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WELCOME TO ANNE BELLOWS BOOKS
The Writing Tips Blog of Many Colors
The new home of my Tumblr blog! Here you can find my curated tips on the writing process. Everything from worldbuilding and character design to story structure, themes, and tackling those tough tropes and archetypes, with a few top ten lists sprinkled about.
On Using Measurements and Metrics in Fantasy
This is what I do and what I find more immersive, easier to write, less world-bending, and more productive: I don’t use actual metric or...
Jul 23, 20244 min read
Your colloquialisms are ruining the immersion (or, non-contemporary dialogue)
I am no expert here! Whenever I wrote historical fiction it was anachronistic historical fiction. This advice is from a reader’s...
Jul 23, 20244 min read
10 Plot Premises That Never Get Old
There’s a great many lists out there complaining about the worst and most overused tropes in fiction. I want to pass the mic to tropes...
Jul 23, 20246 min read
Writing Weather Part 2: Thunderstorms and Hurricanes + Hurricane Safety PSA
It’s hurricane season y’all!! Long before I knew about Pride Month, June 1st was the day I celebrated as the start of hurricane season....
Jul 23, 20246 min read
11 Underexplored Settings of Post-Apocalyptic Worlds
Inspired once again by my recent binge of abandoned explorations. The greatest hits of the sprawling city scapes and farmland that...
Jul 23, 20246 min read
Incorporating weather elements into your narrative
Weather and climate as worldbuilding are kind of like adverbs. Adverbs, as a concept, are not book kryptonite (despite what all the...
Jul 23, 20244 min read
On Writing Characters That Don't Or Can't Speak English
This such a fun dynamic, honestly and more fantasy and sci-fi should implement it. You don’t even have to design a fantasy language,...
Jul 23, 20247 min read
On Grimdark (Or conditioning your audience for cynicism)
Everyone has their two cents about the grimdark genre but one thing I don’t see discussed at much length
Jun 14, 20247 min read
25 Cheap and Easy Tricks for Naming Your Characters
Because I hate coming up with new names. I hate it. I write fantasy. Why do I do this to myself? The credits of your favorite movies,...
Jun 14, 20241 min read
Evil MacGuffins (Or an excuse to gush about Lord of the Rings)
It’s kind of crazy how so much of Tolkien’s worldbuilding has defined fantasy. The default for Elves and Dwarves, fantasy kingdoms,...
Jun 14, 20244 min read
Anne's Curated Tips on Worldbuilding Megapost
Some of these are not mine, they’re from author Randy Ellefson, I’m just interpreting the tips I like in my own words. These specifically...
Jun 14, 202411 min read
What No One Tells You About Writing #6
This round we’re doing some recent discoveries on my writing journey. Some are less groundbreaking and more “I did not expect this to...
Jun 14, 20247 min read
Villain Power Scaling (It's over 9000!)
Quick! We wrote an insanely, unexpectedly successful one-off fantasy series! How do we top the villain? A bigger, badder giant space...
Jun 14, 20247 min read
8 Signs your Sequel Needs Work
Sequels, and followup seasons to TV shows, can be very tricky to get right. Most of the time, especially with the onslaught of sequels,...
Jun 14, 20249 min read
On Writing Theme (Or, Make it a Question)
An element of story so superficially understood and yet is the backbone of what your work is trying to say. Theme is my favorite element...
Jun 14, 20246 min read
You don’t have to pay for that fancy worldbuilding program
If one of your reasons to keep procrastinating on starting your book is not being able to afford something like World Anvil or Campfire,...
Jun 14, 20244 min read
Plot Holes and How to Fill Them (Or, The Hidden Potential in Your Mistakes)
“But why didn’t they just do that earlier!” “You can time travel – so time travel!” “Doesn’t X have Y spell? Why aren’t they using it to...
May 23, 202411 min read
Color in Fiction! (Once You See it, You Cannot Unsee it)
White versus black, red versus blue, Gatsby’s green light, Dorothy’s ruby red slippers, Belle’s blue dress. Color is perhaps the most...
Mar 29, 20249 min read
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