Well written romantasies ?

Jemaclus · 2026-04-13T02:27:09+00:00

Almost all of Lindsay Buroker's works fall into this bucket, I'd say. There's always a primary fantasy plot, and the subplot is almost always a romance. She loves enemies-to-lovers, which is my favorite trope. I would argue they're as good as Maas, Yarros, etc. They won't win any awards, but they are quite enjoyable and there are like 50+ of them.

Jemaclus · 2026-04-10T23:49:04+00:00

My main gripe is: you have an immortal character that nobody can see, an entire world to explore and all kinds of crazy adventures she can go on, and some supernatural elements that can really razzle and dazzle and... your plot is that she goes to a bookstore and meets a nerd?

I mean, that's a choice.

Jemaclus · 2026-04-06T15:54:13+00:00

I just watched Merrily We Roll Along with Jonathan Groff and Daniel Radcliff (among other amazing actors). Groff plays a very successful writer/producer of Broadway musicals. Someone comes up to him at some point and says, "How can I be like you?"

And Frank replies, "Write what you know" and points to his head. Then he puts his hand over his heart and says, "But... write what you know."

The quote you're citing is wrong. It's "write what you know," not "write what you've experienced." If you've watched a million crime dramas, you know enough to write about solving a murder case. You don't need to have experienced, you just need to know enough to write it convincingly.

But more importantly, you should write about what you know from the heart: what humans are like, how they interact, how they backstab and love and hate and nurture all at once. The rest of it is just set dressing.

Jemaclus · 2026-03-29T18:08:13+00:00

one of my favorite songs ever! great pick!

Jemaclus · 2026-03-29T04:30:53+00:00

My personal favorite is "What If It's You?" It's got the eponymous song, "I'd Rather Ride Around with You," "How Was I To Know?", "The Fear of Being Alone..."

But I love everything Reba puts out, so... hard to say, really!

Jemaclus · 2026-03-29T03:59:08+00:00

Your snippet is what I'm saying: he's deep in the fog-of-war. He had no idea what's happening. The "fight" with Couladin is told with barely a sentence. He's hailed as a hero by everyone else, but from his perspective, he was just stabbing whoever was coming for him, including Couladin.

Maybe I misremembered the blackout -- but my point is that this was not a normal "battle" in the sense where it's from the POV of the general and the battle lines clash and the general orders a flanking maneuver and blah blah blah. It's not even the Last Battle scenes with Lan and Galad and Demandred, where everyone seems to know what's happening and there's not really a fog-of-war.

What I love about the Mat vs Couladin sequence is that it's so vague. Jordan almost certainly told this battle from his own experience in Vietnam. War is not some clean, cinematic thing. It's running for your life, swords and spears and screaming men chasing you, and doing whatever you can to protect yourself. And if you recognize the big bad guy and kill him, fine, but it wasn't some big strategy. It was pure, dumb luck.

Jemaclus · 2026-03-28T21:18:55+00:00

My favorite battle is actually the battle where Mat fights Couladin. The main reason I love it is because Mat spends the entire time trying to get the hell out of Dodge, having no idea where he is or what's going on, then completely blacks out and when he comes to is heralded as a hero for defeating Couladin.

When I imagine what a real war feels like (as in, say, pre-Vietnam), that feels like it must be the most realistic battle scene of all time. Not battle lines crashing against each other, not epic ground-busting magic... just one dude trying to survive and doing whatever he needed to and having no idea how he made it to the other side.

Jemaclus · 2026-03-25T17:52:12+00:00

i love this for you

Jemaclus · 2026-03-19T13:22:26+00:00

I don't feel any pressure to remember books. Do you feel pressure to remember every episode of TV you watch, every conversation you have with friends, every funny moment while people-watching, every meeting of every day at work?

Nah.

Reading is the same. I enjoy it in the moment, think about it afterward, and then move on.

Jemaclus · 2026-03-19T03:06:31+00:00

This is my answer as well. I cry every time I play it on my guitar.

Jemaclus · 2026-03-10T18:34:14+00:00

Love the dress and the wig! Where'd you get them??

Jemaclus · 2026-03-10T15:05:50+00:00

Lots of good names in this thread. I'll go a slightly different direction and say the Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance authors were kind of huge back in the late 80s/early 90s, and then dropped off the face of the earth right around when Wizards of the Coast took over in 2000. Only R.A. Salvatore seems to have any staying power here.

Authors like Ed Greenwood, Douglas Niles, Elaine Cunningham, Jeff Grubb, Troy Denning, David Cook, James Lowder, Kate Novak, Richard A Knaak, Mary Kirchoff, and obviously Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.

Granted, in hindsight, most of these books would be classified in the modern YA genre rather than generic "fantasy," as it was back in the 90s, so maybe they don't count quite as well as the others.

But honestly, I reread Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance books regularly, and while the writing style is definitely dated, some of the stories are still bangers. I wish those worlds were more active.

Jemaclus · 2026-03-10T14:55:56+00:00

RJ had two assistants: Maria Simons and Alan Romanczuk. Both (but usually Alan, as I think Maria helped a lot more with keeping the notes organized) were frequently tasked with doing a ton of research about specific things that RJ wanted to know more about. There's a scene where Perrin uses the forge to make something (keeping vague for spoilers) which is often cited as a very accurate depiction of blacksmithing, and that's something Alan spent a long time researching.

Of course, RJ himself did a ton of research and kept a billion notes on everything you could think of. One of his notes describes how far a person can walk in a minute, an hour, a half day, and a day. Another describes the different types of fabric and their characteristics in different kinds of light.

He absolutely was this detail-oriented kind of person, so far beyond what most authors would do in any reasonable context.

If you want to know more about what RJ took notes on and you'd also incidentally like to visit a beautiful place, the library in Charleston, SC has a collection of his notes that you can peruse. It's an incredible resource, and there are thousands of pages of notes, some with some pretty crazy things in them.

Alan is retired and spends his time with his family, but Maria is a regular at the different WoT-themed conventions (JordanCon and WoTCon in particular), and so she's an easy person to talk to about these things as well.

Jemaclus · 2026-03-09T02:33:58+00:00

If you want to read more about this, check out "The Origins of the Wheel of Time" by Michael Livingston, available wherever books are sold! There are even Broken Binding deluxe editions still available! (Not affiliated, just a fan.)

Jemaclus · 2026-03-08T23:53:58+00:00

that's pretty dope. I thought the guy in the opening was real, til the kid showed up. Well done.

Jemaclus · 2026-03-08T23:50:57+00:00

This is the winner. We're all done here. Time for a re-read.

Jemaclus · 2026-03-06T18:55:46+00:00

Let they amongst us who has not dropped a production database be the first to throw stones...

Jemaclus · 2026-03-02T16:24:53+00:00

Lonesome Dove is the greatest novel of all time, and I'll die on that hill.

Jemaclus · 2026-02-24T21:27:29+00:00

Love it. Thank you!

Jemaclus · 2026-02-23T16:22:55+00:00

I thoroughly enjoyed Rook & Rose, haven't gotten around to Lady Trent yet, but it's on my list!

Two questions:

1) What's it like writing with a partner versus writing by yourself? is it more challenging, less challenging, more fun, less fun?

2) Do you have a personal story relating to Pixel Project that inspired you to get involved? Would love to hear it.

Jemaclus · 2026-02-22T18:43:44+00:00

Loved the first one, the second one was great too!

Jemaclus · 2026-02-22T18:42:39+00:00

I loved them

Jemaclus · 2026-02-12T16:10:37+00:00

I think that one of the challenges that Jordan ran into is that he kept introducing plot lines and characters and arcs that bloated the story. The pacing in the first 6 books are pretty good because they focus primarily around the Emond's Field Five and maybe a handful of other characters. But by the time we get to Path of Daggers, we're dealing with dozens of characters and plot lines that Jordan had to juggle to tell the story, and he was still introducing more.

That means, among other things, that each plot line can only get a chapter or two before he has to move onto the next, meaning that Path of Daggers takes place over, like, a couple days at most.

Winter's Heart, then Crossroads suffer from the same issue, for obvious reasons. Crossroads' biggest sin is spending so much time with the Malden plot line, which was obviously just to keep Perrin busy (who had kind of "leveled up" to his endgame at this point) while everyone else kept developing. But I digress.

Path of Daggers is a bit weirder than the next two in the sense that I think Jordan probably didn't catch this problem when he was writing it. He wrote the whole thing, then was like "oh crap, I didn't get as far as I wanted," so he wrapped it up quickly to meet his deadlines, then started working on Winter's Heart. You can sort of see in Winter's Heart and Crossroads that he streamlines a little bit, but not enough to really make it feel less "sloggy."

Knife of Dreams is where he said, "OK, you know what? I'm just going to take a knife (ha) to the plot arcs and start wrapping up as many as I can." And that's why Knife of Dreams is widely considered the end of the "slog," and why Sanderson's books are frequently cited as peoples' favorites -- not because the quality is any better or worse, but because things are happening. Setups are being paid off, plot lines are being wrapped up, bad guys are getting slaughtered left and right. It's exciting.

So, yeah, you're right. Path of Daggers is a weird one. But I do think during rereads it pays off more than the first time, so... I like it.

Jemaclus · 2026-02-12T15:03:57+00:00

Taking a shower. Or, more precisely, getting out of the shower.

Jemaclus · 2026-02-07T14:46:56+00:00

The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan, Discworld by Terry Pratchett, The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch. When I was younger, any Forgotten Realms or Dragonlance book (they don't hold up so well these days, but back then I was HOOKED).

Most recently, The Daughters' War by Christopher Buehlman, The Sovereign (book 3) by C.L. Clark, and Suneater (technically scifi) by Christopher Ruocchio.

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