In this excerpt from his workshop, “Mastering Plot and Structure,” award-winning author, Lavie Tidhar, talks about how he learned to love writing formula fiction and why you should try it.
Jonathan Wood is the author of 8 novels (The Hero series, The Dragon Lords series writing as Jon Hollins, and City of Iron and Dust as J.P. Oakes). His short fiction has appeared in Weird Tales, Fantasy Magazine, and Chizine, and has been collected in The Best of Beneath Ceaseless Skies Year One, The Best of Electric Velocipede, and the Mammoth Book of Steampunk Adventures among others. When not writing, he spends far too much time playing videogames and sharing memes on Facebook. He can be found online at jonathanwood.substack.com where he writes weekly free fiction.
Lavie Tidhar is author of numerous novels such as Osama, A Man Lies Dreaming, Central Station, Neom, and Maror. His awards include the World Fantasy and British Fantasy Awards, the John W. Campbell Award, the Neukom Prize and the Jerwood Prize, and he has been shortlisted for the Clarke Award and the Philip K. Dick Award. A prolific author of SF short stories, he has published more than two hundred, everywhere from Tor.com (where he created the popular Judge Dee series of vampire mysteries) to Analog, Asimov’s, Clarkesworld and Apex. As editor, he created the five-volume Apex Book of World SF series and edited the three volumes of The Best of World SF. Currently an honorary visiting professor and writer in residence at the American International University in London, he has taught both undergraduate and graduate courses on fantasy fiction and creative writing.
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