March/April
Intro
By
Holly
Lisle
©2003, Holly Lisle
'm
fresh from finishing a novel I've been working on -- if only intermittently --
for ten years. This is the first
such sustained project I've ever done, and, having just crawled out from under
the revision read-through but with the actual revision type-in still facing me,
I have to say, I don't ever want to do this again.
It's much easier to revise a book that isn't a patchwork of material from
the past decade; style is more consistent, continuity errors tend to be small
rather than huge, and the story idea that you started with at the beginning
hasn't morphed three times during the process, leaving shreds of dead books
fossilized in the still-living text.
So
that's my Tip for the Month: Books
written in under a year are more fun to revise.
With
that probably-useless little info-bit out of the way, then, let's take a look at
this month's issue. For
March/April, Vision takes on Worldbuilding, which can be either a
miserable ordeal or the most delightful of tasks. Our writers are going to show you their takes on making it
fun, exciting, and worthwhile. We
also have my quiz on writing to save the world, technical and genre-specific
articles, our book review, and much more.
And because I have already done quite a few articles on worldbuilding, I'm including links to those in place of a new worldbuilding workshop.
Questions
About Worldbuilding --
http://www.hollylisle.com/fm/Articles/faqs8.html
Worldbuilding:
Rollicking Rules of Ecosystems -- http://www.hollylisle.com/fm/Articles/rules-of-ecosystems.html
Fantasy
Is Not for Sissies: Real Rules for Real Worlds -- http://www.hollylisle.com/fm/Articles/rules-for-better-fantasy.html
The
Maps Workshop --
http://www.hollylisle.com/fm/Workshops/maps-workshop.html
How
Much of My World Do I Build?: A Workshop for Over- and Under-Builders --
http://www.hollylisle.com/fm/Workshops/how-much-do-i-build-workshop.html
Lost
on the Border at Twilight: Finding -- and Using -- Your Life's Essential
Strangeness --
http://www.hollylisle.com/fm/Workshops/using-strangeness.html
Keep
writing,
Keep believing,
And never give up on your
dreams.