Fantasy Fiction: a genre distinction too far

I wrote a Fantasy novel by accident. That’s not an easy accident to have; not like tripping over your own feet or walking into a glass door. It’s not that I was trying to write something else and it turned into Fantasy. I wasn’t aiming for any genre in particular – I just wrote the story. It was only when I had to pitch the book to agents and publishers that the penny dropped. I worked down the list of literary genres looking for the best fit and ended up at Science Fiction and Fantasy.

Visionary Fiction: stories for growing minds

Visionary Fiction became a recognised fiction genre around the turn of the millennium, but stories using visionary elements have always existed. In fact, Visionary Fiction (VF) might be the oldest genre of storytelling.

The Heroine’s Journey with Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre (2011)

In storytelling, the Heroine’s Journey is structured the same way as the Hero’s Journey but the feminine experience of the story tends to differ from the standard masculine interpretation. It's the same basic myth but with a feminine twist.

The Hero’s Journey with Thor

Thor (2011)

There are many ways to structure your stories but one of the most common is The Hero’s Journey. Joseph Campbell identified this monomyth in his seminal book The Hero With A Thousand Faces, and it was later taken up by Christopher Vogler in The Writer’s Journey.

Getting the most out of Morning Pages

I’ve struggled with Morning Pages for years. I would do them for a bit and then quit. Start again. Quit again. Repeat. Then last week I finally worked out why: I understand the problem with Morning Pages and I know how to fix it.