The Deadly Three: Beginner Writing Mistakes

I see two common beginner-writer habits in works that I beta-read. One is using too much passive voice, and the other is using weak connectors. If you have a lot of “was” and “were” in your story, you are robbing your story of excitement and distancing readers from your character. Instead of “There were the sound of horns in the… Read more →

The Hunt: A Wakewalkers Comic

Even if I didn’t already own Whisper of the End and Tales from the End by Maximian Held, I would buy The Hunt: A Wakewalkers Comic just for artist Diego Novanim Zúñiga’s atmospheric cover art alone. The fact that the cover makes a world I have come to care about magically come to life  (although it’s a frightening place) just… Read more →

Silent Knight: A Granny Maberly Yuletide Story

The prisoner in the cell beside Granny Maberly’s snored like a dragon: Drunken snores, impossibly loud, a disharmony about them akin to six youngsters trying to play the fiddle for the first time. It was the sort of sound that could make a tom-cat’s hair stand on end, and if there had been any babies in Blackwater prison (which there… Read more →

Upcoming Books in the Dragonish Series

I am great at writing my own stories and getting ghostwriting projects out for clients, but terrible at blogging and keeping in touch: And, like most fantasy writers, I’m not comfortable with promotion. I’m Scottish, and we were brought up to be modest about our talents and skills. If J.R.R. Tolkien had been Scottish, this is how he would have… Read more →

Rover the Cat: An Adventure in Second Chances

. Rover the Cat: An Adventure in Second Chances by Max Oberon My rating: 5 of 5 stars “Rover the Cat: An Adventure in Second Chances” is all about a healthy male dog named Rover who unexpectedly dies, and is reincarnated as a female kitten: One who doesn’t stand a chance from the word ‘go’. Rover a.k.a “Guppy” goes through… Read more →

Idalos on Perfection

Those who have read my Dragonish flash fiction anthology will have met the immortal Tarn, Idalos, as a child in Tales of Mist and Magic. Just because he’s terminally unpleasant does not mean he doesn’t have brilliantly clear insight. Read more →