This will be the first of a series of blog posts, summarizing my Self-Publishing Checklist. This one will cover all of your pre-publishing prep work, starting with getting your ISBNs and finishing with your title page. ​We’ve put together this guide to help authors through the process of self-publishing. The goal is to give you a framework to hopefully make the task of publishing your book seem just a little less daunting.

In this blog post I'm going to go over the different levels of editing and what they all mean, as well as answer some common questions about the editing process. Along with each explanation, I'll include a short snippet of an example edit (except for developmental editing and outline critique, which are rather hard to show an example of in just a single paragraph).

​For my example, I'll be using an old homework assignment I did in college (actually it was the scene that eventually became the basis of my current WIP novel.)

Whether your protagonist is the prophesied chosen one destined to save the world or a lowly street rat who gets taken in by the empire's local assassin's guild to be trained in the deadliest arts, or perhaps the heir to the throne of an ancient kingdom, chances are your fantasy world has some form of hand-to-hand combat.

Characters are the basis for every story. The motivation behind every plot. The force behind every system of magic. They are the viewpoint by which we experience the stories that we love. In many ways, they are the reason we love those stories in the first place. 
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For this reason, characters are arguably the single most important element of your story. A good character can make up for a half-formed world or a cliche magic system and questionable plot. But no amount of amazing world-building or fancy, flashy magic and twisting, exciting plot lines will make up for a bad or unlikeable character. 

This blog post is geared towards walking you through creating every aspect of your character including figuring out their personality, emotions, family, backstory, skills, goals, fears, theme, and plot. By the end, our goal is to have a unique, engaging, and relatable character who will stand strong and drive your story through its plot.

I thought it might be cool to do a blog post about how a single idea can turn into enough of a story to make a novel. 

​But a single idea really isn't enough to do it, no matter how good that idea might be. So you need more than one. A book is a bunch of ideas that fit together to form a story. Ideas that can feed into each other, and work together to create a compelling world and narrative.

​I recently started world-building for a new story idea (I know— bad when I'm supposed to be in the middle of revising my current project) but in trying to figure out the level of technology and feeling of my new world I got lost in google searches about the different punk genres. 

So I decided to make a master list. Mostly for me, but also because I needed a subject for my (very very late) monthly blog post. (Seriously, it’s becoming a bi-yearly blog post at the rate I’m going). 

So punk genres. 

Magic. It’s one of the defining characteristics of the fantasy genre. A writer has unlimited possibilities to choose from when building their world and the magic that shapes it. Flying. Shapeshifting. Characters wielding fire or healing with a touch. Magic potions and runic spells. Demon magic and necromancy. Witch marks and superheroes.

This guide is designed to walk you through each step of building your magic, from choosing the structure to figuring out how it's cast and what powers are included. Hopefully by the end of this post you have a clear path to building a workable system of magic for your fantasy world.