Worldbuilding and Discovery

The Writing Tips Blog of Many Colors

The new home of my Tumblr blog! Here you can find my curated tips on the writing process. Everything from worldbuilding and character design to story structure, themes, and tackling those tough tropes and archetypes, with a few top ten lists sprinkled about.

Jul 234 min read

On Using Measurements and Metrics in Fantasy

This is what I do and what I find more immersive, easier to write, less world-bending, and more productive: I don’t use actual metric or...

Jul 234 min read

The Writing Process

Your colloquialisms are ruining the immersion (or, non-contemporary dialogue)

I am no expert here! Whenever I wrote historical fiction it was anachronistic historical fiction. This advice is from a reader’s...

Jul 236 min read

Top 10 Lists

10 Plot Premises That Never Get Old

There’s a great many lists out there complaining about the worst and most overused tropes in fiction. I want to pass the mic to tropes...

Jul 236 min read

Worldbuilding and Discovery

Writing Weather Part 2: Thunderstorms and Hurricanes + Hurricane Safety PSA

It’s hurricane season y’all!! Long before I knew about Pride Month, June 1st was the day I celebrated as the start of hurricane season....

Jul 236 min read

Worldbuilding and Discovery

11 Underexplored Settings of Post-Apocalyptic Worlds

Inspired once again by my recent binge of abandoned explorations. The greatest hits of the sprawling city scapes and farmland that...

Jul 234 min read

Worldbuilding and Discovery

Incorporating weather elements into your narrative

Weather and climate as worldbuilding are kind of like adverbs. Adverbs, as a concept, are not book kryptonite (despite what all the...

Jul 237 min read

Character Creation and Design

On Writing Characters That Don't Or Can't Speak English

This such a fun dynamic, honestly and more fantasy and sci-fi should implement it. You don’t even have to design a fantasy language,...

Jun 147 min read

Tropes, Clichés, and Archetypes

On Grimdark (Or conditioning your audience for cynicism)

Everyone has their two cents about the grimdark genre but one thing I don’t see discussed at much length

Jun 141 min read

Character Creation and Design

25 Cheap and Easy Tricks for Naming Your Characters

Because I hate coming up with new names. I hate it. I write fantasy. Why do I do this to myself? The credits of your favorite movies,...

Jun 144 min read

Tropes, Clichés, and Archetypes

Evil MacGuffins (Or an excuse to gush about Lord of the Rings)

It’s kind of crazy how so much of Tolkien’s worldbuilding has defined fantasy. The default for Elves and Dwarves, fantasy kingdoms,...

Jun 1411 min read

Worldbuilding and Discovery

Anne's Curated Tips on Worldbuilding Megapost

Some of these are not mine, they’re from author Randy Ellefson, I’m just interpreting the tips I like in my own words. These specifically...

Jun 147 min read

What No One Tells You About Writing

What No One Tells You About Writing #6

This round we’re doing some recent discoveries on my writing journey. Some are less groundbreaking and more “I did not expect this to...

Jun 147 min read

Character Creation and Design

Villain Power Scaling (It's over 9000!)

Quick! We wrote an insanely, unexpectedly successful one-off fantasy series! How do we top the villain? A bigger, badder giant space...

Jun 149 min read

The Writing Process

8 Signs your Sequel Needs Work

Sequels, and followup seasons to TV shows, can be very tricky to get right. Most of the time, especially with the onslaught of sequels,...

Jun 146 min read

Worldbuilding and Discovery

On Writing Theme (Or, Make it a Question)

An element of story so superficially understood and yet is the backbone of what your work is trying to say. Theme is my favorite element...

You don’t have to pay for that fancy worldbuilding program

Jun 144 min read

The Writing Process

You don’t have to pay for that fancy worldbuilding program

If one of your reasons to keep procrastinating on starting your book is not being able to afford something like World Anvil or Campfire,...

May 2311 min read

The Writing Process

Plot Holes and How to Fill Them (Or, The Hidden Potential in Your Mistakes)

“But why didn’t they just do that earlier!” “You can time travel – so time travel!” “Doesn’t X have Y spell? Why aren’t they using it to...

Color in Fiction! (Once You See it, You Cannot Unsee it)

Mar 299 min read

Worldbuilding and Discovery

Color in Fiction! (Once You See it, You Cannot Unsee it)

White versus black, red versus blue, Gatsby’s green light, Dorothy’s ruby red slippers, Belle’s blue dress. Color is perhaps the most...