ED MCDONALD

The more that I’ve become part of SFF online communities recently, the more I’ve been surprised by what sometimes feels like a general aversion to, or even active dislike of, romance in fantasy novels.

Continue reading “Love in the time of Chimeras” →

You’ve written a book. An agent loved it. Publishers loved it. You got an advance. You can live on it! Your book comes out to rave reviews. You’re interviewed in SFX and Sci-fi Now. You have a blog tour. You tour book shops. You go to conventions. You meet all your heroes. You go to GRRM’s party. You meet people in publishing, and they’re the best people you’ve ever met. You meet authors, and finally you can talk to someone who knows what it’s like.

Oh, and did I mention how dreadful things might just feel?

Continue reading “Dear Debut Authors of 2018” →

Just a quick post to put up the Spanish cover from publisher Minotauro. I love the stark contrasts and that it gives a really modern feel rather. Brilliant stuff.

Continue reading “BLACKWING Cover – Spain” →

Everyone knows that literary fiction is the best form of fiction and that popular books are written by mere hacks spouting garbage for the unwashed, illiterate masses who can barely understand a story, let alone a sentence that has taken 12 hours of deliberation. As such I am rewriting the whole of Blackwing into a more literary style. Here’s a taster.

Continue reading “Blackwing: LITFIC edition” →

Well, this might be the stupidest thing that I’ve ever written but what the hell. A Valentine’s Day inspired short about Nenn and Galharrow going speed-courting. Like the Christmas special, this is probably not canon…

Continue reading “Nenn and Galharrow go Speed-Courting” →

Having just finished the line edit for RAVENCRY, I’ve noticed that it has changed the way that I’m writing the draft of the next book in the Raven’s Mark series. Editing can sometimes feel like an isolated process, so I decided that I’d share the way that I’m approaching writing now.

Continue reading “Editing your work: word redundancy” →

While I was going through some old files, I happened across the cover letter that I sent when I was submitting Blackwing. I thought that it be interesting to people to see it, so, here it is. It’s nothing flashy or that doesn’t go outside the kind of guidelines that you’d usually see, but well worth noting that I provided exactly what was asked for.

Continue reading “The cover letter that sold Blackwing” →

Well, lately the forums have been awash with discussions of diversity and politics in fantasy whether we’re talking about diversity of authors or characters.

This blog is going to deal with writing diverse characters from a world building perspective. I don’t have the data to discuss diversity of authors, so I won’t attempt to approach it, and others, with access to much better data, have already done a good job.

Continue reading “World building, Diversity and Politics in Fantasy Writing” →