Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction

We are all fantasists at heart;

something you know how to do without having to think consciously about exactly what it is that you are doing. In order to get to that point, however, it may be necessary to go through a phase when you work step by painful step, planning beginnings and endings, thinking about plot structures, considering alternative viewpoints and learning.

is to make the process of writing as comfortable as the process of reading.

Writing is something you have to teach yourself, by practicing long and hard, but I hope this book will help you to practice more effectively.

Some kinds of fantasy story have been around so long that their tellers have developed brief formulas to alert their hearers or readers to the type of story they are dealing with.

I keep six honest serving-men

(They taught me all I knew);

Their names are What and Why and When

And How and Where and Who.