Archive for the ‘Information Center’ Category

The Pros and Cons of Having Your Own Website

Do you need to have you own website? It depends on what you want to use the website for. Having an online presence may or may not translate to your desired action, in part because your presence really is about “you” as a person rather than “you” the author. With today’s technology, the two are not mutually exclusive.

How articulatory phonetics can help you!

Articulatory phonetics deals with how the human vocal tract creates sounds.

Knowing the principles of how the vocal tract works can help science fiction and fantasy writers to create languages that follow naturalistic patterns of pronunciation, thus making created languages that seem more natural.

How linguistics can help you!

This sequence of “How ____ can help you!” pieces concerns various areas of linguistics. These aren’t intended to be technical, or even introductory discussions of linguistics itself. They are short, practical pieces which relate linguistics topics to the use of created languages in science fiction and fantasy.

Reading Aloud

There are few things that can destroy a good story faster than a bad reading. At the same time, a really good reading can make an audience excited and drive sales. Short of a background in theater, how can authors improve their reading skills?

Resource: Historical Food Timeline

When writing historical fiction or fantasy, the question of food either seems daunting or is completely overlooked. With the Historical Food Timeline, you can get an approximate idea of when a given food was introduced.

Fantasy Worldbuilding Questions

The following list of questions is meant to aid authors of fantasy fiction who are seeking to create believable imaginary settings for their stories. While many of these questions may be helpful or crucial to certain stories, they will not all apply to every story. It is not necessary for an author to answer all, or even any, of the questions in order to start writing, (or to finish writing, either). The idea is simply to provoke people into thinking about the ways their settings and backgrounds hang together … or don’t. If it’s useful, use it. If not, don’t.