scavengers: Now Seeking Submissions

30 Magazines Publishing Hybrid Writing



From around the web

How to Get Back Into Writing

Notes from the Editor’s Desk: May 2025

Why Tension Relies on Hope

What is Sensory Language? Definition + Examples

When Pantsing Pays Off for Writers


From Betty

Six Tricks for Memorable Character Moments

Five More Signs Your Story Is Sexist

Misattributed Arousal in Fiction

Five Ways Gods and the Afterlife Change a Fantasy Setting

The Tools Have Changed, but Your Voice Still Matters

Choose a Powerful Foundation for Your Story, Part Two

More Short Story Words of Wisdom

Reading Like a Writer

Writing 101: Point of View Basics

Character Secret Thesaurus: Making a Black Market Purchase

10 Ways to Reveal a Hero in Your Manuscript

Happy Mother's Day

This got me thinking again about YA fiction and the overly heavily reliance on bad moms or dead ones. We've talked about ways around this before but I'm always open to hear more ideas or examples. I think if we're going to go the bad parent routine then ones like Joyce Summers or Camilla Noceda are the way to go: working too hard and concerned with their daughters but a bit clueless. Camilla comes around much faster than Joyce

Of course, a lot of them go the route of dead Mom (looking at you Disney but it's not your fault. You use fairy tales from a time where mom usually died in birth).

The one I've seen less is Mom's a bitch. If I'm honest, my grandmother was and I have a student whos mother likes all her children but this student. Currently hospitalized, the student is the only one looking after her and the nurse said this must be your favorite kid and mom is like no, not at all. You watch enough ID Discovery you will see a mom (or father) pick one child to torture and the rest are raised with love. It's so bizarre and yet it's not uncommon.

What is uncommon is to see this in fiction (or should I say in the genres I personally read). Has anyone seen examples of it?

OPEN CALLS

Beyond Straightforward science fiction with great characters

Anomaly June 2025 Window Dark and disruptive SF stories that have strong emotional resonance under 300 words in length

The First Line – Fall 2025 Story must begin with: Her truck took the sharp turns of the mountain road with ease.

Radon Journal Stories and poetry containing elements of science fiction, anarchism, transhumanism, or dystopia.

Flashpoint Science Fiction Spring 2025 Window Science fiction, fantasy, slipstream, and everything in between

Three-Lobed Burning Eye May 2025 Window Speculative fiction with strong narrative voices

5 Paying Literary Magazines to Submit to in May 2025

The Bloomin’ Onion: Now Seeking Fiction Submissions

Game Over Books: Accepting Manuscript Submissions


32 Themed Calls and Contests for May 2025


From Around the Web

Writing Tips from a Neurodivergent Brain

Avoid These Common Book Title Mistakes That Can Tank Your Sales Also want to point out this is more important to the indie crew as publishers can/will change yours

How to Give Writing Feedback Like a Pro




Am I A Writer or Just a Person Who Owns Too Many Notebooks?



People Lose Thousands of Dollars at Failed A Million Lives Book Festival A word of caution

A Guide to eBook Conversion Services for Your Book

What is a Character Flaw?

How to Use TikTok to Sell Books: 12 Practical Tips

From Betty

Why Tossing In Calamity Won’t Make Your Story Exciting

#1 Sign of a Successful Writer? Persevering Through Failure.

10 Things I Learned Teaching Children to Write

Voice Revisited

More Thriller Words of Wisdom

Learning to Set the Stage with Description in Your Manuscript

Tropes and why maybe I should take them as a sign. In the writers' online meeting we were talking tropes and I admitted I do not like two big ones in romance 'enemies to lovers' and 'fake dating' (if you like them, fantastic, they're just not me). I think they were horrified that I don't like them and it got me thinking, maybe this is why I don't sell as well as I probably should. I am not fond of a lot of romance tropes so I'm not likely to write them. It's even why I shied away from duckprintspress LGBT reading challenge on storygraph (something I was like whee new and then forgot about 2 weeks later). It's heavy on the tropes (but it looks like a great challenge and I recommend it. It's just not a me challenge but I might look at it again to see where I can slot some of my reads into)

Not following the tropes might turn off some readers. They're there for the comforting formula. Even in my fandom challenge unconventionalcourtship the blurb I chose did include fake dating and I'm like yep let me dance around that. I would like to think, however, that there is plenty of room for other not as tropey stuff (I just know every one of my novels has absolutely flatlined no matter how much effort went into the marketing. It has pretty much killed my desire to continue on as Jana).

How about you? What are your favorite tropes (Hurt/Comfort for me, found family)? Which ones do you write? Which ones have you subverted? How did that work? (and let's not yuck on someone's yum please). How well do you play with tropes? Apparently I play poorly with romance ones at least.

Open Calls

Tractor Beam Issue 2 Soilpunk (sci-fi involving soil) with the theme of ‘The Garden’ Caveat by me - no one is sure if the 1,200$ is split between all the authors or per story (my bet is on the former). I checked the webpage and it's weird, made by Tractor Beverages, some organic juice thing. I'm like i have a story that fits this but....

Archive of the Odd #7 stories told in the style of found footage, also known epistolary, neo-epistolary, found file, or found document fiction. Essentially, stories told in the form of other documents.



Bizarro Circus of Madness Bizarro

Neurodiversity and the More-Than-Human Neurodiversity and the More-Than-Human

5 markets and more


From Around the web

Writing 101: Effective Dialogue Techniques

How (and Why) To Define a Strong Author Brand I do like the examples here


What Makes an Antinovel? 6 Key Elements and Examples

From Betty

Six Ways to Make Fantasy Travel More Interesting

Six Pieces of Misunderstood Storytelling Advice


What Storytellers Should Know About Normalization

Bringing Necromancy to Life in Your Story

Making Your Story Immersive

Five Tips on Writing for the Second Read

Can Placeholders Cause Problems?

The Best Way to “Show, Don’t Tell” –Scene Segmenting

Cinematic Technique for Fiction Writers

Trigger Questions: The Worldbuilding Game-Changer

6 Tips for Creating Chemistry Between Characters

A Peek Inside the Mind of a Developmental Editor

5 Red Flags Your Novel Might Be Too Much Work to Read

Villains vs. Antagonists

What’s A Writer to Do NOW With Social Media?

The Heart of the Matter

Character Secret Thesaurus: Living Under a Curse

Character Secret Thesaurus: Giving Up a Child

Writing 101: Effective Dialogue Techniques

Seven Writing Fears That May Be Holding You Back from Greatness

The answer is always community

How to Write Believable Characters in Unbelievable Situations

How to use hopes and dreams to make a character come alive

When the Hero in Your Manuscript Can’t—or Shouldn’t—Change


Writing Research isn’t for the Fainthearted

How to Battle One of a Writer's Worst Enemies—PROCRASTINATION

The Enduring Relevance and Power of Written Words: 3 Essential Tools for Writers

The Pooh Crew—Real-life People Every Writer Needs in Their Writing Life

Yesterday I bought a cheese I've avoided 'bread cheese.' The name wasn't appetizing but I thought why not try it? It's rare you find a cheese you don't like so today, I went to slice some and it tells me to warm it up and eat it with maple syrup or jam or the traditional way with coffee. My eyes went wide. Who's tradition is it to eat cheese with coffee.

So I researched it and my answer was the other names for this is Finnish Squeaky cheese (and oh so it's SUPPOSED to make that noise when I chew) or leipäjuusto. I'm like fine, if it's traditional...and to my surprised it was SO good with coffee. Damn. Had to be sure not to eat the whole brick and lie on the ground with a stomach ache.

But this led me to think about traditions and how we incorporate them into our stories. I did use that in my last novel the 1980s monster hunter thing from haint blue, to Italian, Filipino and Welsh traditions. Italian ones pop up everywhere.

I have done less with it in my fantasy work. One place I did it was with the one character loosely based on the people of Nepal (at least in appearance but then I second guessed having one of the few darker skinned characters to have these traits, it was a fear of dead bodies rather inspired by several groups. I'm good at this sort of second guessing).

I do want to work more traditions (of my invention) into my next fantasy novels. It can be something the character (or their family) are afraid of them losing because they left their homeland. Do they worry about looking weird because they're celebrating something no one else in town is doing? Do they worry that it might cost them a job due to prejudice.

That last one did nearly happen to me. People don't remember that in the 80s and even into the early 90s Italians still weren't welcome in a lot of places in America. I have never been shy about my Italian American heritage. When I was in NYC, I had mentioned going to the Ferragosto, the feast of the Assumption in Little Italy and one of the surgeons I was training under was SO angry I would be with Italians she tried to get me fired from my residency to the point of lying to the residency director. What happened was I was then put with surgeons better suited to me (i.e. I was reassigned to working with Italian, African American and Jewish doctors while the white Protestants ones didn't have to deal with me). What if your character, like me, was trapped because if I made waves and was let go from my residency I was done. I couldn't practice as a doctor without it. I never said another word about it and it was a tradition I've let lapse since.

Have you tried to write new traditions in fantasy/SF works? Let's hear about them? Same with how real world ones you've woven in.


Open Call

Road Kill: Texas Horror by Texas Writers, Vol. 10 pays well but you have to be a Texan

Elven Rock of Ages A 1980s band that end up in a fantasy kingdom (a few specific details to include below.) It's basically a shared universe and it sounds fun.

Tales of Galactic Pest ControlShort stories that explore the theme of pest control in creative, unexpected, and engaging ways. Another one that plans to pay well. I have an idea. Can literal manifestation of nightmares be a pest to be controlled?

Search for the Any Key Action/adventure mixed with any drama, can’t use a physical key, the why of the search should be the most important part



From Around the web

Meta’s Use of Pirated Material to Train AI, and Why You Should Care

Five Ways to Get Your Protagonist to Realize They’re the Problem

3 Writing Aspects You Should Never Let Anyone Mess With

2025 Laptop Buying Guide for Authors

32 Themed Submission Calls and Contests for April 2025

From Betty

Sidekick Protagonists

Creating Distinct and Grounded Anti-Heroes

Seven Reasons Storytellers Should Consume Bad Stories

Five Tips for Creating an Engaging Space Battle

The Best Way to “Show, Don’t Tell” –Scene Segmenting

How to Write: Conflict is NOT Tension

Choose a Powerful Foundation for Your Story

Thesaurus Love

Let Me Tell You a Short Story

Hooking the Reader Words of Wisdom

Using a Character’s Personality Traits to Generate Conflict

Character Secret Thesaurus: Hiding the Truth about Family

Writing Tips: Query Letter Questions Answered

Who Are You as a Writer on the Page?

Just links again. I spent all day learning how to do looped animations on powerpoint and fine tuning the PPT and giving my lecture and then couldn't remember did I start at 3:41 or 4:41. One meant I was on target. One meant I was 25 minutes over. I had to regive the lecture (I didn't mind as I was finding issues I didn't see just reading). Barely can get it under 1 hour with no questions, no drinking water, nothing. Had to give up the thing I spent a half hour learning to animate.

Open Call

Big Thinking Publishing is open to Novellas Fantasy, Science Fiction novellas

Scary Stories to Tell in October Theme: Halloween

Saturday Mourning Television Short horror fiction inspired by early morning kids TV

Terrorcore is looking For YA-ish Horror Novels YA Horror (Think Point Horror, Christopher Pike, and R.L. Stine (Fear Street))

Eye to the Telescope #57 Speculative poems about Birds

10 Literary Magazines Accepting Mystery, Crime, & Thriller Fiction

30 Creative Nonfiction Magazines



From Around the web


Is it Downhill After 50(+) for Women in Horror Part One

WiHM 2025: Is it Downhill After 50(+) for Women in Horror Part 2

WiHM 2025: Is it Downhill After 50(+) for Women in Horror Part 3

Five Horror Fiction Conventions You Should Be Attending

Why All Authors Should Try Notion

How to Use Show, Don’t Tell to Strengthen Your Story

Notes from the Editor’s Desk: March 2025

The Key to a Realistic Writing Plan

A Guide to eBook Conversion Services for Your Book

What is a Character Flaw?

How to Use TikTok to Sell Books: 12 Practical Tips


From Betty


How to Tell a Story Within a Story

Six Signs of Over-Summarized Prose

Five Ways to Include Collective Action in Your Story

How Conflict Enhances Your Story

The Female of the Species.

Writing 101: Dialogue Mechanics

Character Secret Thesaurus: Being an Anonymous Financial Donor

Announcing the first We Need Diverse Books Day on April 3, 2025! and you can donate here.

April Writing Idea Starters for Blogging, Social Media, and Articles

Sell More Books with These 5 Simple Book Table Elements

Harnessing the Power of Smell in Our Writing.

Characterization: Going Deeper with the Characters You Write Through Listening

Made it home. Rocket let me know what his thoughts were about the neighbors feeding him for a week. Rolls eyes. Things are a bit stressful with my blood sugar nearly 400 for reasons I don't get (it was around 250 in Mexico in spite of ALL the alcohol and desserts) and the jaw pain is back. Guess I'm calling a dentist too. Let's hit this with all the doctors because I'm not having this.


On the way here I was thinking you'll be too tired to do a writerly ways then thought you know what, let's ask this HOW do your characters first come to you (those of us doing original fiction). For me I tend to get their personalities and jobs first. For example, I can not stop thinking about this demon/goddess woman whose rule of gluttony was given over to a man (Beezlebub) and her empire of all inclusive resorts and Vegas casinos (and the idea that travel is good for stories). I do not know what she looks like but I have her thoughts.

I do wish I would get appearances more easily. I'm not sure if there is something off with my ability to 'see' my characters or if it has to do with my early start in fanfic. As some of you know in the 80s neither Elfquest nor Pern (both of which were big then) allowed you to use the actual characters just the world building so many of us to give the fan artists insight into our characters, would use celebrity faces as a starting point. I still tend to do that.

So how do you arrive at your characters? Hear them? See them? something else?


Open Call

Space Opera Stories

Hachette Book Group Announces REQUITED: A New Adult Imprint Focused on Romantic, Bingeable Fiction

Last Girls Club Summer Issue 2025 A pro-feminist story with the idea of “For Your Own Good”

Dark Canadiana: An Anthology of Canadian Horror open only to Canadians

The Necronomicon of Sherlock Holmes Insert Sherlock Holmes into the realm of Lovecraftian Horror (pays very well)

Eerie River is open to Novels and Novellas from Canadian Authors

5 Paying Literary Magazines to Submit to in March 2025

Temporal Lobe Literary: Now Seeking Submissions

27 Literary Journals Open to Publishing Reprints


From around the web


Want to Write Faster? How Tracking Your Word Count Can Boost Your Productivity

POV Deep Dive: The Second Person

How to Make Your Fantasy World Feel Real: 6 Pillars of Organic Worldbuilding

Brewing the First Line of a Poem: Starting Strong with Memorable Openings


From Betty


How I Junked the First Act to Save My Novel

5 Lessons I Learned from My 30-Day Writing Challenge

Write Emotional Scenes that Better Engage Readers

Less Stress, More Words: A No-Burnout Plan for Writers

Playing with Time

How to Choose the Perfect Talent for Your Character

How to Show Emotional Volatility

Character Secret Thesaurus: Hiding Wealth

Stop linking to Amazon already!

Tips for Creating a Fictional Dream for Your Readers

March Forward, Write Now

Get More from a Writing Conference When You follow These Seven Tips

I have no words of wisdom this week. I spent hours working on the timeline for my sabbatical research. I finally said enough's enough after it was over 4 pages long. That's more than I need for a 1 hour speech but my mind is mush so welcome to the links' page.


OPEN CALLS

Will This Be A Problem? Speculative fiction, science fiction, fantasy or horror written by African writers

When Vampires Save the (Day) Night I wish I had something for this but the deadline is the end of this month and I don't have the time unless I dig up something incredibly old.

Consumed horror revolving around food

Something Out There Stories taking place in a specific area based around a UFO festival (this is a shared universe thing)

Roses & Wildflowers Autumn 2025 Issue An issue dedicated to hope. Solar-punk, hope-punk, envisioning a better future. Fantasy that explores hope and grace.

Where Connections Lead Your take on: where connections lead. Speculative stories welcome, if horror, gore needs to be off page

Jungle Scandals NSFW jungle adventure

Thema: I Wish I’d Said That I Wish I’d Said That

The Glass Post: Now Seeking Submissions

Publishing News & Opportunities

12 Literary Magazines Accepting Artwork

65 Specialized Publishers Open to Manuscript Submissions

THIS EXQUISITE TOPOLOGY slipstream, speculative—science fiction, horror, fantasy, weird— and fabulist pieces exploring the radiance, awe, and exuberant thrall of “This Exquisite Topology” in short stories



From Around the Web

How to Avoid Flat Characters in Your Story

Is BookBub About to Change Author Websites Forever?

Kickstarter For Authors With Oriana Leckert

Navigating Revision and Editing Without Losing Your Voice

How to Add Research for Your Next Book Project

Generate Greater Book Profits in 4 Easy Steps

From Betty

Taming Your Exposition

Troubleshooting When You’re Stuck

How to Build a Plot in the Background

The Essential Deep POV Checklist: 11 Tips For Better Writing

The Shadow Knows

Give Me a Break

Character Secret Thesaurus: Helping Someone Die with Dignity

How to Avoid Flat Characters in Your Story

6 First Page Inclusions for Drawing Readers In

Stamp out vague catchalls in your writing

Tips for Getting Your Writing in Publishable Condition



and there goes my dexcom telling me i'm low. My body told me first. I'll end this here and go eat some peanut butter.

I am so tired but let's see if we can talk about something here. One of you commented to last week about something that appears a lot in cozy mysteries (and more than a few romances, looking hard at you Hallmark). Woman moves back home/out to the country etc to take over some relative's bookstore/thrift or antique shop/bakery etc or she's had her heart broken and she's fleeing the area. In the end she gives up whatever high powered job she had whether or not she was unhappy in it, to take over whatever second career that allows her more time to solve crimes.

1. certainly you need to be your own boss so you can get time off to go solve crimes but we can do this without gutting out some different job.

2. In an era where we're trying to shove women out of the professional arena I think we're doing women a disservice by portraying them as happier running a coffee shop instead of being XYZ. Yes, I'm sure there are people out there who hate their professional job but it's in almost every series any more. It's tiring.

I think this bothers me because of #2. I had a high powered job. I worked my ASS off to power through college, get to medical school, carve out my little part of the medical world. I know what it feels like to lose your job because of circumstances out of my control. If I were in a cozy mystery, I'd be giving up my job to stay with the cute handyman after I came home to help Mom with something.

It feels like we're saying women are better at jobs where we're cooking or working retail than we are at anything else. I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with that. Bartending was one of my favorites of all my jobs. And if the story started with the women in those roles, it wouldn't bother me. It bothers me when they take someone who had to go ham on the world to get where they are and by the end of book one, they've thrown it in the garbage to do something else (especially when they weren't dissatisfied at the beginning of the book).

What do you think? Does this bother you? Do you have ideas of handling this better? I'm curious.


Open Calls.

5 Paying Literary Magazines to Submit to in February 2025

It Was Paradise Theme: In a world devastated by catastrophes, we need stories that confront these horrors. Yinz, it pays 15 cents a word but it's so not my thing with the apocalyptic feel but it may be yours.

Tiny Terrors 2025 Theme: Tiny Terrors is our short fiction program for when a novel just won’t do. Just a short shocking scream to keep you awake at night …

Call for Submissions: Cryptids Anthology (same publisher)

Planet Scumm Fall 2025 Issue Theme: Speculative Fiction, ideally with sci-fi elements if not sci-fi itself

Hearth Stories 2025 March Window Theme: Speculative fiction that explores connection, family, relationships, comfort, and the natural world. Looking for preindustrial age stuff (I don't remember this from before but hey my colonial story might have a shot)

The Cafe Irreal Spring 2025 Issue requires heavy reading of their request/theme

Eavesdrop Issue 4 Theme: Stories by Canadian writers with a focus on Echoes

Untitled Quest-Based Anthology For Oregon And Washington Writers Theme: Short story by Oregon or Washington writers, that takes place in one or both of those states, that has the reader go on a ‘quest’

Magic Malfunction Theme: What happens when magic goes wrong? (royalties)

76 Publishers With Geographic Limitations

Altered Reality Anthology


Rights at Risk: 19 Amendments to Liberation This is a charity auction to help protect women's rights. I think this is Cyndi Lauper's group benefitting from this.


From around the web

Why Bad Books Are Popular

The Perfect Guide for Where to Submit Your Writing (Does Not Exist)

5 Questions to Ask Before Adding a Subplot

Building a Writing Career from Small Wins

Bookshop.org Now Sells E-Books, Huzzah And Hooray


From Betty

Distinguishing Characters in Dialogue this one should be helpful

Passive Voice Examples: When It Works and When It Doesn’t

How Fiction Writers Can “Speed Up” Time

5 Questions to Ask Before Adding a Subplot

Should You Write a Series or Stand Alones?

Thirty Ways to Promote Your Book

Use This Method to Identify Your Story’s Stakes

Character Secret Thesaurus: Doubting One’s Faith

The How's and Why's of Formal Versus Informal Writing

Pursue Your Passion

Tips for Writing Great Dialogue

Once again I'm too tired for too much of a writerly ways but just before I sat down I hit a part of my current read that made me want to throw the book into the trash. Let's get back into this. Please find better ways to put your characters in jeopardy than to make them absolute idiots. I hit a passage where the protagonist is trying to convince someone she wants to question that she's a friend and she loves the same video game as this person, acting on details given to her by someone who had played but never finished. So when the conversation turns to the game's end, rather than say 'I haven't finished yet' she tries to pretend she knows the ending and of course is found out. I'm like really? Are you this dumb? Well based on all the other dumb things she's done yes.

There has to be a point when we sit down with our characters and our plots and ask ourselves, is this the only path to tension and conflict? Do we need them to do things that makes the reader's eyes rolls? Is there a better way to put them in danger that doesn't make their IQ look smaller than their shoe size?

Open Calls


Christmas Spirits Christmas ghost stories

Wrath Month Fantasy, science-fiction, and horror short stories that embrace punk and queer rage.

Space Malfeasance Think crime taking place in space

Incensepunk Magazine High tech, high church. A literary magazine on the intersection of faith and sci-fi. (it's all religions welcome)

Aethon Is Open To Novels

Baynam Books Is Open To Novels, Novellas, Novelettes, and Short Story Collections

14 Magazines and Anthologies Accepting Historical Fiction There are some really interesting ones in this


Syncopation Literary Journal: Now Seeking Submissions


102 Poetry Manuscript Publishers Accepting Submissions (2025 Update)


Other 2025 supernatural stories


From Around the Web


Are We Pitch Eventing Too Much?


What's the Best Way to Tell (and Write) a Story?

Read This Before Your Next Podcast Guest Interview

How to Explain Away Plot Holes – Believably

Writing in the Age of Short Attention Spans: Crafting Stories that Stick

Enfys J. Book: Five Things I Learned Writing Queer Rites

17 Exciting Fantasy Novel Ideas for Authors

Book Launch Ideas for a Successful Event

Paperback vs. Hardcover Books: Which Is Right For You?







From Betty

Filling In Your Story’s Middle

Five Ways to Make a Selfish Character Likable

Six Pieces of Misunderstood Storytelling Advice

23 Magic Types to Mix and Match Into 1,000+ Unique Systems

The Burden of Your First Five Pages

Diving in the Toolbox: Creating a Plot-Subplot Template

Joy to the World: Finding and Sharing Joy as a Writer

Tag Your Dialogue with Big-Time Power!

Reader Friday-Fun With Words

The Art of Misdirection

Making Nice Guys & Girls Realistically Flawed

Character Secret Thesaurus: Concealing a Sexual Identity

Publishing scams are rampant. How to be vigilant.

A Writer’s Journey Through the Jungle of Social Media

When You Don't Feel Like Writing Use These 6 Ways to Get Started ( ironically this was going to be tonight's post until I hit that annoying passage in the book)

Paint Your Story

I thought I was going to get lucky. It stopped snowing by 11 AM but now it's snowing again. If it's this light powdery stuff I should still make it to the hospital. I really don't want to reschedule the procedure.

Remember my theme a few weeks ago about YA books and disposing of parents so the teens are unsupervised, I'm reading one now You Must Not Miss and the plot gives a believable and sad way of doing it. Dad had an affair with his wife's sister and is out of the house. Mom a formerly sober alcoholic is back to drinking so the college aged sister has cut ties with the family so there is no supervision (and sadly this isn't that far from some of my students' lives)

So today's theme comes from a conversation this weekend with evil_little_dog I'm trying to get started on one of my two current novel ideas and I'm a pantser but there is one thing I can't really pants: magical world building. And I'm struggling with it this time. Originally I wanted this to be more of a D&D type of setting but then it morphed to gaslamp but they're like yeah no, 1920s type setting. Okay sure. But still magic and D&D like races? Yes still that.

So what are my rules of magic? I was thinking everyone has a little of it and that maybe some of the science lags behind because if you can light things with magic do you need electricity? Not for that but for other things yes. Does medicine lag behind? A little but I did decide that magical healing knits tissues back together (but not if amputated) but it doesn't kill pathogens (or we'd basically have people with nearly no reason to die and that causes population problems)

The two main characters were 'adventurers' in the original setting but maybe military (ex) now. His magic is bardic in nature but what are his limits? I'm not sure I want it to be 'anything that moves the plot along' like Scanlan in Vox Machina. She'll have some kind of fire magic and probably some defensive magic too.

The one thing that bugged me in Harry Potter was the whole division between Muggles and magicians making me wonder how they ever intermarried and how the wizards got on with almost no science and all magic. I don't really want that.

So what I need to do is to sit down and really figure out what I want with my magic. What are the limits? Who can do what? How prevelent is it?

What are YOUR favorite worldbuilding resources? I'm sure you have them. (I know ysabetwordsmith has some having seen them in the past) The sharing of resources and ideas in the last few weeks has been awesome and I hope that continues. Here are some good ones I know How To Create Magic Systems and Magic Worldbuilding in Fantasy: Why It Matters






OPEN CALLS


Wyrd Warfare Wyrd/Weird combat stories

Patterns Dark stories with the theme of patterns (I had one but it's too long. whines)

parABnormal Magazine 2025 – First Call

Cosmic Roots And Eldritch Shores February 2025 Window

Feline Frights: Whiskers Between Worlds March 2025 Window Cosmic horror through the eyes of our feline companions



From Around the Web

Tips for Terror: Find the Beauty in the Horrific

How to Write Intense Scenes That Captivate Readers

Marketing quotes and why you need them.

Don’t Write Every Day: 3 Things to Do Instead to Finish Your Book definitely a YMMV type of article

How Much Does It Cost to Publish a Book Traditionally?

How to Write a Book With No Experience in 10 Steps

How to Find a Literary Agent

How to Find the Right Literary Agent for Your Book

From Betty

Crafting Micro Stories

Five Common Problems With Metaphors

Finding Your Story’s Throughline

Five Arab and Muslim Stereotypes to Avoid

Advancing Your Plot

The Writing Life: Discipline and Challenges

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