Past Ten

Ten Things for Fantasy & Historical Writers

1. Got Castle? Check out Castles of Britain, Castle Builder, Castles of the Middle Ages, Castle Terminology, and the utterly fascinating Guedelon Project.

2. Stephen Francis Wyley defines fortification and fieldworks from the Iron Age to the Eighteenth Century over at the Dictionary of Military Architecture.

3. Figure out what noble, ghastly or tedious comeuppance Fate has in store for your characters (or you) with Facade.com's Free Tarot Readings.

4. Fun with Generators: The Forge offers an online fantasy name generstor, spell name generator, creature name generator, and setting name generator; Manon's Magician Generator; Philip Riley's staggering collection of international name generators; Demonweb's Random Dungeon Generator; and The Swami's War Name Generator.

5. Ian McFadyen had me rolling on the floor with his article How to write a bestselling fantasy novel.

6. Not sure which lance to take to the big joust? Stop over at the Knighthood, Chivalry and Tournaments Resource Library.

7. Two mammoth internet hub sites for medieval resources: The Labyrinth and NetSerf.org.

8. Brandon Blackmoor crunches the numbers for you with Medieval Demographics Made Easy.

9. The Online Medieval and Classical Library has a modest but fascinating collection of period literature.

10. World Building: much wisdom and inspiration can be gleaned from Holly Lisle's article Questions about Worldbuilding and Seventh Sanctum's archive from A Way with Worlds.