GiraffeCrafts

Note to self: Add "Prize organizer" to my list of people to recruit next year. Anywho. I'm here to let all of you know who won what in Indie e-Con this year. To start off: The Book Awards . As there are a lot of these, and they're all so shiny, I've given them their own page. Go check it out, and congratulate these lovely authors on their hard work! Now, the writing contest. Go here to find out the lovely winners of that contest - and the lovely prizes that they're getting.   The finalist stories will be posted over the course of next week. Now, for the rest of the winners: Most comments Sarah Taleweaver (Savannah Grace held her own for the first day or so, but only Sarah kept it up 'til the end) Word War  Deborah O'Carroll  (This girl wrote 10,174 words!) Games:  Erika Mathews (Like, she got every "Guess-and-match" correct, and I selected several of her quotes for Bring your own Book)  Review Drawing Erik...

Our last day. Our last day is finally at its close. Wow. It has been a week, and I'm ready to curl in a ball and sleep for the next week (though, alas, that won't happen as I have a Real Job that I must return to.) Thank you, everyone, for attending, and a hearty thank you to all of my lovely authors who made this possible. Especially Savannah Jezowski who put together a smashing meet-and-greet and then stepped up and helped keep the FB page running when I was out of it the first few days. Speaking the Facebook event page, I'm going to be hanging out over there, running word sprints until midnight CST when the Word War closes. Alas and alak. Once that's done, do come back here and post your final word count for the whole week. (I actually would kiiiinda like to see what mine would be if I counted up all of these intros that I've written this month. I'm pretty sure that it's at least a novel's worth.) Recap! Game: Bring Your Own Book Fantasy Auth...

We come to fantasy for the worldbuilding, the chance to explore brilliant new worlds, the likes of which we'll see nowhere else. If they're done right. Emily Mundell is here to talk about how to do it right. She's the author of the adorable Sorceress and the Squid , and let me just tell you, the worldbuilding in that book was wonderful. I can't wait to see what else this girl has up her sleeve - and she's got some great tips for all of us! Emily Mundell Fantasy/Sci-Fi Author of The Sorceress and the Squid Blog ~ Goodreads ~ Facebook ~ Twitter ~ Instagram ~ Pinterest  So, you want to write a fantasy novel? The awesome and also incredibly difficult thing about fantasy is that great worldbuilding is key to creating an awesome and epic saga! Whether you've got a series worked out or just a short story, here are 5 Pillars of Worldbuilding for your fantasy fiction. 1. GEOGRAPHY   It's imperative to work out the landscape and layout of the w...

Most of us around here are Christian - including myself. And a lot of us write fantasy. How do we justify them together? Well, I don't know if we're talking about justification today, but Katy Huth Jones is here to talk about using fantasy to show Christian themes. Katy Huth Jones Christian/Fantasy/Historical Fiction Author of Mercy's Prince Blog ~ Amazon ~ Goodreads ~ Facebook ~ Twitter ~ Instagram ~ Pinterest ~ YouTube What makes a fantasy “Christian”? Does it have to actively evangelize? Have a Christ figure? Be merely an allegory? Or does it count if the characters are godly people with faith in the living God, even if in their world He is called by another name? I would argue that any or all of these approaches can be used to craft a fantasy story with a goal of honoring Jesus Christ and pointing the way to Him. C. S. Lewis did a masterful job in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe using the allegory approach. With Aslan the lion as the Christ fi...

Silly rabbit, fantasy's for kids. ... that is how it goes, isn't it? Anywho, we're talking about children's fantasy now, and we have Kandi J. Wyatt here to talk about it. Kandi's the author of multiple fantasy novels, including Journey from Skoria ,  which is specifically marketed to kids. Kandi J. Wyatt Christian/Fantasy/Kingdom Fiction/Steampunk/Retellings Author of Dragon Courage Website ~ Amazon ~ Goodreads ~ Facebook ~ Twitter ~ Instagram ~ Pinterest ~ YouTube ~ Newsletter So you want to write fantasy for children? What do you need to know? Basically, you need to know how to write fantasy. Yep, it’s pretty much the same basics; however, you will need to keep a few things in mind. 1. Don’t dumb it down. Really, this is key. Just because you’re writing for kids doesn’t mean you have to use simplistic words and plot. They actually prefer a challenge and parents like it, too. Just look at Lemeny Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events. 2. Rem...

Magic. Now that's a tricky subject. Personally, I only take issue with it if it's overtly demonic, but every person has their boundaries, and I have Hope Ann here to talk about the subject. Hope is the author of a brilliant series of allegorical fairy tale retellings that I love, and her use of magic is beautiful. Let's turn things over to her. Hope Ann Christian/Fantasy/Retellings Author of Burning Rose Website ~ Amazon ~ Goodreads ~ Facebook ~ Twitter ~ Instagram ~ Pinterest ~ Newsletter Story Embers What is magic? Definitions of magic are notoriously hard to pin down. From witches hunched over bubbling cauldrons and muttering spells, to beautiful women with love potions, to men using surges to fly—different pictures come to a readers mind when confronted with the word ‘magic.’ I don’t care for the term myself, since in the real world magic is evil and not something to be tampered with. In books, I prefer the having ‘power systems’ because the only ...

We've been talking about retellings quite a bit this week (sorry, they're my favorite thing and I love talking about them...) and now we've come to the crowning glory: the fantasy retelling. Here to discuss it, we have Laurie Lucking, author of a Cinderella-esque story known as Common , which is a very lovely story that I quite recommend. And it's apparently not her only experiment with fairy tales! Let's hear what she has to say, shall we? Laurie Lucking Christian/Fantasy/Romance/Retellings Author of Common Website ~ Blog ~ Amazon ~ Goodreads ~ Facebook ~ Twitter ~ Instagram ~ Pinterest ~ YouTube ~ Newsletter Fantasy Retellings I adore fairy tales and fantasy is my favorite genre, so there’s nothing I love more than fantasy retellings! While I enjoy seeing fairy tales reimagined in any genre, fantasy lends itself especially well to retellings, since most classic fairy tales have some element of magic or other-worldliness. Whether it’s a fairy...

Fantasy books! All righty, deep breath. We have a LOT of books to go through today, but, first, I would like to explain the classification: Kingdom vs. Non-magical vs. General. Basically, Kingdom fiction is anything that takes place in another world that still abides by our own world's physics and does not have any fancy creatures or non-humans. Dragons might be accepted depending on the situation, but only if they're not sentient. Non-magical means that there might be elves, sentient dragons, blue trees, etc. that basically makes a bold statement that we're not in earth anymore - as long as there aren't any unusual powers to be had - with the exception of the rare miracle by prophet-characters or Jesus-characters. Any sort of power or physics that get too  crazy, and we bump up to general fantasy, even if the powers are within the world's normal parameters or gifts from God. Make sense? Well, let's power through. General:       Mild caut...