Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai

Category Archives: Writing


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Flash!(-fiction)

photodune-8326461-lightning-xsI never was very hot about flash fiction – while I still like short stories best, I don’t like too short stories. Six thousand words is my ideal length, followed by ten thousand.

According to Wikipedia

Flash fiction is an umbrella term used to describe any fictional work of extreme brevity, including the Six-Word Story, 140-character stories, also known as twitterature, the dribble (50 words), the drabble (100 words), and sudden fiction (750 words). Some commentators have also suggested that some flash fiction possesses a unique literary quality, e.g. the ability to hint at or imply a larger story.

As I said, not my thing.
But it is important to try new things. Continue reading →


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Spreadsheets and series writing

Today I will bore you guys with a post about writing.

Back in 2014 I did a piece on how I use a spreadsheet to plan my action scenes.
And of course there is the good practice of keeping track of word count and time spent writing to improve productivity1.
Today I found out another interesting application for spreadsheets: explore an ongoing series of stories, trace character arcs and keep the new material fresh.
And maybe I’m re-inventing the wheel, but…

ws_Age_of_Conan-_Brawl_1920x1200-860x280

Writing a series, especially if we are writing the different episodes out of chronological order, presents a number of pitfalls.
How many sword & sorcery stories – not to mention roleplaying scenarios! – start in a tavern? How many times did our old friend Conan fight a giant snake? How many times the bad guys motivation boiled down to “evil”? Continue reading →


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An earthier kind of fantasy

Swords_and_Sorcery-anthologyI’ve been involved in a lot of talk, in the past weeks, about Sword & Sorcery and the definition thereof, and what makes S&S different from Heroic Fantasy and blah blah blah.
The subject is dear to my heart as I like S&S, and I both read and write it.
And as luck would have it, hot on the heels of that discussion I got a contract for a number of S&S shorts (yeah!!)1 – so it turns into a matter close to my bread-winning activities, too.

But do we really have to undersign a standard definition?

I still love the definition provided by Glen Cook (an author I love) in an old piece on the SFSignal Blog:

I see Sword & Sorcery as a species of proletarian fiction. The heroes are working class guys, within the context of the story and mores of the time when it was written. They are guys who get stuff done but you would not want them in the drawing room for high tea because they smell bad, break things, and leave bloody messes all over. Despite their class, or lack thereof, they are not much into progressive politics, seeing that sort as easy meat.

This one works fine with me, and while I am not much for definitions it was one of the bits I had in mind when I started writing Aculeo & Amunet. Continue reading →


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Straight through the keyboard

writingSometimes weird stuff happens.
For instance… I’m contracted with my Italian gaming publisher, to provide a cycle of six novelettes set in the gaming setting I am developing.
I mentioned Hope & Glory before, here on the blog.

Due to my father’s death and the subsequent problems, I’m a behind schedule – something I hate, but really couldn’t be helped.
Now, four stories are ready, one is halfway through, and the sixth is fully outlined. By the end of the month, I will close the job. Earlier than that, possibly.
Nice and smooth.

So why, why, oh why did I spend yesterday afternoon and most of this morning writing at a breakneck pace a seventh story that is actually quite good, and fun to write, and fits perfectly with the whole set up? Continue reading →


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Distractions

An unwritten rule of writing… well, it works for me, at least, is that in the moment you see deadlines looming massively on the horizon, and you have lots of stuff to write and deliver…

a . a number of other projects suddenly catch your interest
b . you get a ton of great ideas worth developing
c . you get buried in great books to read

As I said, I don’t know if it’s only me, but the problem seems to be widespread. Continue reading →


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Writing Prompt – Tomb king

This one was supposed to go online yesterday, but then more urgent matters required a post. So here it is now…

the_tomb_king_by_jarrodowen-da9632j

The painting is called The Tomb King, and was created by Jarrod Owen. My friend Marina saw it, and pointed it out to me.

And this is an anomalous prompt, because it is actually a perfect reference for a story I am writing. The story is called The Revenge of Ankhefenkhos, and it is part of my series about the adventures of Aculeo & Amunet. It will probably be the longest thing I wrote about these characters, and it will take time.