Category: The Splintered Land

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 …

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 …

Boundless, Wikis, and RPGs

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I’m considering keeping track of Boundless information in a wiki, because after writing 7 Ezeroc Wars novels, 5 novellas, 6 short stories, and 3 mid-range books, I’m losing track. I know, I know, #hardfail, but it is what it is. Then I got to thinking: should I make the wiki based on a point of relevance, like D&D? If there are, say, orcs (…not telling, yet), do I adjust character bios to include stats? Would that be cool? Would it be confusing? Would Chuck Wendig approve? *loads unpopular opinion shotgun* Tried to read LOTR a bunch and couldn’t get through it. Worldbuilding is not plot. Your book shouldn’t read like an RPG manual but should also make me wish someone made your book into an RPG. The Chosen One is a tiiiiired narcissistic trope. https://t.co/1oF8tVFuvK — Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) March Read More …