Blog about books

A complete index of every post on the Fictionate.me blog — writing craft, self-publishing, serialized fiction and reading recommendations, listed alphabetically with summaries and jump links by letter.

Twelve Arthurian and legend-retelling novels that hand the old stories to the people the myth left out: the queens, the monsters, the knights who came after.

Ten post-apocalyptic novels worth your time, from 1949 to now, with what each one is really about and one craft move a writer could steal.

Twelve military and war novels worth reading, from All Quiet on the Western Front to The Things They Carried: the gap between the official war and the lived one.

Nobody in a spy novel can say what they mean, and that shortage is a craft engine. Eight books across more than a century, plus what serial writers can take from the way espionage fiction schedules information.

Twelve alternate history novels where a single changed event reshapes the world, and what the fork costs the ordinary people living through it.

A recurring antagonist has to stay compelling across a whole serial. Six craft moves for writing a villain who survives a long, chapter-by-chapter story.

Serial fiction lives or dies on chapter endings. Here are five cliffhanger patterns that consistently outperform the generic "to be continued."

A serialized novel lives or dies on pacing. Four craft levers for chapter rhythm: chapter length, scene vs summary, metering revelation, and varying tempo across a long run.

Action scenes in a serial must land a visceral beat and leave a hook that survives the chapter break. Six techniques for writing fights that pull readers back.