Author: Richard Parry

Anon: Not Quite There

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We watched Anon last night. The trailer makes this look like a reasonable cyberpunk action flick – does it deliver? No. Despite reasonable star power with Clive Owen and Amanda Seyfried, and a good start, what follows is a sagging, poorly-paced tale marginally redeemed by an on-point ending. Anon features Owen’s character Sal, a kind of future police officer with the easiest job in the world, since everyone’s got cybereyes that record their every waking moment. After uncovering a soft underbelly of criminals who can edit these memories from the public record, we’re treated to about 45 minutes of old white men sitting in sterile-looking rooms, all while they watch snips of the world through other people’s eyes. There’s quite a lot of naked women on display, sadly not balanced by men – which we should probably be thankful for, Read More …

Calterburry Keep 🏰 and a Cover Reveal (kinda)

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This is one of my world-famous emails, originally sent Friday, 3 May 2019. Get on the list here! Calterburry Keep This week, we’re talking about manufacturing a medieval keep out of thin air. I like to call this professional lying: May’s deals; A Old-Is-New Cover! and Building Calterburry, without any practical skills. Let’s lift that virtual hammer. Night’s End I’ve had Night’s Favor on sale before (it’s my earliest release), and the sequel Night’s Fall too, but probably close-enough-to-never* the series finale, Night’s End. Now you can see how a mismatched, gritty team (including a cop, a reprobate, a soldier, a sorceress, two werewolves, and a non-sparkly vampire) can save the world from Judgment. Your deals for May are FIS Favor and the finale, End, all bookstores, all over planet Earth: [0.99] (or adjusted currency) [0.99] (or adjusted currency) * Read More …

Building People 🤺

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One of my world-famous emails, originally sent Wednesday, 24 April. Get on the list here! It all started with Crossfit. Last time, I talked about new story worlds. Y’all gave me a lot of thoughts on what to cover next, and the two most popular were, “Yeah, more on Calterburry,” and, “Let’s talk about the people.” We’re going people first, notably the main hero of Boundless. This week: A reminder! Chromed: everywhere, and Building realistic heroes: the science behind women who are warriors. Let’s get in there, yeah? April’s Sale ends… at the end of April. You might remember the first two Tyche books are on sale for a buck apiece, or adjusted Earth currency, on Amazon, Kobo, iBooks, and Nook. If you want to get into Firefly-meets-Aliens, you know what to do: [0.99] [0.99] While we’re here, May brings Read More …

Alien 40th Anniversary Shorts

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ICYMI, the 40th Anniversary of the Alien movie is coming up (25 May 1979, according to IMDB, was when we learned true terror). I dig these movies, a lot. I have this framed in my writing study: Some whacko had the idea of doing a bunch of short movies to celebrate: In celebration of the upcoming 40th anniversary, @20thcenturyfox is inviting fans through the @tongal community to create their own #ALIEN short films. Learn more at https://t.co/ETyR8EcKSG pic.twitter.com/6xutfB6Q2z — Alien (@AlienAnthology) June 27, 2018 Unnamed hero, I salute you. I terrified myself with the shorts this morning, because that’s what you do on Easter Sunday, amirite? Catch yourself up:  

Where we talk about Boundless ⚔️

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Here’s one of my world-famous emails, originally send Friday, 12 April 2019. You can get on the list here. Building New Worlds. I’ve talked a bit about Boundless, and now it’s time to talk more about it. This week, we’ve got: The writing process – Part One! An excerpt. Let’s swing that blade. The Writing Process Part One: Outlining vs. Discovery Writing There’s a holy war in the writing community, excluding a bunch of people like me who DNGAF. It’s the outliners (sometimes called the death-by-boredom style) vs. discovery writers (unflatteringly referred to as pantsers). Outline writing is what people like James Patterson prefer; you structure your story down to the last minutae, then write it out. Discovery writing is where you start with almost nothing but a bright idea, and start hitting keys until magic falls out the other Read More …

Scapple: Meet Boundless

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I’ve been doing a chunk o’ worldbuilding and plotting for the revised Boundless. While my World Anvil is pretty sparse (spoilers, people), my internal notes are growing. Yesterday, I dug up this super-old relationship wireframe: Dug up this super-old relationships concept (this is like 0.1 ALPHA, and there's 600 others, with far more detail) for Boundless. It's funny how some of these stick with me and others are dead and buried. #WritingCommunity #indieauthors #amwriting #amworldbuilding pic.twitter.com/Ifa3XhLGu7 — Richard Parry 👾 (@ParryForte) April 10, 2019 I figured you might get a kick out of seeing what the current story scaffold looks like. I’m a mix of outlining and discovery writing; I like to have an end state in mind, but freestyle the rest of it. The approach gives a structured tale while letting the characters tell their own part of it Read More …

The Social Dynamic of D&D

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A recent oped hit the NYT on why the cool kids are playing D&D. D&D isn’t only about inventing a more badass version of myself, writes @annaleen. I was also drawn to the idea of building a social group whose baseline assumption was that we’d see each other regularly. https://t.co/VmIZ5Of0nH — NYT Opinion (@nytopinion) April 7, 2019 (The author is Annalee Newitz). As a kid I was into RPGs. I played D&D Basic, AD&D, and so on through the ranks to 3e, 4e, and … I haven’t hit 5e yet, because all my friends are dead*. It wasn’t just D&D, but Cyberpunk (2012, then 2020), Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Runescape… you get the drift. The games were a fantastic glue for social interaction, and we’d game at lunchtimes at school, or in the weekends, and so on. There’s a sad, historic Read More …