K.Childs

So one of my favourite rants by my spirit-animal Limyaael is all about creating magic systems that aren't over-done, boring or poorly explained and inevitably full of plot holes. Overdone Magic Systems If you are a big fantasy reader you know two forms of magic very well: The four elements; fire, wind, earth, water (and usually the protagonist will be Captain Planet while everyone else is stuck to their single element) White and Black; this one probably gets me the most. Black Magic is Evil magic and that's final. If you use it, you are Bad. I remember seeing an author making a world and she had about four schools of magic and one school that was 'black magic- evil and bad' with no reason or explanation as to what made this particular magic bad. It didn't draw on the souls of the innocent, it didn't do anything especially different to the other schools of magic she made; it was an arbitrary distinction.  I'm sure there are one or two more common sy...

The history of a Golden Beta: I've been occasionally offering my services to other authors as a beta since I was about 16. It is a good way to learn to read critically and helps to forge relationships among the literary types. When I was younger, I would focus on grammar, give brief overviews of what I liked and end it at that. Over the years I found that asking questions prompted authors to respond better and I developed a sort of questioning technique for when I found problems in writing to prompt an author to address the underlying reason for the questions. The right Betas. Beta reading has very little reward unless you are doing it for money- and a good beta should be reading genre that you are writing for predominantly. I learned the hard way that someone who isn't interested in urban fantasy doesn't have a lot to say about your werewolf murder mystery in Los Angels. Betas normally take on a novel that interests them and is in a genre they like. What not to...

I've been writing seriously since I was about 14. I'd discovered when I was 12 that I enjoyed it. As time went on, I realized that I couldn't live without it. Writing is a strange beast. You don't always know how much it becomes a part of you until you try to stop. That's what happened when I was 23. I went almost a whole year without writing. I didn't stop thinking about it, I didn't stop wanting it, I didn't stop needing it. Writing is in my bones. I spent years etching it there. I never went anywhere with it. All the worlds of authors and publishing were miles away while I was growing up. I was learning how to craft my voice. I was learning how to be a good author; not just a popular fanfiction writer. Honing the craft; refining that elusive self as an author. Until I could write a story that I liked; that was the image in my head, on paper. At 23, I felt that final veil pull aside. I found the etchings of my voice. I had been writing seriously ...