Behind the Book: Collision with Andromeda
Collision with Andromeda sat unfinished for eight years. Here is the story behind a novel told partly from the point of view of a galaxy, and the lonely mind at its heart.
Tag: World-Building
A world readers believe in is built on consistent rules, not endless detail. These posts cover geography, culture, history, and the discipline of inventing a setting that serves the story instead of burying it.
fiction writingWhat a Mars Colony Will Actually Look Like
The Mars colony in the movies, a gleaming glass dome with green gardens and sunset views, would kill everyone inside a week. The real thing will be buried under meters of red dirt, built by robots before anyone arrives, and…
fiction writingWhat Was the Big Bang, the First Nanosecond, and What Came Before
The Big Bang was not an explosion in space, it was the beginning of space, and the wildest events in cosmic history happened in the first sliver of a second. A plain-language tour of the first nanosecond, what the leftover…
fiction writingWriting Science Fiction That Sells
You built brilliant technology and nobody cares about your character. Science fiction craft that puts people first — with a subgenre comparison table and time travel rules.
fiction writingWorld Building and Dynamic Settings
Your world building is killing your story. Settings that create conflict, characters who are shaped by their environment, and the iceberg principle that prevents infodumps.
fantasy fictionFantasy World Building: How to Create Worlds That Work
A magic system with no rules is just a plot convenience; a kingdom with no economy has no stakes; a culture with no history is a theme park. World building is the foundation everything else stands on, not set dressing.…
fiction writingWriting Fiction Set in Virtual Worlds
Long before Silicon Valley discovered it, science fiction was living in the metaverse, Stephenson named it in 1992, Williams spent four novels there, Cline built a bestseller on it. Virtual worlds are one of the genre's deepest veins. Here is…
Character DevelopmentThe Hard Parts of Writing Fantasy Nobody Warns You About
Every other genre borrows the real world; fantasy builds its world from nothing, which means you are always doing two jobs at once, telling the story and constructing the place it happens. Most fantasy novels die where those jobs collide.…
GhostwritingGhostwriting a Multi-Book Series: How the Process Works
The most effective books I have ghostwritten were sometimes not books at all but series, two, three, five titles built to compound an author's authority and pull readers through a catalog. It is harder than standalone work, because every choice…
Character DevelopmentWorld Building for Fiction Writers | Geography, Culture, and Story
Most writers build worlds backward, drawing maps and inventing languages before they have a story, then wonder why it all feels like a museum exhibit. World building is structure, not decoration. Here is how to build a place through geography,…
Book CoachingWriting Fantasy Fiction: What 45 Years of World-Building Actually Taught Me
I have spent forty-five years writing one fantasy series, Peacekeeper, longer than I have done almost anything else. It taught me more about world-building and magic systems than any craft book could. Here is what nearly half a century inside…
fantasy fictionMoorcock’s Eternal Champion: The Greatest Multiverse in Fiction
I own all fifteen White Wolf limited editions of the Eternal Champion, and Moorcock justified every dollar: a multiverse so interconnected that reading it feels like grasping a cosmology instead of finishing a series. You jump between Elric, Corum, and…