Jackson Dean Chase - Fantasy Writers Phrase Book: Essential Reference for All Authors of Fantasy Adventure and Medieval Historical Fiction (Writers Phrase Books Book 4)

CONTENTS Do You Crave Danger and Excitement? Signup now to get your FREE Starter Library today! Youll get 4 incredible Young Adult eBooks and an invitation to join my members-only Facebook group where you can chat with me and my legion of super-fans. Come join the fun! P.S.: Id love it if you left a review of this book and mentioned it on your social media to help others discover me. Thank you! PRAISE for JACKSON DEAN CHASE #1 Best Selling Author Over 100 Five-Star Reviews on trusted review sites Over 10,000 Downloads of his books A fresh and powerful new voice. Terry Trueman, Printz Honor author of Stuck in Neutral [Chase] knows his craft [and] grabs readers from page one. Nate Philbrick, author of The Little One Coldly beautiful words Chase always leaves you craving more. Sherry Rentschler, author of Midnight Assassin PRAISE for HOW TO START YOUR NOVEL Writers of every genre will benefit from this book.

Kindle reviewer Youll never look at opening lines the same way again. Kindle reviewer PRAISE for the HOW TO WRITE REALISTIC FICTION Series I cant imagine not using this book the next time I write a story. Kindle reviewer This is a must-have that will pay for itself many times over. Kindle reviewer PRAISE for the WRITERS PHRASE BOOKS Series Every writer should own this guide Derek Aisles, author of Zombie Command Its worth your investment. Lake Lopez, author of Thorns in Dark Places Made me feel even I could write a book [These guides show you how] to grab a readers attention and hold it. Tome Tender This book has helped me tremendously.

I was ready to trash my manuscript and now Im halfway through editing the first draft! Kindle reviewer Stay up to date on all Jacksons newest books at www.JacksonDeanChase.com PLEASE READ BEFORE BUYING The Writers Phrase Books series are intended to be stand-alone volumes. As such, they contain a varying degree of overlapping content. If you are not writing cross-genre fiction, you may not need to own more than one. The Fantasy Writers Phrase Book contains substantial new and revised content intended for authors of medieval historical fiction, fantasy, and sword and sorcery. This book provides the inspiration you need to create everything from epic high magic to grim-and-gritty low magic to absolutely no magic at all. Need more help breaking writers block? You may be interested in buying my exciting new guide books, How to Start Your Novel , How to Write Realistic Characters , and How to Write Realistic Men .

They are fast, easy, and fun, loaded with valuable insights into the fiction writing process. Best of all, they work for any genre! DEDICATION To those who dream of better lives in better worlds. INTRODUCTION Im going to tell you a secret: A lot of what you write isnt what you say, its how you say it. Sure, characters, story structure, and dialogue are important. There are a ton of books written on those subjects for a reason. But you could be an expert in all those things and still fail to tell a compelling story.

Why? Well, to be a truly great writer, you must constantly find new ways to say the same old things. Lets say youre writing a novel about a a medieval assassin. How many different ways can you think of to describe silently killing a man? Or how that feels? What about describing the weather, the wildlife? Remember, these things are going to come up dozens of times and youve got hundreds of pages to fill! It doesnt matter if youre writing the next Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones . The same problem applies. Sooner or later, youll find yourself writing the same descriptions over and over. And youll agonize over each and every one, wondering how to inject new energy into them.

But what if you didnt have to? What if you had an entire book of ready-made tags to inspire you at a moments notice? TAG YOURE IT! Wait! What are tags, you ask? Tags are short descriptive phrases peppered between the dialogue and strung throughout the narrative. Done with skill, the reader never notices them, but their dramatic resonance is deeply felt. Trust me, your readers will notice if theyre missing or not up to snuff! Consider the difference between saying, Fire lined the magic swords blade, or The enchanted blade hissed to life with savage blue flame. Which do you prefer? Which is more exciting? Sure, both get the authors point across, but the second is more likely to leave the reader breathless and scrambling to turn the page. Tags are like bullets. They are the greatest weapons in a writers arsenal.

The more you have, the more firepower you can bring to bear, blasting boring lines to bits and breathing new life into even the most mundane characters and situations. INSTANTLY WRITE BETTER FANTASY This book takes on Fantasy, Sword and Sorcery, and Medieval Historical Fiction, providing the tools you need to get the job done. Regardless of genre, every story requires building the right atmosphere to create an emotional connection to its reader. Without one, why would anyone care if dashing rogue Sly Nimblefingers gets trapped in the fortress of the fire giants? Hed just be dead meat like so many cardboard characters in bad novels. But if you can get inside Slys head and feel what its like to be him, you can make the reader love him, fear for him, and pray he survives the fight. In the best fiction, whether you make Sly a throwaway victim in the prologue or the hero himself, he becomes a stand-in for readers to project themselves into and identify with.

Readers want to feel his fear, his isolation, the sense of impending doom hanging over him as all hope seems lost. That is what turns what might have been a cheap action scene into a moment of grueling suspense. So how do we make our example character more meaningful? We assign Slys thoughts, words, and actions greater power with every tap of our keyboard. In short, we punch him up with tags. And we do the same for the fire giants. And everyone else who matters.

Use your intuition. Not every line needs to be punched-up. After all, sometimes its perfectly fine (and perhaps even more dramatic in a minimalist sense) to say, He slew him and moved on, instead of His sword skewered the enemy in a flash of silver. Nor is it wise for every act, thought or description to be over-the-top or made to stick out unnecessarily. But when you want to really emphasize something, to build atmosphere and heighten emotion, nothing beats a well-written tag. Use them right, use them well, and your stories will never be the same.

HOW DO I USE THIS BOOK? At the very least, just flipping through these pages should jumpstart your creative juices, especially if youve come down with a bad case of writers block. You can use the tags as writing prompts to help you generate new scenes or even entire stories, but the most common method is to use them as quick fill in the blanks whenever you need a line. You have my permission to copy them as is, or customize them however you like. Some tags are more specific than others, so you may find it helpful to swap out whatever doesnt work for you with whatever you need. For example, changing the gender of the character or type of weapon and/or action is easily done, as is replacing the generic pronouns given with your characters names or some other vivid description instead (e.g., changing the man to the cruel killer). You can achieve a variety of exciting effects by mixing and matching tags (or parts of tags) from the same or different categories to create new ones.

Say you need to describe Sly Nimblefingers seeing a tiger for the first time and your mind draws a blank. Simply flip to the A World of Adventure section, then to Animals. Scan the listed tags until you find a tiger one you like, then use it as is, or combine it with others to come up with a completely new one. For example, you could combine The tiger was a flashing nightmare of black and orange, and The lion unsheathed its killing claws, to become The tiger was a nightmare of killing claws. So you not only have all the individual tags as written, but you also have an incredible number of combinationsa number limited only by your imagination. Its yours . Its yours .