Writing What You Don’t Know

S3E9 – Monsters and Horror

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. – H.P. Lovecraft

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S3E8 – Building a Pantheon

Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form but with regard to their mode of life. – Aristotle

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S3 Bonus – The Forge: Short Horror Stories

Every writer has heard the adage “write what you know” at least a dozen times. What does it even mean? As writers, especially of fiction, we constantly write what we don’t know. This month, we explore how to navigate the balance between imagination and reality. We return with the Forge in this episode, the writing…

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S3E7 – Weaknesses

The more limitations you put on a character often times the better a character you’ll make them, the more interesting the story becomes because the character can’t simply wave a hand and make something happen. They have to work within the framework. – Brandon Sanderson

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S3E6 – Superpowers

We all wish we had superpowers. We all wish we could do more than we can do. – Stan Lee

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S3E5 – Murder 101

Hit early, hit hard. Kill with the first blow. Get your retaliation in first. – Lee Child

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S3E4 – Weather and Architecture

The weird thing about houses is that they almost always look like nothing is happening inside of them, even though they contain most of our lives. I wondered if that was sort of the point of architecture. – John Green

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S3E3 – Building Magic Systems

One of my challenges [as a writer] is to make sure that I’m giving the reader details that the character cares about rather than details that I care about. I’d say that’s key to world-building. – Jessica Andersen

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S3E2 – Magic and Technology

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. – Arthur C Clarke

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S3E1 – Writing Outside Your Expertise

Though in this genre we write about the fantastic, the stories work best when there is solid grounding in our world. – Brandon Sanderson

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