I’m currently overloaded with work and trying to finish writing and refining book two of Loyalty Fallen, so I won’t be posting as regularly.

However, I will be dropping some of my favorite resources, quotes, tips, some short stories related to characters, and of course the usual character profiles and artworks.

For today’s blog post, I figured I’d share some of the resources that help me in my day-to-day writing.

1. Jed Herne’s Magic Limits

Jed Herne is a fantasy author with a YouTube channel that offers lots of advice for new fantasy writers. He also provides some teaching courses, templates, and other resources. One of the most interesting for me is one I wish I’d discovered long before writing Loyalty Flalen, which was a list of 30 different limitations you can provide your magic system.

Limitations are a top way to make a magic system interesting. For example, one of the limitations mentioned is that the use of the magic could affect the sanity of the user. That creates some very interesting character moments and challenges. You can sign up to receive the resource at this link: https://jedherne.com/magiclimits/

2. ChatGPT

I’ve mentioned this before, but I really enjoy using ChatGPT when I write. If you’re not familiar, ChatGPT is an AI chatbot that can chat and write in fairly natural-sounding language. I say fairly natural because there are of course many limitations.

To be clear, I do not use ChatGPT to write the story itself. I simply bounce ideas off it, ask for help with editing, ask for suggestions to make magic systems deeper and more interesting, etc. I’ll also offer ChatGPT character profiles and then give it a chapter and ask if there’s a way to strengthen the dialogue to demonstrate those character traits.

More recently, I’ve been using ChatGPT Plus to generate concept images of characters or scenes and rooms. This is simply so I can practice writing better descriptions based on those images and “setting the scene” more clearly, since this is one of the top problems my readers have commented on.

3. Abbie Emmons’ YouTube channel

Abbie Emmons is an author, and her channel provides probably what I would call the one-stop-shop for new writers in any genre. You’ll find tips for story and novel outlining, writing a good hook, writing a synopsis, character writing, story pacing, and much more.

Also, if you’re considering taking part in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) in November, which involves writing a 40,000-word novel in a single month, Abbie has some fantastic advice and tools to help with that as well. You can subscribe to her channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@AbbieEmmons

Final thoughts

I haven’t been writing fantasy for all that long, and I’m always on the lookout for new resources that might help me improve my writing. Share in the comments if you have a resource you particularly appreciate, and subscribe to the blog to get notified when book two of Loyalty Fallen goes live.