Your Faery Special Romance Contest

USA entrants only this time, please

How to Play

1. Answer this question:
What is the the most memorable thing your sweetie ever did for you on Valentine's Day?

2. Send your story to the First Round Judges by January 31, 2008, midnight PST.

Be sure to include:

Your name (will be listed if you final)
Your email address (will be kept private)
Your snail mail address (for mailing prizes and news only)
and, of course
Your Faery Special Romance Story

3. My special panel of judges (sister and daughters) will select 10 finalists, who will be announced February, 4, 2008. Finalists will be notified by the email address they provide.

Most Heartwarming
Most Humorous

4. Then the voting begins! If you're a finalist, be sure to get your friends, relatives, and neighbors to vote.

Prizes

Runner-up of Each Category		Winner of Each Category
Faery Delicious Chocolate Faery Good Bath Salts Keely T-shirt and the award-winning Faery Special Romances New E-book Version		Faery Delicious Chocolate Faery Good Bath Salts Faery Special Teddy Bear Faery Special T-shirt and the award-winning Faery Special Romances Print Version

Winner Announced February 14!

Next drawing: November 28, 2007

A Restless Knight (The Dragons of Challon, Book 1) by Deborah MacGillivray

"Written with a finely tuned passionate and sensual voice this love story will simply take your breath away." ~~Marilyn Rondeau, RIO Reviewer

The fantasy and sci-fi genres emphasize worldbuilding but until recently, we didn't hear a lot about it in the romance genre. Every story world must be carefully constructed, no matter what the genre, or the characters have no context. Some worlds may require more explanation than others, but details enhance any story as long as they complement rather than smother the emotional content.

An incredibly comprehensive site is Patricia Wrede's Fantasy Worldbuilding Questions. Since it's written for fantasy, it includes magic and so forth, but whether your story has a paranormal element or not, there are tons of questions about geography, social structure, political structure, economics, flora and fauna, ethics, the legal system, and a whole host of other topics. A writer who knows her world well enough to answer all these questions will undoubtedly create a believable world.

Need to see a map of your world? Holly Lisle tells us how she goes about generating a story map. I tried it and her techniques do help, even us artistically challenged people. (My son redrew my map, thank goodness!)

Did you know 100 stone equals 1,400 pounds? 3.52 Japanese koku? 19.48 Roman centumpondus? Here's a conversion table for mass and weight.

Other than character-building, I think worldbuilding is one of the truly fun aspects of writing a story. There are lots of good sites on the topic on the internet--a veritable candy store. Don't be afraid to use techniques of other genres, or to twist someone's technique to fit your own style and story.

Happy writing!

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May is Neurofibromatosis Awareness Month!