Is there a market for stories that break the expected structure, where the climaxes don’t quite align, and are instead more reflective of the timing we might expect in the “real world?” Perhaps.
The Dragon Reborn Review
It gives us immense character growth from viewpoint and side characters, massively raises the stakes and complexity of the plot, and sets the stage for the broadening war against the Dark One coming in the subsequent installments.
New Story: The Legend of Meladerth’s Valley
Despite my best efforts, though, I still think about other story ideas, and sometimes they beg to be written.
The Great Hunt Review
It is possible both to read The Great Hunt as a contained, quest-style fantasy, following the chase after the Horn of Valere after its theft by agents of evil, and as an installment of a vaster epic in which this quest is a kind of backdrop to the main drama of our protagonists, and especially the struggle against destiny.
Impressions Map
I somehow wrote almost all of Impressions, which features a significant amount of travel for Raven, and lots of luxuriating in the worldbuilding, without even a sketch of a map. Only when my writing group began going through the story did I think to rectify the story’s tardy cartographic situation.
New Spring Review
It is Jordan at probably the height of his powers, managing with skill and finesse a task that stumps other skilled authors.
Eye of the World Review
The Wheel of Time turns, and the ages come again – in this case, it brings at long last my reread of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series.
A Psalm for the Wild Built Review
I can’t tell if my lingering dissatisfaction with it is because it really wasn’t as good as it could have been, or because it didn’t match what I had in my head for the concept.
Using History
There’s clearly nothing wrong with being inspired by history for your writing – historical fiction is a genre, after all – but Impressions has me pondering how closely a fantasy story can hew to real history without confusing or distracting the reader.
The Steerswoman Review
A scene early on, when Rowan attempts to explain how objects fall, and accidentally constructs the Newton’s Canon thought experiment captures the mood of the story, the temperament of the protagonist, and, when I read it, captured my attention for the remainder of the book.
