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Stories

  1. Writing a story that begins with a death and unfolds backwardsReverse chronology in fiction has a particular pull on readers. When a story opens with a death and then steps backward through the events that led to it, the…
  2. Where the old gods linger: Norse mythology in modern fantasy shortsThe Norse corpus is an awkward inheritance. Its gods bicker, its heroes die, and its cosmology ends in fire and silence rather than tidy ascension. That…
  3. Crafting a Magic System Based on Earth, Air, Fire and WaterElemental magic has anchored fantasy fiction since its earliest myths. Readers instinctively understand fire as passion and destruction, water as memory and…
  4. Writing a Noir Villain More Interesting Than the HeroMost writing advice pushes the hero to the centre of the narrative, but the most memorable noir stories often belong to their antagonists. Think of the crooked…
  5. Why short stories are the perfect form for exploring a single ideaSome ideas arrive fully formed but refuse to stretch across three hundred pages. A flicker of dread, a moral choice made in a single afternoon, a moment when…
  6. When genre fiction refuses the conventional love storyRomance has long been treated as a side dish in speculative fiction and noir, something to garnish the main course of quest or mystery. Yet the most arresting…
  7. When a prophecy points to the wrong futureProphecy has always offered fiction a powerful engine: a warning, a promised destiny, or a fragment of knowledge that makes ordinary choices feel cosmically…
  8. Crafting suspense when the reader knows less than the protagonistWithholding information from the reader while granting it to the protagonist sits at the heart of modern suspense. When the audience peers over the shoulder of…
  9. Using Parallel Timelines To Create Tension In Short FictionA short story has limited space, so every shift in time needs to earn its place. Parallel timelines can intensify suspense by showing a character moving…
  10. Currents beneath the surface: the sea in Scottish speculative fictionThe waters around Scotland have always done more than lap against the shore. They whisper to the people who live beside them, shaping myths, fears, and stories…
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