Tag Archives: writing

World Building Tips: Creating a Magic System – Part 1

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For the next couple of posts, I’m going to discuss some simple world-building tips for anyone writing fantasy who is creating a magic system for their world. No matter how unique you want to make your fictional world, things within the story should follow the rules of the world you’ve built. This creates consistency and helps build trust with the reader; this makes your story more believable, no matter how fantastical some elements may be.

There are a few basic concepts that I think can help writers to build the structure of magic within their fantasy world. Answering these questions can help you think more deeply about how you want magic to work in your story.

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Grace, the Blue-Haired Writer Girl: A Quick Introduction

Posted in Music, Movies, and other Muses by

I’ve written the occasional “here’s a little info about me” blog posts over the years, for people who want to know more about my quirks or my favorite books. But it’s been a while since I’ve written a post about myself, and I have a number of new followers on this blog and social media. So it’s time for a re-introduction.

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Inspiring Quotes to Begin the New Year

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New year, new hopes, new goals. Whether you’ve written out a detailed list of what you plan to accomplish this year, or you’re simply praying for a year of less stress and weirdness than 2020, you’re probably looking with hope to what the new year might bring.

While I certainly can’t predict what this year might be like, I can provide a few inspirational quotes from others to help you focus on the all the hopeful possibilities that a new year brings. Here’s to a creative and productive new year!

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When the Movie is Better than the Book, Part 2

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As a writer of books, I often feel guilty when I like a film adaptation better than the book that inspired it. I feel sort of like a traitor to my craft, as it were. But ultimately, I like a good story—and sometimes, the movie tells a better story than the book. In this post, I explained in detail why I think that the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz told a better story than Baum’s original classic book.

Here is a list of some other movies that I think are better than their original book inspirations. In most of these cases, I feel that the movie version told a more cohesive story—whether it be fewer extraneous sub-plots, better pacing, fewer minor characters, or just plain easier to follow. In some cases, the movie ending was more positive or satisfying than the book ending, which is something I’m partial to. Continue reading →

Summer 2018 Update – Writing and Other Shenanigans

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For anyone who follows this blog, and/or is wondering what I’ve been up to of late, here it is in a short summary: not writing.

I’ve missed several weeks of blogging here and there over the past few months, and I’m embarrassingly behind on my writing goals for my current dieselpunk series. So it’s more “other shenanigans” rather than writing that I’ve been doing this summer. Continue reading →