Recent content by SergeiMeranov

I like to gain a sense based on an actual nation's size. For example, Rome around 117 AD was around 5 million square kilometers or 1.93 million miles square. It occupied around 3% of the total available land on Earth. France, at the end of World War 1, was around 212,000 square miles...

If you read pretty much any book regarding how to write compelling fiction it will address this question. The resounding chorus of answers is to not try to write what is "vogue" because that is a moving target that you're never going to hit. If tomorrow a new vampire series takes off like...

I'd echo the first response in this thread by saying it is really a matter of what serves your story best. If it's important for the reader to slip into the shoes of your viewpoint character than first person seems more appropriate. If it's more important that they identify with what's going...

Thomas is pretty on point. The real answer seems to be "do what feels right to you". I think the only caveat is not to get lost in the weeds. It's really easy for some people (me) to spend a lot of time world building and never get around to the story. Many of the writing books I've read...

I agree with skip.knox. This seems like an interesting idea to take place in maybe the context of a larger story about society or something along those lines. Alternatively, you could have the story play out a bit like Minority Report where the dreams do tell a story of some kind (even...

I agree and join with the entirety of what Alyssa said. Stories are about character transition, conflict, and forward progression. What you've described is an anthology or encyclopedia. That doesn't mean it won't be well thought out, well written, or anything like that but it certainly...

100 years seems a bit long to me as well. It took the US 2 years (1853-55) to survey 1,000,000 square kilometers of the American West in preparation for the first Transcontinental railway connecting Alameda, CA to Omaha, NE. The railroad itself was built in 6 (1863-69) years and was around...

I guess I'm late to this party, so I'm not sure if this has been entirely addressed. I'm also not sure if the original post was looking for examples of the "post-victory" story or reasons as to why they don't exist. I think for the former they're a little thin, but some good examples have been...

I'll second (third?) this option. It's what I use most frequently. Additionally, if I have a "type" of name I'm looking for like "medieval russian boy name" or "contemporary english girl name" I will also just google that phrase and view some of the sites that come up.

While I get the general idea in the article posted. I'd like to offer the counterpoint contained in these two articles: Part 1 Part 2 Part 2 specifically mentions the crusade against the word "said" and I think has a pretty strong argument to make for why it should be much more commonly...

If you really want a bunch of in-depth info. I'd recommend the book World-Building. It's available on Amazon. It goes through, in excruciating detail, how and why planets form and how to take into account year length, climate, etc. It is also a good resource for connecting the various parts...

This is from Janet Reid, aka Query Shark, a literary agent in reference to query letters but the same generally applies to any shortform summary of your book that's intended to get the reader interested. She covers this, but the basic premise is that you need to establish who the main character...

The backstory of the race sounded OK. There are lots of traditional dwarven elements like the caste system, being mistrusting of outsiders, living underground, beard culture, etc. You've also added some new things like the Theocracy element which seems interesting. I'd echo what Netardapope...

One thing I'd add is that while mental exercises into realism and accuracy in world building are all great, you shouldn't become overly focused on what is probably going to be at best a window dressing to your story. As someone that's spent way too long coming up with the ins and outs of a...

For me, I interpret "focal character" as "main character". I've always thought the main character should be the person that the reader can slide into the shoes of to make sense of the world. I was reading a book recently that suggested that all readers kind of view life as a "story of one"...