Andrew Moore's Blog, page 52

Fantasy Word of the Day: Grasp

How often do you describe anyone as grasping something in daily life? Grasping for, sure, but grasp? I don't know if the problem is with fantasy or daily life. Now that I've said that, daily life is definitely the problem here.

Capitalization Condemnation

Title capitalization. It's stupid. "Of" and "and" are crucial words! Why shouldn't we capitalize them? Just capitalize everything. That's the better way. I may have said this before. Maybe I should make it a monthly post. Hourly? That's how things get done.

Nomenclature Gap

All mech properties know you need to call your mechs something different, whether mobile suits, arm slaves, or cataphracts. The rest of us are falling behind. Shouldn't your knights be dragon breakers and your wizards be elemsplays? No, but you see what I'm getting at. At what I am getting.

The King's Last Resort

The Gontic kingdom, long feared for its overwhelming might, faced its final days. How such a state befell it still puzzled all the peoples of the world, but nevertheless the armies of three kings surrounded their shared enemy. King Gons VII and his enflamed spirit looked over the enemies which surrounded his last redoubt not with resignation but with ferocity.
"In all this Gontic kingdom established by my ancestors at the behest of the gods and blessed them so that each of us is more than human, stronger on the field of battle than three normal soldiers at the weakest, is there no one who will bring me King Blanned's crown, his head still wearing it? The man who does shall have for his wife my own daughter!"
To the side, a warrior even then submitting his person to his squire and his attendants that they might arm him with the silver armor that once the war god wore before bequeathing it to Gons III for a service done him and the sword whose smith tested it on the earth and created Mykress Canyon, turned and scowled. "I intended to do just that," said Prince Haufen. "Now I cannot."
"My brave son! Know that I have never taken back a word I said. I will add this though, that he for whatever reason is not to wed my daughter will instead be given this peerless cup studded with one gem from every land in which I killed a dragon, for their hearts are clumps of such jewels!"
"So then, my sister is worth a single cup, you say? I've changed my ideas about which king to kill!"
The nobles rushed to restrain the two royals, a difficult task because of their heroic strength and mythical passion. In the end the father and son made a wager that whichever of them killed but one king owed an apology to the killer of two. The prince won, and as for the princess, she was left to wonder why her father wanted to get rid of her so badly.
Finis

Future Implausibility

It always seemed forced to me when people in a science fiction setting knew anything about the twentieth century, but now that everything's a remake of something from then, I'm starting to reassess.

Musings on the Past

There was a time when you could call your game Hydlide, and not only would you not be arrested, people would buy it. Goodness gracious.

The Newest Profession

Mercenary? More like mirthcenary! I don't know what that involves, but surely you're already getting ideas.

Spaceship Magic

Do you think spaceship magic depends on the ship's layout, its captain, its reactor, the special magic room, or the magic officer? I'm thinking the reactor, but I could be wrong.

Addendum

You can use "unprepossessing" too, but your main character had better be a priest who solves crimes or something of that sort.

Describing Your Main Character

It's tricky, isn't it? Red hair or fiery red? Flashing eyes, glinting eyes, sparkling eyes, piercing eyes? That's what you might think, but you're wrong. The answer is "heroic." Heroic hair, heroic eyes, a heroic build and heroic height, heroic hands which end in heroic figures. Nobody actually pictures this stuff, they just want to know the guy's role in the story so they know whether to cast Sean Connery or old Sean Connery.