Intrigued by Todd Sharp’s portrait of an angst-ridden Jonny Guess featured on the cover of Chapter 9, a friend asked if each issue contains a stand-alone story, or if he’d need to read all eight back-issues before finally learning about the long-haired dude in the purple coat. Well, “The...
Archive for category: Designing The Characters
The End of the Beginning
A friendly reader recently commented that this month’s chapter – “Argument, or, The Raising of the Elect” – could easily function as the book’s opening chapter, despite being the fifth in the release order. We absolutely agree! It is easy to imagine the story beginning right here with Arden...
The Underside of Fantasy
With the arrival this month of our fourth installment – “Negotiation, or, The Various and Sundry Businesses of Mister Jonathan Guess” – we introduce a new character and a new tone to the stories. Unlike Palm, Timriel, See, and Gelgarth, there’s nothing heroic about Jonathan Guess, unless you choose...
Jonathan Wild, The Real Thief Taker
In Chapter 4, we meet Jonathan Guess, a young man who rises to power in the city of Vessena as a new kind of law enforcer – the “Thieftaker General” – while also operating as the right hand of Fortunado, the nefarious “Thief Lord” himself. Playing both sides of...
Unforgiven and Revisionist Fantasy
I grew up enjoying Westerns. I’ve always had a particular fondness for Sergio Leone’s “Man with No Name” films, even before I could properly articulate why. Despite the bad dubbing, the anachronistic production design, and the all-over-the-shop acting, something about those films has always felt more “true” to me...
Designing The World: Fashion
Another reason why I drew inspiration from the Enlightenment Era, particularly the years 1780 – 1800, is because the story is about the conflict between tradition and reinvention, and few periods of history are better examples of that. The rapidly changing fashion of the late 18th century is aesthetically...
Jessy = Purpose – But What Does That Even Mean?
In chapter one, Father Saren tells Cassian about the concept of “jessy,” which is the sylued word for “purpose.” Your jessy is that creative thing you do – even just privately – that makes you feel like you. It doesn’t have to be what you do for a living,...
Time To Talk About The F Word Again
I love talking about the stories and answering reader questions. There’s one question that my beta readers asked that has been cropping up again with Kindle readers, so let’s address it: “Why so many f-bombs?” Yes, one of our heroes, Timriel Jackson, reeeeally loves the word “fuck”. It is...
How Changing A Male Hero To Female Opened My Eyes To My Own World
One of the criticisms that I received in the first draft of the manuscript was that the genders were imbalanced. While the characters See, Rachel and Zorai are strong women with their own goals and the agency to pursue them, they are still outnumbered by the male characters and,...