Limyaael's Rants

This is  a huge collection of rants (and essays) on fantasy writing, or, as one person put it, "long posts full of tips on how to not suck at fantasy writing."

Her full collection is at Limyaael's LiveJournal "Arin i Asolde" where there's a brief intro and a link to each post.

A more compact list of her older rants (pre-2006) by date is a Limyaael's Rants: Master List.

(Note: there is occasional language beyond PG-13.)

A sampling:

• Dragons
  
• Writing Non-Humans
  
• Death and Weapons
  
• Building Fantasy Worlds
  
• Creating Breathing Characters
  
• Female Protagonists Who Do Not Suck
  
• Clichéd Fantasy

Here’s the headings for her piece on Names.

1. Don’t base the name too closely on your own.
   
2. Don’t make the name too long or too alien.
   
3. Avoid unfortunate coincidences as much as possible. [That is, check to see if the name means something unintended in another language.]
   
4. Make sure your character names fit the tone of the story.
   
5. Don’t make nicknames cutesy.
   
6. Adapt the name to the other names around it.