Carol Berg
Carol Berg
Carol Berg is the author of several fantasy novels, including the books from the Rai-Kirah series, Song of the Beast, the books from The Bridge of D'Arnath series, and the Lighthouse novels. In January 2010, she introduced a new series with the release of The Spirit Lens: A Novel of the Collegia Magica...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
CountryUnited States of America
advice boring cultures everybody gives life nobody people piece
One of the things that put me off writing for a while was that piece of advice everybody gives new writers: 'Write what you know.' Nobody would ever want to read about my boring life! But I do know a lot of things about different societies' cultures and mythologies. The way people were and are.
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Read. Read. Read. Read many genres. Read good writing. Read bad writing and figure out the difference. Learn the craft of writing.
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At one of the first science fiction conventions I ever went to, I saw a guy wearing a sandwich board promoting his book. Count me out of that one.
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I would love to have written Roger Zelazny's first five books of 'Amber.' What a great idea he had about the shadings of reality!
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My college roommate gave me her copy of 'Lord of the Rings,' and I read that probably five or six times - not because I think it's the greatest thing ever written, though some people certainly think it is - but the world he creates is so vivid. So real that he designed its own languages, history and mythology.
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I enjoy worldbuilding very much. I generally start with an approximation. With 'Flesh and Spirit' and 'Breath and Bone,' because I was thinking of a world on the brink of a dark age, I began with the sense of Roman Britain. But I purposely set the geography to match something other than Britain - which has been overdone.
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I had really good English teachers in elementary through high school. Not only were we required to read a lot - which is the best training for writing - we were drilled on grammar every day, every night. I hated the drill part, but I don't dangle my participles too often.
Write a million words before thinking about getting published.
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A soldier never dies. His blood makes the grass green for his children.
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Books don't prattle. Books don't make demands. Yet they give you everything they possess. It's a very satisfying partnership.
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So what is this feadnach? Is it another curse that makes me beholden to slaves and shrews?' 'No, my lord. It is your heart. Difficult as it may be to comprehend, there is a possibility you may have one.
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Memory has no power but what the soul chooses to make of it.
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Writing is communication, and you don't know how you're doing until you put it in front of someone else's eyes. You also learn from critiquing other writers' work.
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Write. Write. Write. Learn how to revise. No story is perfect straight from the keyboard.