Tag: Resources

Book Review: World-Building from the Inside Out by Janeen Ippolito

Book Review: World-Building from the Inside Out by Janeen Ippolito

There are a few reasons I don’t usually review craft books: 1) I don’t read that many, 2) I don’t feel equipped to review most of them, and 3) I’m more likely to lump them into a resource round-up and have a brief summary that contains most of my opinions on them and thus not feel like a full review is necessary. But this one is a worldbuilding book, so I feel equipped to comment on it, and I have enough thoughts to fill out a review (plus, I’m not doing another round-up any time soon).

This book has been on my TBR/wishlist for years, and what finally prompted me to pick it up was research into comparative titles for my own worldbuilding book. It’s really hard to find worldbuilding books that are really focused on the worldbuilding craft rather than being some sort of workbook, but this one is, so that was point 1 in its favor. Point 2 was reading the introduction and finding the premise focused around “cultural worldview” (which was actually in bold)! So I grabbed a copy for research. I will acknowledge upfront that the nature of my reasons for reading the book make it hard not to think about it in terms of comparisons between this book and mine, but I’ll do my best to be fair in my assessment.

What is World-Building from the Inside Out about?

Go to the heart of your world and build it well!

Memorable world-building enhances story, attracts readership, and sells books! Find the core of your science fiction or fantasy people and instill your narrative with universal themes and concepts derived from real-world cultures.

-Explore different religions and governments with concise entries that include ideas for plot and character development
-Develop key aspects of your society without getting caught up in unnecessary details
-Learn how the deeper effects of appearance and location can enhance your narrative

World-Building From the Inside Out challenges you to go deep and build fantastical worlds that truly bring your story to life!

Note: Janeen will be revising and re-releasing this book soon, so the new edition will likely be much stronger and the weaknesses I addressed here may be addressed in the revision.

The first thing that stood out to me about this book Continue reading “Book Review: World-Building from the Inside Out by Janeen Ippolito”

Self-Publishing Resource Round-Up

With the new year and new goals, it seemed like a good time to put together a list of resources for those of you looking into indie publishing. This is far from an exhaustive list, but it gathers all of the resources that I’ve used (as well as a couple I haven’t). Feel free to drop your additions to the list in the comments if you’ve found great self-publishing Continue reading “Self-Publishing Resource Round-Up”

More Author Career Investments You Should Be Making

More Author Career Investments You Should Be Making

Last week I talked about what I think are some of the most valuable investments you can make in your author career. I started off with the basics in that post, but there are a lot of worthwhile investments you can make to improve your career. A lot of the investments listed in this post are Continue reading “More Author Career Investments You Should Be Making”

My Top 5 Worldbuilding Tools

My Top 5 Worldbuilding Tools

I talk a lot about worldbuilding, and today I want to share with you five tools that I’ve found helpful for organizing and inspiring my worldbuilding and that hopefully will be a help to you, too!

*Links with asterisks are affiliate links, which means I get a portion of the earnings at no extra cost to you

WorldAnvil

Yes, I’m talking about WorldAnvil* again, because it’s an amazing tool and the developers are awesome and Continue reading “My Top 5 Worldbuilding Tools”

NaNoWriMo Alternatives – Word Count Tracker Options & Community

NaNoWriMo Alternatives – Word Count Tracker Options & Community

I participated in National Novel Writing Month from 2014 all the way through 2020 or so, and I think the challenge of writing 50,000 words in 30 days is a great tool to get people writing and foster community among writers and just overall encourage authors. Toward the end of that run, however, the NaNoWriMo organization began making a lot of decisions based on politics, decisions that I personally found detrimental to the encouragement of community that is central to what NaNoWriMo has to offer–and since then, they’ve only continued to make more and more controversial and outright unhealthy decisions. If you’ve had a deal-breaker experience with NaNoWriMo, or you’re looking for additional resources for a separate word count tracker or more targeted community, here’s a gathering of resources–both those that have been around for a while and now are particularly relevant as well as those that have popped up since NaNoWriMo began to decline.

As a note, I do update this list periodically with new resources! If you have suggestions of your own, feel free to drop them in the comments as well. Continue reading “NaNoWriMo Alternatives – Word Count Tracker Options & Community”