Chronicles of Riadain

There has been a new trend of 'spicy' or 'smutty' fantasy books - I can't be the only one who hates it. Disclaimer: This blog post includes sensitive and explicit topics, and is purely my own opinion on the subject.  Book-Tock and Bookstagram - the dubbed names for readers on Tick-tock and Instagram. They have a huge hold on the book industry, deciding which books should be popular and which should be thrown in the trash. Recently, they have found a new author to dote upon: Sarah J. Maas.   I have never read one of these books (I hope you haven't either) and never will. This post is based on videos and reviews I have seen about these books and others like them. I saw one or two videos about those books and made up my mind not to read them. These videos and reviews describe Sarah J. Maas's works as 'spicy' or 'smutty', which is the new Bookstagram and Book-Tock term for explicit content. I'd like to point out that not all Bookstagrammers e...

When I was about 13, my dad introduced me and my sister to The Lord of the Rings. We watched it together over about a month, watching the movies every Sunday evening, starting with The Fellowship and ending with The Battle of Five Armies (I do think The Hobbit had good movies, they were just not as good as the book). Ever since then, I have been a LoTR fanatic. I read the books back then but, to be honest, they flew right over my head. So I reread them, and here's what I learned: The books themselves are masterpieces, full of interesting characters and magical beings. The description is beautiful and the world-building is so intricate it feels like Middle-Earth should be real. But, there are a few things that I noticed - things any author or editor would tell you to avoid. These things include lengthy passages of exposition, 'side quests' that have nothing to do with the plot and descriptions that go on for pages and pages. Why do people tell new authors to avoid these thin...

 We all gather inspiration from some place or another, but when does inspiration turn to plagiarism? My love for stories and writing began with C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, of course it's going to show in my writing. When we humans care about something or someone a lot, we tend to imitate it. After all, imitation is the highest form of flattery (Charles Caleb Colton). Many of the creatures, places and characters of my world are inspired by those of Narnia and Middle Earth. But when does inspiration turn to plagiarism? How do we draw the line between influence and blatant copying? This question has haunted me ever since I started writing my book. Because it's a fantasy novel set in a different world with elves and magic and strange creatures, it's hard to avoid 'copying' Lord of the Rings or any other fantasy worlds or stories, especially since LoTR is the fantasy story on which most fantasy stories are based. I spoke about how difficult it was finding a n...

 Hi,  I am a young aspiring author who accidently created a whole world.  I am 17, and have loved books since the first time I read The Chronicles of Narnia when I was about ten. Reading those books took me into a whole new world, with all sorts of wonderful creatures and characters, and everything became magical to me; the trees came alive, animals could (maybe) talk, and magic was waiting around every corner. I loved Narnia so much, I wanted to create my very own world just like it and write stories about it. After much daydreaming and magic-hunting in my backyard, I decided to call my world Eridan. That name has stuck until very recently, when I found out that Eridan, or Eridanus, is a river in Greek mythology. After some more daydreaming (and googling this time) I came to the name of Riadain, which isn't the name of a river, person, or place - at least not that Google knows of.  Many stories were dreamed about Eridan with many warriors, princesses and centaurs (I...