The Same Story Told Ten Thousand Times

 

I'm thinking of a story. Can you guess what it is?

It is the story of a young man who is whisked away into a parallel world. There he suddenly acquires a set of rare and overpowered special abilities that make him the strongest being to ever walk the face of that planet. Though he encounters endless hordes of enemies, he destroys them with ease. As he explores the world, he amasses a small army of nubile young women, all of whom adore him and are also highly skilled combatants. Together, they go on grand adventures to conquer new foes, find new treasure, and recruit more women.

What's the title of the story?

Yes.

Writing the Weapon and the Cultivator

 

Different cultures have different ways of treating weapons and martial arts. Bound up in historical, legal and cultural cornerstones, a society's relationship with weapons speaks to deeper underlying norms. To reach a higher level of worldbuilding in the art of writing, think about how your culture views weapons and warfare. Here are some real-world examples of the influence of weapons and martial arts and how they are reflected in society.

Historical European Martial Arts tend to be technical and weapon-oriented. HEMA schools focus on developing the body mechanics, attributes and tactics necessary to employ their preferred weapons. Armoured combat is field of study in itself, as practitioners seek to strike at gaps in the armour and/or close in to wrestle the opponent to the ground. Unarmed combat is limited to wrestling and grappling, and may be treated as a separate school, or as a supplement to weapons work, especially for armoured combat.

Decoupling From Amazon

 

Over the weekend, Amazon de-listed Galaxy's Edge by Nick Cole and Jason Anspach. While the series is now back up on the Kindle Store, this event caused a disruption in cashflow and no small amount of confusion and acrimony from GE fans and their circles.

Nick Cole speculates that a hacker got into Amazon. Brian Niemeier presents another alternative: an attempt to shadowban GE to promote Disney's similarly-named Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge. Note that Cole and Anspach's GE was published in 2017; Disney unveiled their GE only in 2019. It could simply be a rogue employee with an axe to grind against Cole and Anspach. Or it could simply be Amazon's algorithms failing again.

Saga of the Swordbreaker continues!

 

The IndieGoGo campaign for Saga of the Swordbreaker has been extended! The campaign will now run for a further 28 days, finishing at the end of the month.

Although we failed to hit the original campaign goal of $2200 by 31st December, we still made a good show of ourselves. The campaign now stands at 84% funded. There's only $349 left to go.

In hindsight, kicking off the campaign in December was a mistake. Most people would be focused on buying Christmas and New Year gifts. They wouldn't be terribly interested in books that would only arrive in March at the earliest. Not only that, their gift budget would be highly stretched too.

Not only that, shortly after I began the campaign, one challenge after another cropped up in my life. Posting the marketing articles was all I could do. I didn't have much time and energy left to do much of anything else, including posting updates.

Nonetheless, I am grateful for your support. There's only a little bit left to go before the finishing line. I'm confident that this time, we'll be able to hit the target.

To back Saga of the Swordbreaker, click here and share it on social media!