The Complete Guide to Writing Fantasy #2 : The Opus Magus 1896944159

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TEC MORRIS & Vaucric Griswold-Adro

The Complete Guide™ to

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EDITED

BY

Tee Morris

& Valerie Griswold-Ford

Dragon Noon

WWW . D R A GONMOONPRESS.COM

The Complete Guide™ to Writing Fantasy: Volume Two: The Opus Magus (formerly The Fantasy Writer's Companion)

Copyright © 2004 Contributing Authors Interior Illustrations © 2004 Anne Moya Copyright © 2004 Dragon Moon Press All rights reserved. Reproduction or utilization of this work in any form, by any means now known or hereinafter invented, including, but not limited to, xerography, photocopying and recording, and in any known storage and retrieval system, is forbidden without permission from the copyright holder.

ISBN 1'896944-15-9 CIP Data on file with the National Library of Canada

Dragon Moon Press is an Imprint of Hades Publications Inc. P.O. Box 1714, Calgary, Alberta, T2P 2L7, Canada

Dragon Moon Press and Hades Publications, Inc. acknowledges the ongoing support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts for our publishing programme. ; The Alberta ? Foundation j for the Arts cownm

Canada Council for the Arts avo rni.

Conseil des Arts du Canada

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Printed and bound in Canada www.dragonmoonpress.com

Save a Tree Program At Dragon Moon Press, our carbon footprint is significantly higher than average and we plan to do something about it. For every tree Dragon Moon uses in printing our books, we are helping to plant new trees to reduce our carbon footprint so that the next generation can breathe clean air, keeping our planet and its inhabitants healthy.

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The editors dedicate Volume

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Two

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to

Glenn J. and Trudi Griswold and E. Wayne and Nancy Morris who taught us the most important lessons in life:

Never underestimate the air-speed velocity of marshmallows shot from crossbows

Nothing comes close to "Lagoon View" and afternoons at Camden Yards — and — With determination, will, and faith, dreams happen

by

Holly Lisle

We hold our dreams sacred, and the dream of becoming a writer is the most common dream people share; 80% of the population in the United States alone confess to wanting to write a book someday. These dreamers and hopefuls spread out across the world, full of hunger and hope and in many cases naivete, yearning to see their words on pages and between the covers of books and sitting on shelves in bookstores, but they’re unsure of how to get them there. And sharp-eyed schemers are only too ready to sell lies for money— to tell you how to find an agent in thirty-six hours, write a book in fourteen days, and how to write a guaranteed bestseller. Never mind that in the world of publishing, there are no guarantees. The thing these schemers and liars have in common is that they have not done what they are teaching you to do. They are not selling their work to publishers or cracking the professional markets. They have instead picked up a few basics about writing, knocked together a handful of acronyms for basics in the trade that they call “technologies,” and for a fee they will try to tell you that they and they alone have secrets that will make you rich and famous without years of work, without paying any dues, without you having to learn how to write well or to tell a complete story on your own. Remember that, in writing as in everything else, if it sounds too good to be true, it is. The folks whose advice you’ll read in this book are all writers. They already are where you want to be, doing what you want to do, and all of them became writers the hard way—by learning how to write, by learning how to tell a story, and by being persistent enough in every phase of writing to get past the multitude of obstacles that stood in their way. There is no easy way to get where you want to go. But there are ways, and if you want this dream of yours badly enough, you can have it. You have to be persistent above all else—you have be willing to look a hundred or more rejection slips in the eye and keep on writing, keep on submitting, keep on learning how to be better. You have to

believe in yourself when no one else will. And you have to be careful about who you listen to. Avoid the tricksters who will tell you what you want to hear for money. Listen to the folks who have already found their way to the dream we all share. Believe, above all. Your dream is worthwhile, it is a wonderful thing, and you have what it takes within you to make it happen.