Ryan Lanz's Blog, page 23

Words Every Fantasy Writer Should Know

Hubby and I started playing Pathfinder once a week shortly after we lost Eevee. I think it was the only thing our friends knew to do to keep us from completely retreating into ourselves and it worked well, all things considered. We’ve gotten to the point where there are four campaigns going and each one […]

Why Not Having Your Story Made Into a Movie Can Be a Good Thing

Although this is an article about creativity in general, I’m probably going to have to start by talking about computer games for a while. This is mainly because, as regular readers of this site know, I mostly play old games and/or low-budget indie games these days. Anyway, one of the interesting things about old and […]

Review of Atticus – Formatting Program For Authors

For those of you who don’t know, I recently published book three (Path of Strangers) of my running fantasy series (The Red Kingdom), and through certain situations, I came to the point where I needed to find a new formatting service or to do it myself. This is the situation I came across that might […]

4 Mistakes That Keep You From Being More Productive

How do we get our word counts from measly 1k and 2k a day to numbers like 4k and above? Now I had to do a lot of testing and experimentation for this post. I started with about 2000 words and brought my word count up 500 extra words daily for a while to see […]

4 Ways Adverbs Can Ruin Your Writing

Experts will tell you that adverbs don’t belong in a book…but what do the experts really mean?  Why do they hate adverbs so much?  Anytime I read a writing “rule”, I do research to understand what people are trying to tell me, because it’s never what the rule says. Adverbs are no different.  It’s not […]

Fiction vs. Reality in Storytelling

‘Herald paused only for a quick coffee and hurried to the door.’ Even if the coffee was cool, he spent at least five seconds drinking it and a couple more moving to the door. It takes less than two seconds for the reader to read it. ‘Arriving at the office he …’ If you live […]

New Release! Path of Strangers

  It’s here! I’m excited to announce the release of my next fantasy novel, Path of Strangers, which is book three in the Red Kingdom series.   Here’s the blurb for Path of Strangers.  Dark skies are brewing over Abalreen. A battle is coming, and everyone is learning who their real enemy is. Rhael never […]

4 Reasons to Use the “Save the Cat” Story Structure in Your Writing

You may be familiar with the seven-point story structure or the classic hero’s journey, but have you ever heard of “Save the Cat”? With a classic three-act set-up as a base, “Save the Cat” offers fifteen plot beats to help authors navigate the expanse between the first and third act. Originally created for screenplays by […]

6 Tips for Working with Beta Readers

A “Beta Reader”, as they’re known, are the unlucky people who get to read your unpublished, half-baked, amateur novel and provide gentle, critical, actionable feedback that makes it perfect. Poor them! It’s no wonder most people have bad experiences with Beta Readers.  The most common complaints are: The Beta Readers don’t read the book The […]

Writers, Carry a Camera and Notebook

A picture, they say, is worth a thousand words. So take 80 pictures and you’ve got your novel … or maybe not. Still, for those who have phones with a camera, and most do, taking a picture can be an excellent way of capturing something of interest. Some phones have a notebook application, and it, […]