Dissecting Literature

First of all, our newsletter giveaway is still running! If you want to read the first 50 pages of our debut novel, Shackles of the Storm, now is the chance to read it for free! Our newsletter will also contain bookish updates, and of course a collection of our latest blogpost to never miss any of them. Go, subscribe here or on our website! Today we continue the “Lost worlds” topic. In the previous blog post, we covered theories about Atlantis and Lemuria, their roots in reality, and how these tales show us the traumas of our ancestors after natural disasters and climate change.  However, there are some outliners, like the next on our lost world list: the continent of Mu. Because if there is a lost continent in the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean, how is that, that we don’t have one in the Pacific Ocean, right? RIGHT? The concept came from a man named Augustus Le Plongeon who examined ancient Mayan texts and investigated the ruins in Yucatán. He claimed that the civilization on ...

Hey there, travelers! A quick announcement before we get into today’s post: we finally bit the bullet and made a newsletter! If you don’t want to miss out on weirdly interesting posts like this one, or the development of our books, be sure to subscribe! We promise not to flood your inbox, only bring you a list of things once a month to bring a little spark to your life. You can find the form on our website (https://dlkardenal.weebly.com), and on the sidebar of this blog (click on the sandwich lines in the top left corner). Now, back to why you’re here! The concept of lost civilizations is a fascinating one. As a child, I always imagined them as a place of magic, heroes, and epic stories. Most of these were inspired by mythology which I still adore—you might have noticed subtle hints of this—but even people from ancient times had legends and stories about long-lost empires. There is some truth behind every tale and myth, but apart from that, they are a great source of inspiration for wr...

  I reached the point where if I see one more writing advice I will stop writing anything. When I see writing advices, pet peeves, dos and don’ts, I can’t help but see them as a checklist. Did I do that? Did I do that right? What if we did that and it’s bad? Getting close to the release of our debut novel I can’t stop thinking about the things we did right and things we did wrong, although I know we can’t start rewriting the whole thing again. If we would start rewriting it then we need to go through the whole editing process again, send it to our editor again, and we won’t finish it in the next 1-2 years. And would the book become better? It would change of course, but I don’t think it would get better, only different. This is a very toxic mental state, that can lead to endless rewriting and editing, resulting in a WIP that will never be finished. How did I end up here? When we started to take writing more seriously I wanted to learn more about the craft itself. The main short...

  We almost finished our debut novel, Shackles of the Storm in our native language (Hungarian), when we realized that we need others to read it as well. It is our book baby after all. So I dived into the depths of the internet to learn some marketing and boy… if you think writing a book is hard, then you ain’t see nothing yet.   In today’s blogpost I want to share with you how we started, what did we learn, and how it is going… 1. The authortube When I needed a new recipe, a way to insert the dishwasher, or anything related to DIY my first source was always youtube videos. So, naturally, I went there first when I wanted to learn more about the craft of writing, what it takes to get traditionally publish and how should we self-publish. After finding booktube, I soon came across the two biggest authortube channels – which I won’t name here – and realized, that I was the incarnation of Jon Snow in this world. I knew nothing.  So I started to religiously watch the videos...

  Oh my god, I can see that I will step into a hornest nest again, but here we go… In the era of the internet I heard a lot about how men fail at writing women, their personality, their body, and when I looked at the examples I had to agree with the complaints. However, I have never heard about complaints about women writing men – which can be just as bad.  I first met this issue in a play-by-post forum, when two girls played male characters and tried to depict their friendship. It was cutsie, warm and gentle, so the exact opposite of what I see when looking at the relationship between my male friends. Then Dar started reading a book, where a female author tried to depict what could happen when a bunch of men are stuck together for a few weeks, and also failed terribly from a whole other side. It seems that men’s mind is just as big of a mystery for women as the women mind of most men, so we are here to help in the matter. This post tries to serve as a source for writers strug...

Hey there, traveler! Remember the post we wrote about the basic system of pantheons, with all the mysterious concepts that pop-up as gods in nearly any mythology? Well, at long last, it’s time to take a look at how authors (other than Lovecraft) utilized that system to create their own fictional universes. The pattern isn’t always obvious, sometimes they neglect some aspects, sometimes invent entirely new gods, but you can mostly spot the bare-bones behind these deviations. First, let’s see a typical pantheon. At first, we were thinking Tolkien could be a great example with his enormous amount of lore poured into his world, but in the end, it’s not so different from the ones we got used to in mythology. If you like to read about his take on religion send us a message and we will write a post about him too.  I. Dragonlance - By the book For Lory, the first contact with the high fantasy genre was the Dragonlance world around the age of 10, so it was quite a big impact on her later go...

  Hey there, travelers! Since last week my uni semester goes on without mercy, so my focus kindda got divided between Shackles of the Storm, our first and nearly publishable book, and medical stuff I need to study. Since you can put the pantser in school, but can't put school in the pantser, this resulted in a wondorous side-effect: a new WIP. Yeah, yeah, I know. This one is yet to be attached with a genre, but the basic premise is as follows: Magic is real, and its contageous. From time immemorial curses ravaged humanity, magical occurences took their toll on the populace, giving birth to a new craft. From shamans to wisemen, the Decursers were made official, studying and curing any magical malice plagueing mankind. Since then their tools evolved, along with their teaching methods. As for the plot, here's a synopsis I just made up as I wrote this: Yesterday, Sotirios was just an Apprentice. He studied omens of curses, learned about demons and terrific practices to eventually c...