by Jacob Mohr |
Why do people tell stories? It’s a fair question. After all, we’ve been doing it for as long as we’ve had language itself. The first known written story, The Epic of Gilgamesh, is thought to be over 3,000 years old, but oral tradition—the practice of telling stories...
by Cameron Sutter
They say there’s only two kinds of novelists in the world: one writes by the seat of his pants and the other writes without pants. I may have that saying wrong … but when it comes to writing and planning a novel, there are two ways to go about it. You can plan it out...
by Jacob Mohr
I know a few fellow authors who possess the magical ability to come up with a fun book title, then somehow manage to write an entire novel around it. I envy them. If you’re like me, coming up with the “right” title for a project is an agonizing process. My last novel...
by Jacob Mohr
You’ve just had an idea for your next book, and it’s a doozy. Maybe it’s the first book in a new series—or the showstopper conclusion to an old one. Maybe it’s a twist on a familiar idea—or something entirely wild and new. But for whatever reason, you’re not certain...
by Jacob Mohr
Here at TCK Publishing, we’ve spoken at length in the past about the concept of Mary Sue characters—and how problematic they can be in your fiction. These wide-eyed, over-idealized vessels of wish fulfillment represent one of the worst and most-hated archetypes in all...
by Jacob Mohr |
We want our heroes to be better than us. That’s why we read “escapist” fiction like adventure stories, superhero comics, and epic fantasies. We love to see larger-than-life characters having incredible adventures and performing superhuman feats of heroism. They always...
