by Joseph Malik | Nov 21, 2013 | Worldbuilding
I want to talk languages in fantasy. I should probably start this by saying that the language barrier is the single biggest problem with the portal fantasy genre. Every writer has to cough up a solution; it’s a rite of passage. Most solutions are simple...
by Joseph Malik | Oct 13, 2013 | Worldbuilding
So a huge part of writing is reading. A huge part of contemplating self-publishing is determining the competition. Holy shit, I had no idea there were so many portal fantasies out there. A couple of nights on Goodreads and Smashwords and poking around blogs and...
by Joseph Malik | May 24, 2013 | Worldbuilding
I shoot a 55-lb. handmade recurve. I bowhunt, traditional style, spot-and-stalk and stillhunting. The single thing that I see in books and movies time and again that drives me absolutely nuts, and which I haven’t seen addressed anywhere — which is why...
by Joseph Malik | Apr 4, 2013 | Writing Craft
Exposition time. I started creating the world that became Dragon’s Trail nearly thirty years ago, as a senior English project in high school; the ubiquitous “what if?” that every teenager writes when he dreams that his Dungeons and Dragons group somehow gets...
