by Joseph Malik | Apr 29, 2016 | Dragon's Trail, Worldbuilding
So I have a fight scene early-on which covers four pages, though the action itself is two sentences long. Thirty words. Harold lunged. Jarrod exploded forward in a whirl of flashing steel, and Harold crumpled and spilled into a knee-deep puddle, pleading his surrender...
by Joseph Malik | Sep 27, 2015 | Worldbuilding
I’ve been gone for a while. Sorry about that. But hey, duty calls. I saw this today. And it made me want to write, which is always a good thing. Apparently, this is happening. Because Russia: This is fantastic. Especially the shield-bashing, the kicks, the...
by Joseph Malik | Apr 27, 2015 | Worldbuilding
A writer buddy of mine asked for some advice on desert warfare. Namely, “How could a newly united horde of camel-herders from the desert pose a threat to four empires?” Wait, wait, I know this one. This is a long one, so go get some coffee. To whip four...
by Joseph Malik | Dec 30, 2013 | Worldbuilding
So. Armor. Because if I get asked “What kind of armor would my character wear?” one more time I’m going to beat my brains in on my laptop keyboard. I’m going to talk about medieval European armor. Mostly. All this tech that we’re about to discuss can be transposed...
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...