Tom Dullemond

The Complete Guide to Writing Fantasy is a non-fiction title with numerous contributing writers, written for writers. It is a compendium that covers a broad range of material for writers of fantasy and will be useful to those writing in this genre.

The Cover: The image is a good fit for a non-fiction title geared towards writers and the quill lends itself to the fantasy genre. The title clearly conveys what the book is about, but while the fonts are suitable enough, I feel the title fonts could have been a little better. Overall, a strong cover for the title.

The Good Stuff: This book would be a fantastic addition to any fantasy writer’s reference library. It is packed with useful information on topics relevant to the fantasy genre, from medieval food and clothing, to religion and world building. This book has detailed information weapons, armour, and much more. It also provides links to websites and further reference material that is relevant and may be of use.

The Bad Stuff: If there is any bad stuff, I did not notice it. I am very satisfied with this book as a reference guide for writing fantasy.

Overall, this is a fantastic reference guide. It covers a great deal of topics relevant to the fantasy writer and will open your eyes to, or at the very least remind you about, checking your facts. The content is both interesting and great for future reference. I’m ranking this one 5 out of 5 golden bookmarks.
… (mer)

It took me practically forever to work my way through this book. In this case, it was a good thing for it gave me many ideas on how to develop my world, story, and characters.

The Complete Guide To Writing Fantasy vol. 1 was a really good introduction on the sorts of things that go into writing. The topics the authors covered were a bit about writing (6 chapters worth) and details of a typical fantasy world setting, such as clothing, food, fighting, etc. (9 chapters). At the end there was a chapter on using humour, and another on publishing.

One of the main features of this book was the stress on good research. The authors repeated point out that the more the writer makes their world believable and accessible, the more likely they are going to succeed on writing a good story.

I will admit, there were parts of the book I skimmed over. This is because I didn't have an interest in the topic at the time. Despite that, there were other chapters that I wish they would have gone into more detail about. It is still an invaluable source of inspiration and knowledge and deserves a place on my writers' resources shelf.… (mer)

I found this book to be excellent. It brings together a variety of writers with different takes and views on how to write things. Most of the writers are entertaining and make you want to keep reading as you learn more about their ways of doing things.

I only found fault with one chapter in the book, that by Milena Benini in which I felt she wrote in a condescending manner, contradicted other sources on her topic and included absolutely no source list for her chapter, basically in...more I found this book to be excellent. It brings together a variety of writers with different takes and views on how to write things. Most of the writers are entertaining and make you want to keep reading as you learn more about their ways of doing things.

I only found fault with one chapter in the book, that by Milena Benini in which I felt she wrote in a condescending manner, contradicted other sources on her topic and included absolutely no source list for her chapter, basically informing the reader there was nothing in writing beyond her opinion. Fortunately her work was only used for one chapter of the book.

The rest of the book is highly entertaining and each chapter included a source list giving you the option to both double check facts included and have more sources available to you if you wanted to go further in depth with researching a topic.

What's great about the book is it's both a compendium on writing and a place to start for basic research on writing a fantasy novel set in medieval times. I especially liked the chapters on combat and the method of planning out fight scenes so that they're choreographed to seem more realistic.

I learned many things about weapons, food, fighting styles, religions and various other topics in reading this book. It includes multiple methods on character creation and goes extremely in depth into world building. I would definitely consider it a must read and were it not for that one chapter would have given the book 5 stars.… (mer)