NOTE: This article will contain a few spoilers of the Imaginarium Geographica. Last couple of blog posts, I've been really honing in on what realistic expectations is to me and how it applies to fantasy writing. To recap briefly: realistic expectations are the conscious effort to bring humanity into your writing. They are the emotions, feelings, thoughts, and quiet understandings that come from shared experiences and empathetic responses. Writing with realistic expectations j

The last blog post I made mentioned my term "realistic expectations," but I really didn't get a chance to delve too deep into the idea. Realistic expectations is more than just an intentional balance between world, character, and craft. While I can say "balance it, balance it!" as many times as I want, the how is the problem. If that were all I said to you, I'd be no better than those who tell you "show, don't tell" and never explains themselves. And I don't really like when

Full disclaimer - I'm self-taught. I learned through an amalgamation of my public school teachers, my academic writing professors in college, YouTube videos, books on writing craft and worldbuilding, and yes, even writing-advice gurus. Not everyone can afford an MFA, and you don't really need one to learn/do. It's another way of learning is all. I have a Bachelor's in English, a crap-ton of novels, and a bookshelf/laptop full pages saved from different authors, storytellers,