Mastodawn

Fun fact: The word "Easter" is related to the Germanic term for "dawn", which itself is linked to the Greek and Latin words "Eos" and "Aurora" referring to the same thing. The word also has an Indo-Germanic source which can be used as a verb and means: "to birth the flame".

Erik Mercer Apr 5

Have a wonderful #Easter weekend, everybody!

Erik Mercer Mar 31

People sometimes think writing #SciFi or #Fantasy is easy: You just make it up. How hard can it be?

Very, as it turns out. Because rather than being able to look up how it works, you need to built a whole consistent, complete, non-contradictory society that is still fun to read.

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Erik Mercer Mar 27

You may see easily how this could render certain hard to come by ingredients more valuable than gold, while introducing a predicament for some characters, who are presented a full table, but can't tell what's safe to consume and what might kill them if they tried.

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Erik Mercer Mar 27

A small addition, that can boil down to a sentence or two, easily adds depth to characters and world building, while introducing serious supply chain consequences, able to drive (sub-)plot. How do guests know what is safe to consume? How does the tavern source the materials? Aso.

Erik Mercer Mar 27

When writing #SciFi or #Fantasy taverns, one thing rarely explored are dietary restrictions. Not even the species on our own planet share uniform dietary needs, and much of what one finds a delicacy is lethal to another. Why would, aliens or fantasy creatures be any different?

Erik Mercer Mar 15

As a #SciFi writer, I'm shocked how politicians are convinced that of all jobs on the planet, a biased fictional persona hallucinating statistics, economic success, and international victories is the one thing that could never be replaced by financially incorruptible, asexual AI.

Erik Mercer Mar 9

I found a copy of my 1st attempt at a #LitRPG story.

"How to sharpen a cooking pot--tail weapons for dummies" is still in heavy rewrites, adding a ton of new material, alongside the character information typical for the genre.

But, a couple of scenes I might just keep.