Author: Elise Carlson (Page 6 of 8)

I’m a dreamer, often exploring fantasy worlds and speculative ideas through writing or reading. I'm energetic and enthusiastic, so I have multiple novels in progress from drafting through to querying. I'm also a full time primary school teacher and a traveler, photographing everything that captures my imagination and occasionally writing poetry about it. I have lived, taught and in England, Australia and most recently New Zealand.

Becoming an Indie Author (Part 1/2)

May 1, 2022 / Elise Carlson / 0 Comments

You’ve written a book, you’re considering self publishing and wonder what it involves. In short: a lot! This post is a concise summary from editing, through navigating cover art, stores and distributors, ISBNs and author platform, with many links to tools and information to help you along the way. It contains almost everything I’ve learned from indie author discussions in a Self Publishing Twitter group (circa 2021-22) by Cheryl Burman, and what I’ve learned while self publishing my first book, with a 2026, post DraftToDigital update.

I’m Writing/ Have Drafted My Book, What Now?

1. Craft Knowledge

If this is your First book, and or you haven’t already researched how to develop your characters and plot, or read up on story structure, now is a good time! Make notes to help get your head around character development, story structure and how they intertwine. Then use your notes to write character and plot focused outlines or revision/ structural edit lists to address potential character/ plot holes in your draft.

Resources to Help: KM Weiland’s Blog Series’: Developing Character Arcs, Story Structure and Scene Structure. My own Character Development Checklist.

2. Start Building Your Author Platform: Social Media

Yes, I’m talking about social media before you’ve even edited your manuscript, let alone have a book seeking a publishing path. Why? Because it takes time to grow a following. And the writing and editing stages are great opportunities to get to know fellow writers, build friendships and learn from each other. This is also the time to begin describing interesting features of your book and start generating interest in your story!

Post about the contents and the experience (or process) of writing your book. Talk to other writers on a social media platform of your choice’s Writing Community (my favourite being Blue Sky.) Connect with people you share interests with on social media (local interests, hobbies, themes that inspired and tie in to your story etc).

To begin with —pick ONE social media you feel is a natural (or least uncomfortable) fit for you. Get comfortable calling yourself a writer there, and publicly interacting as one. (FYI: there’s no such thing as an aspiring writer. If you write —you ARE a writer!).

Experiment, and learn the ropes of your first platform. Then start on a second platform. (Unless you’re bursting with restless energy *waves* and would rather choose the chaotic path of tackling multiple things at once over the easier one (*waves again*).

[2026 Update: in the end I settled on Bsky as my main social media, Mastodon as a back up, and Discord as a good place to talk indie authoring with fellow writers, to join Itchio book bundles, etc.]

Resources: Social Media for Writers, Blue Sky Newby Guide, Diverse Bsky Guide.

3. Critical Readers

Aim to get a few beta readers if you can, to comment on how they find your characters, plot, pacing, story tension etc.

If all they say is, ‘this is great,’ I’d be asking, do my betas have the experience and ability to critically evaluate my story?
And the willingness and time to honestly comment on things they find problematic (or less than ideal) as a reader?
The communication skills to spell out how any particular aspect of my writing confused, bored or otherwise put them off?
Or do my betas think I only want encouragement (or a positivity pass), as opposed to constructive feedback to help me grow as a writer and to ensure my story is clear and engaging to unfamiliar readers?

If you suspect any of the above is an issue with one of your beta readers, I’d get another/ an extra beta reader. For my first few books, I wasn’t satisfied readers would be satisfied with my book until I’d had that rigorous critical reader who pulls me up on every potential crease, tear or hole in the reading experience —and I’ve repaired and ironed those things accordingly.

Having attempted that for Manipulator’s War, I’ve now got reviews complimenting things (pacing and characters) the reviews may have complained about, if not for my critical readers.

Resources to Help: Finding Critical Readers, Mentors & Editors.
Checklists to aid Critical Reader feedback: Chapter one, Act 1, Act 2, Act 3.
Self Editing advice: Scene & Line Edit Tips.

4. Editing

Consider your goals for this book/ series and your budget. If you can’t afford an editor, get a second round of critical readers to comment on your post-beta-edited draft. Then, if you’re happy with it —get other, sharp eyed people to proofread it.

If you can afford an editor, consider which type(s) of editing you can afford: developmental (structural), stylistic (line editing), copy editing (word level technical & factual edits) and proofreading.

Manuscript Critiques/ Reports can be pricy, but are a cheaper alternative to (prohibitively expensive for most people) developmental edits. Bear in mind, some freelance copy editors charge by the hour instead of by the word. So if you tend to write fairly clean 100k books for example (like me), paying by the hour is more affordable and better value for money.

Resources: Different Levels of Editing and Critical Reader Services by editor Amelia Wiens (who did my manuscript critique) and 5 Things Authors Need to Know Before Hiring an Editor.

5. Decide on Cover Art

In choosing an artist or creating your own cover, research current covers in your genre and audience age. You want a cover design that clearly says to the reader “this book is (insert your genre)”. You also want a design that appeals to readers of that genre in ways they’re used to seeing. Pay attention to current trends in your genre, by researching new releases and studying their covers. For example, dark covers are a thing with YA Fantasy at the movement, and if characters are on epic fantasy covers — they’ve got weapons. So my cover for Manipulator’s War is dark and features weapons.

Reference Images
These are increasingly difficult to source from human photography/ human produced art, as opposed to gen ai slop, online. A couple of sites with great (photographic) visual references to choose character poses for your artist to refer to are Adorkastock, which has some great genre specific poses for characters, and True Ref.

Gen AI
DO NOT use gen ai to accelerate climate change to plagiarise you a cover. And DO NOT use gen ai ‘art’ or ‘videos’ to promote your books. Telling me you don’t care whether I have a planet to live on is reason to block and boycott you, not read your book, even if you actually wrote that, which your gen ai cover makes many people doubt.

Get a Human Cover Artist

There are 400+ of them, verified as NOT using gen ai in their work by a team of artists, on Hire a Human Artist.

Creating Your Own Cover

Remember that you need copyright permission for the art and fonts you use.
These fonts are public domain and free on Google. You can also purchase fonts from Creative Market.

Dafont has a wide range of fonts, but be sure to check the permissions listed for each, as some are for private use only, whereas some are permitted freely for commercial use. Yet others require you to license them from the font creator.

You’ll find free public domain images on Pixaby and a range of art galleries, including; Smithsonian Open Acess and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The National Gallery of Art, and likely more if you type ‘art galleries public domain’ as a search term into your browser.

Blurbs

Traditionally published authors will have honed their pitches near to perfection. Their blurbs will have had a LOT of critical feedback, editing by a literary agent, and possibly by an editor before a back cover exists to place those blurbs on. So for your blurbs to compete at online retailers —hone your pitch craft!

Post ask for feedback on your social media, or join an author discord (like my Writers and Authors) and ask for it there. You’ll find my best advice for writing an engaging blurb in this post.

Cover Artist

If hiring a cover artist, check the contract to see if you own the art, and if you need to pay the artist fees for using the art in your merchandise, on your website and in any promotional graphics you make. If you’re unsure which of multiple pieces of concept art to use for the final cover, try posting a poll on social media and or consulting your newsletter subscribers. In considering cover artists, you may also like to ask how they work, and how much your cover design can change within the negotiated price.

For example, my cover artist GlintofMischief and I built a set of Pinterest pins as well as discussing my cover (in 2022, before Pinterest was overrun by gen ai), and I reviewed multiple concept sketches before we chose (and modified) the published cover. I also chose my fonts, and designed the glyphs on the Ruarnon Trilogy Covers.

I suggest seeking a cover artist by asking fellow indie authors, though alas the phrase ‘cover art’ on Bsky tends to attract bots/ gen ai/ scammers. Try wording it creatively to thwart bots if you post publicly, or just ask on Discord, where admins like myself work hard to boot bots the moment they enter a server.

6. Choose Your Distributer(s)

2026 Edit: Do You Sell On Amazon?

I know. Not too long ago the idea of being an indie author and not having your books on Amazon was ‘unthinkable.’ And KU gets you page reads without doing anything to market your books, and most of us struggle to find time and energy to market. If Amazon’s terrible treatment of workers (in 2024 unsafe conditions, while 53% of workers experienced low-wage induced food insecurity, and yes toilet access issues in 2018) doesn’t put you off… there’s a 2026 plan to build America’s largest fossil fueled power plant -and climate change accelerator- to power their gen ai slop centre in Texas. You couldn’t find a less ethical store for trying!

Itchio Shared Marketing, Instead of KU

So I suggest adding your books to Itchio. Then you can join Itchio book bundles, and its you and 15-40+ authors marketing for together for 1-4 weeks. And when that bundle sells; all of you profit. So you’re boosting fellow indies, still getting some sales/ your book to new readers each month, and NOT giving Bezos a dime.

(Discord servers like my Writers and Authors and Bsky Social are the best place to find and enter those bundles.)

Itchio also let authors decide how much profit we keep, and how much Itchio get. I have mine set to 10% of sales for them, 90% for me (so I’m earning 20% more than is possible on Zon.)

Kobo Promos, Instead of KU

You could go direct with Canadian Amazon competitor Kobo, ask them to add the promo tab to your dashboard, then apply to have your books entered in in-house promos with a few clicks. You aren’t guaranteed to get into every promo and unlike bundles, which are virtually guaranteed to get SOME sales, you aren’t guaranteed sales. But you aren’t also guaranteed KU reads. Its still minimum effort to make your books more discoverable, and Bezos can’t profit from Kobo promos. I encourage you to think about it!

You’ll earn 70% on your sales, less below certain price points (same as Amazon), as listed on Kobo’s author royalties FAQ page.

Library Sales

Again, you could sell your books to libraries and share profits with Bezos. Or you could use Kobo Direct to distribute to Overdrive. And you could sign up to the Kobo Overdrive Promo mailing list to enter promos on the bottom of this Kobo Writing page.

If you’re in the US or Canada, you can also submit your book to the Indie Author Project, which may see it reviewed and selected by editorial boards for libraries in your state/ province.

Draft To Digital 2026 Update

The original version of this blog talked about Kindle Unlimited, or using Draft to Digital to also distribute your ebooks to other ebook stores, for a 10% fee, for having one dashboard to upload to and manage sales on many stores. D2D use Ingram Spark’s global print distribution, which I prefer to the Ingram Spark (direct) dashboard.

BUT… in 2026 D2D have introduced a $20 sign up fee. (Fair enough, UK company Bookvault, who print and distribute my paperbacks for direct sales have that too.) But they also decided that if you don’t earn $100 gross profits through your wide distribution annually, they’ll charge you an annual fee of $12 US. The problem with that fee is it applies to around 70% of (the many) indie authors I know, and it includes me too. (My Bsky thread asking people about this.)

And if you’re thinking, oh, but I could earn $100 gross profit from D2D stores! note that I don’t because D2D is around 5-10% of my author income.

So for many indie authors, D2D is no longer a way to distribute to Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Apple, Bookshop.org, Hoopla or Smashwords. Unfortunately, Smashwords is now fully merged with D2D, so you cannot go direct with Smashwords. There’s also no option to go direct with Bookshop.org or Hoopla.

Draft To Digital Alternatives

Going Direct

You can go direct with Kobo, Apple and Barnes and Noble. Though you need to give Apple a physical address -not a P.O Box. And Barnes & Noble only pay in US dollars (not great for those of us not in the US.) And for every store you go direct with, that’s another store to update front and back matter or covers with, and another store you’ll have to set up every discount sale you run on. That was the advantage of D2D; ONE dashboard to update your books and run most of your sales. (Itchio and direct sales are my only stores I can’t do that for on D2D.)

Your Own Direct Store

Why give other stores 30% profit from every ebook sale when you can claim around 90% -deductions from that being payment processor and other fees, as opposed to a store claiming a cut? Setting up my direct sales on Payhip in 2025 was fairly straight forward. As was setting up paperback printing on Bookvault and linking Bookvault to Payhip, so I can sell both ebooks and paperbacks on Payhip. Payhip emails my ebooks, and Bookvault prints my paperbacks in Australia/ US/ UK/ Canada, and arranges postage.

Yes, your own store won’t have existing customers, like other ebook stores. So link it your social media bio. Link your direct store, and then an-all stores link to every social media post about your book. Make it easy for anyone your marketing efforts reach to buy from you directly. I’m noticing people on Bsky Social are increasingly willing to do so; if you persuade them to want your book.

Other Distributors

XinXii (European, just to be confusing) seems to be the only free to play alternative to D2D. Aside from a handful of European countries (Norway being the biggest), Paypal is the only payment option for XinXii. 20 Euros in earnings is the payment threshold to get paid at. They claim 30% of your net price, and 60% for books priced under 3 euros.

Worth noting; XinXii is ebook only, not paperbacks.

Ingram Spark
As mentioned above, I found their dashboard a PAIN. But their have a good global distribution network for paperbacks, for which you will need to supply your own ISBN.
Bonus: in February 2026 they waived their paperback book set up fees.

Resource: Why Ingram Spark expanded distribution for print books is preferable to Amazon’s, including ISBN advice, by Eric V. Van Der Hope.

Non Options/ Pay to Play
Publishdrive is $100 a year (and I hear their reporting on sales is SLOW.)
StreetLib is $99 a year. (StreetLib used to have a free tier, but that seems to have been partially hidden on their website, then removed entirely for new authors when D2D introduced their annual fee.)

Both the above are annual prices, period, whereas D2D is $12 annually if you don’t earn $100 gross annually. So I don’t recommend Publishdrive or StreetLib for new indie authors.

Imprints: do you Need or Want One?

Some stores will display a publisher name. Discrimination against indie authors is reducing over time. Perhaps people realise that there are far more stories available than literary agents to represent them, or that just because a publisher can’t make enough $ for a book to be worth their time, doesn’t mean it isn’t a great book for a smaller and thus not so profitable audience.

You could list your own legal name as who published your book. Or you can create a press imprint.. Mine is Faraway Fiction Press. I’ve registered it as a business name with the relevant Australian body for tax purposes and it has its own website (to reserve and link the .com domain name to my books).

Resource: For info on the benefits of having your own press, see this post by David Wogan.

ISBNs: Do you Need or Want them?

Many retailers offer a free ISBN, which can only be used for your book at that retailer. If you’re going direct to multiple retailers, this means a lot of ISBN numbers on your copyright page. Buying your own and having a single ebook, a single print and if you do audio, a single audio book ISBN per book may be simpler. (Yes, each format requires a different ISBN.)

The good news is ISBNs are free if you’re in Canada, or New Zealand. And you can buy around 10 for $80 Australian (unfortunately they’re FAR more expensive in the US.) Bowker is who to buy them from if you’re in Australia or the US. Nielsen is for the UK.

National Book Deposits & Library
Re-imbursements

Adding this section in 2026, as over 5 years I’ve self published 5 books and… only deposited one of them at my (Aussie) National library, which is a requirement in Australia. So I suggest checking if your country/ state also has that requirement. (Here’s the Aussie link for that.)

It’s also worth checking, if you do distribute to libraries, if your country has a government grant to compensate authors for our books being read in libraries. (Here’s the Aussie Lending Rights link.)

7. Extend your Author Platform

Website

I suggest setting this up after social media because imposter syndrome is real. Hopefully, having been on social media and presented as a writer for at least a few months (I was on social media over a year before I took this step), you will find it more natural to write an author bio and present yourself professionally as an author on your site. Blogs are optional and of course take more time, but they bring a lot more traffic to your site than an author name and book title no-one has heard of -if you choose topics and titles well.

If you decide to have a blog, I recommend drafting posts ahead of time. (I teach full time, so I write most blogs in the summer holidays, then edit and publish them once a month).

Resources: Author Website Set Up Tips, Unpublished Authors and Websites by Jane Friedman, 100 Unpublished Author Blog Ideas by Mixtus Media.

Once your site and social media presence are established, its a good time to think about your newsletter. If you only have time for a blog OR a newsletter, here’s a post by Jane Friedman weighing pros and cons of having only either. If you start a newsletter, you’ll need a reader magnet. A 10-20k short story, maybe the origin or background story of a central character or a subplot you had to edit out of your novel can work nicely for this.

To build your subscriber base, Bookfunnel group promos were a good option (to me in I think 2023), but in 2026 I’m hearing the prices have increased and the number of sign ups people are getting is dropping. Story Origin is a good option for swapping newsletters directly with other authors, when you’ve hit 500+ subscribers. (They have some smaller lists, but not many.)

Resources: Not sure what to say in your newsletter or where to promote it and how? I’ve blogged ideas in Author Newsletters: the Basics. See also Unpublished Author Newsletters by @LombardEmma.
In 2026, I use Email Octopus for my newsletters, who allow you to have 2,500 subscribers on their free plan (other competitors once listed here having since dipped to as low as 250 subscribers on a free plan.)

Part 2

I suspect that’s more than enough information to get you started, and possibly enough to make your head spin, so I’ll end this blog here. Part 2 is packed with ideas and resources for your book launch and initial marketing plan, author profiles, formatting and uploading your book and tips right up to launch day.

Acknowledgements

I learnt A LOT of the above from conversations with and between the following indie authors:

Cheryl Burman, Historical and SFF author.
Website
Blue Sky Social

Dreena Collins
(Jane Harvey)
Website
Bsky

Rebecca Jonesee, Romance
Goodreads

Chris Vandyke, SFF Author Website

K. W. Kenny, YA Fantasy Website
Bsky

Jay Veloso Batista, Fantasy Author.
Website

Leia Talon, Fantasy author.
Website

Chloe Alice Balkin, Speculative Romance
Website

LGBTQIA+ Life: Identifying as Nonbinary

April 3, 2022 / Elise Carlson / 2 Comments

Recognising your nonbinary gender in a binary, cis gender world is no picnic. You can’t name something the English language fails to hav relevant nouns and pronouns for, or that society fails to educate you about the existence of. So you blunder along, wondering why you don’t fit the man/ woman cookie cutters the world you are born and raised in tries to jam you into for the first thirty years of your life. It took me a few decades, but I figured things out in the end. This blog records my journey.

As a Kid, Gender didn’t matter as much

I’m a nineties kid, born and raised in Australia. Back then, their were boys and girls -that was it. In lower primary, I had two friendship groups. Girls with whom I played imaginary games. And tough boys, who, like me, were inclined to hit back when punched by random bullies in the yard. I got to wear pretty clothes and play with girly toys when I wanted. Alternately, I got to wear baggy t-shirts and shorts when I felt like it. And when I wanted to play with boys toys, my brothers were at my disposal. It was in later primary (around puberty) that I started to feel adrift.

I Don’t Quite Fit

Even before then, as young as eight, female friends had seemed closer to me than I was to them. And I didn’t quite like who I was around them. Something was off about me. Then, I changed schools and made new friends, but they were all girls. I didn’t feel like I connected to them as well as I had connected to boys. But boys saw me differently now. I was a ‘girl’ and someone they did or didn’t have a crush on. And that was it. And it was very disappointing. I had crushes as a teen, but as an asexual, friendship is infinitely more important to me than romantic relationships. I liked a boy at the time, but I didn’t actually want a boyfriend.

Early Teens

In hindsight, something that fuelled what was probably clinical levels of depression in my early teenage years (when I had a lot of non-gender related baggage to sort out), was my isolation. On one hand I was vastly more emotionally mature than most kids my age. On the other, I didn’t relate to a single kid at school when it came to gender identity.

Friendship groups were very much boys or girls in early high school. Boyfriends and dating were a thing. I had no prospect of male friendship. I related to girls even less than I had at primary school. And while I’m asexual, I could find certain boys aesthetically pleasing, or like their personality, but I always felt like they were more into me than I was into them. In hindsight, that’s because I’m also inclined towards a-romantic. So my gender neutral side was not destined to find a partner it related to, as I’ve never really wanted a romantic partner (beyond intellectual curiosity.)

Struggling to Relate

Late high school was bittersweet for me. I made some great friends, but the divide between single me and friends with boyfriends began. I knew some lovely girls in high school. But it wasn’t just the ones who had or sought boyfriends that I drifted away from. It was the more girly ones. They were lovely people, but I didn’t relate to them. They were too feminine. I did have some male friends around this time. There were a few boys who could see me not as a potential girlfriend or a ‘female’, just as a friend. I treasured them.

Boys brought out my gender neutral side. Girls generally brought out my feminine side. But when I’ve been surrounded by girls or women, with no break, I’ve felt kind of smothered. Its like those times use up all my femininity, and my gender neutrality was kind of shut in a room by itself. That was what felt off about having only female friends. That was why I couldn’t connect to girls and I haven’t been able to connect or relate to women the same way they usually connect and relate to me. Because I’m not a woman. The feminine is only half of who I am. When people only respond to my feminine side, displaying awareness of only its existence, it can feel like they only see me on the surface. Like they don’t truly know who I am.

In my Twenties, Nonbinary Clues

At Uni, there was more opportunity for female and male companionship. But I didn’t meet anyone who recognised me, or I them, as nonbinary. So who did I relate to more than 50% of the time? I often (pre-covid) travel by myself, and strike up conversations with retail assistants, people in hospitality and fellow tourists. Since joining Twitter, I’ve been very active in its WritingCommunity and created not one, but three writer Discord Servers. I’m a people loving person, whose always sensed an invisible barrier between myself and most people.

For my entire life, everyone I meet has assumed I am female. Girls and women have welcomed me as such. I have the lived experience of ‘girlhood’ and ‘womanhood’ so yes, I can relate to much of what women say. But in a conversation with multiple women, there always comes that point where the women are connecting more and more, and I’m feeling increasingly emotionally distant from them. I’m like a guest in their world. A welcome guest. On the surface, I fit in very well. But I don’t belong there.

That’s why male friendship and colleagues have always been so important to me. When men see me not as a ‘female’, nor as a potential date, just a person they can chat to and hang out with, my gender neutral side naturally engages with them. The other half of me gets to live. Its like oxygen after a bad head cold. Like pulling off too tight clothing that hinders your movements.

In the Aussie mountains, Victoria, 2023.

Gender Fluid Clues

And this is probably a good point for me to define the problem with ‘woman’ as an identity for me. Yes, I can relate to much of it. I can relate to the feminine as a feminine person. But at the end of the day, its a garment that’s too tight. It doesn’t allow me to be all I am. It masks my gender neutrality and my masculine side with make up and pretty clothes and all the cis female expectations society attaches to those.

When I told my mum I’m nonbinary, she tried to relate by saying how she enjoyed dressing up as a man at a dress up party once. When I wear a pretty dress and make up to dinner (very rarely), that’s almost the same to me as going to dinner dressed as a man. Why? Because it isn’t who I am. Yes, I do sometimes wear dresses. But I’ve donated the prettiest to charity. I like them, but I’d rather pin them to my wall and admire them. Or admire them on women. I don’t actually feel like wearing them much, because they’re not me.

I talk about ‘women’ -not me. I talk about ‘men’ -also not me. If you’ve noticed this, it shouldn’t surprise you that in my twenties I defined myself simply as, ‘I am not most people. I do not do what most people do. I cannot relate to either binary gender the way they relate to themselves, or each other.’

I know Who I Want to Be When I Grow Up!

Other kids looked to pop stars etc, and said, ‘I want to be like that when I grow up!’ I never felt that way. I saw only little bits of me in any one person, perhaps in part because they were all binary men and women. But in my early twenties, I saw much of myself in a fictional character. A sociable, people loving person. A traveler, passing through, helping out where they can: Dr Who. No, not Jodie Whitaker. David Tenant’s portrayal. And Matt Smith’s. I find Dr Who in the new seasons quite androgynous. Unbound by gender in character, behaviour, thinking and feeling. And that removes what would otherwise have been a barrier to other Dr Who traits I relate to.

Gender Fluid –Wardrobe Development

When I started teaching in 2011, I was drawn to women’s professional clothing. Its more stylish, interesting, arty or attractive. And I like elegance. So in summer, when I noticed very few smart shorts for women, I found myself in dresses five days a week. By Friday, I felt like the wind had gone out of my sails. I wasn’t quite myself. I also noticed that when I skipped my usual evening run, I felt sad. In hindsight, it wasn’t exercise I missed most. It was doing what has traditionally been a masculine activity, in gender neutral clothes, which gave my gender neutral side room to breathe.

From then onwards, I made a point of wearing gender neutral casual clothes at home, and for exercise. I reserved feminine clothing as much as practical for work. Dressing half the time in a feminine way and half the time gender neutral worked for me. That’s a nice clear point to establish that I’m not only nonbinary, I’m gender fluid. My mood, my responses, which other gender I relate to best changes not just every day, but can change throughout the day as well.

In recent years, I’ve removed the prettiest clothing in my wardrobe. I’m happiest in clothing I can be comfortable in whether I’m in a feminine or a more gender neutral mood, as that’s likely to change after I get dressed for the day. And while I can be happy in androgynous clothing for five days in a row, I’ll often wear dresses for a couple of days after that. Its all about balancing gender neutral and feminine for me.

Still Not Relating

A teacher in my twenties, its after 2011 and I still haven’t claimed ‘gender fluid’ or ‘nonbinary’ as my identity. One of many schools I’ve worked at liked Friday night drinks. It was usually a few women and a few men. Every time, we’d start off sitting and talking together. Then came that inevitable point when the women gravitated towards and chatted with one another and the men did the same. I always, usually quite literally, found myself sitting in the middle, drawn to neither. I’d sit looking from one to the other, and have to choose which to make an effort to join in with. Sometimes I’d just listen and sip my drink for twenty minutes, before saying a word. That’s unlike me. Here was more proof that I simply did not relate, connect or gravitate to a binary gender the way either gravitates towards itself.

Appropriate Labels

So when did I FINALLY find the words to name the identity I’d pretty much figured out by now? It was after Miley Cyrus identified as ‘girl’ and ‘boy.’ After a celebrity or two announced that they would like to be referred to by the personal pronoun ‘they’. In a society seeing and expecting nothing but binary male or female, words were finally finding me.

That wasn’t the end. By now, I was in my thirties. Still teaching. I’d had a lifetime of not relating to either binary gender the way they related to each other. A lifetime of being a stranger, just passing through, who meets, likes and helps people, then moves on, without fully connecting. I defined myself now as simply ‘other’. As ‘labels, boxes, societal conventions, blah, blah, blah don’t apply to me’.

In my teens, I was often labelled an ‘airhead’ because being a pretty, female-presenting, thin person was perceived as scientific proof of lack of brain cells (or so thought many a moron). I’d been labelled a ‘slut’ in my teens at times too (oh yes, despite zero dating, kissing or even hand holding and oh yeah, being asexual!) I was used to not being seen, being mislabelled (and in my teenage years, to thinking most people were idiots because they consistently failed to notice SO MANY things that were bloody obvious to me).

Gender Identity Became A Thing

Now, I was 33 and had joined Twitter’s WritingCommunity. By this time, ‘sex’ was no longer a synonymn for ‘gender’. People didn’t speak of ‘gender reassignment surgery’, like they had in the nineties. Now, I’d come more often across the word ‘trans’. I was introduced to the idea that gender identity, who a person is in their mind, their heart, their soul can differ from biological sex. I started hearing that trans men are men, and trans women are women. For the first time in my life, a fact that was self evident to me was finally visible to other people: that biological sex does not determine a person’s gender.

Twitter was the first time in my life that I was given the choice of stating my personal pronouns. Not having them dictated to me by a cis, binary gender society. Of actually telling people who I was, myself. But what the fuck words did I use?

Label & Personal Pronoun Aversion

Then there was the other problem. I’d privately concluded that when it comes to my gender, people have no fucking clue what I am. There was no point trying to tell them something they knew nothing about, using words that didn’t exist. I’d forgiven them for their ignorance and was moving on with my life.

Now the words did exist. But for thirty three years I’d never applied them to me. Since the age of fifteen, I’d had an aversion to boxes, labels or categories of any sort. After all that time resisting boxes, did I now elect to put myself into one? And having called myself simply ‘nonconformist’ in my teens, ‘other’ in my twenties and simply ‘me’ by my thirties, did I now want to give my gender a name that was foreign to me? I’d heard that ‘they’ singular was becoming a thing, but it too had had nothing to do with me for my entire life.

I totally accepted the idea of putting personal pronouns in Twitter bios. It challenged the assumption that biological sex is the sole determinant of gender. It encouraged cis people looking at a profile pic, going ‘biological male = man’, to stop, and recognise that actually, she is a trans woman. I also liked the idea of normalising personal pronouns in bios, so the onus of identifying gender isn’t just on trans people, its on everyone. Why am I not mentioning nonbinary folks here? Because the conversation I saw at that time didn’t yet include nonbinary people.

Overcoming my Label Aversion

My problem? Other people called me she/ her/ woman all my life. They were the only personal pronouns. Suddenly I had the choice to use ‘they’. I didn’t, at first. I used she/her to signal my Twitter feed was a trans friendly space. But it felt wrong. So I pulled back to ‘she’. On its own, ‘she’ wasn’t enough. ‘They’ was still alien, so for a year, I went to no pronouns. (If you’re in this boat, ‘all pronouns welcome’ or ‘pronouns any’ is a good way to indicate your account is trans friendly. I only heard of it later).

By now, its was 2020. Months of lockdown awaited me, as did unemployment when I spent lockdown in Australia and couldn’t return to teaching in New Zealand. I had time to think. To reflect. And FINALLY, I met and interacted with nobinary people on Twitter. It was a short leap to realise I’d found my people. To re-writing my author bio on this site using they/ them/ their pronouns, to try it on.

For a few weeks, I felt painfully aware of personal pronouns in general. Every pronoun in my author bio seemed to be shouting. But I kept switching my pronouns, on Discord, then Twitter. Because it felt right. It fit. And in telling people my personal pronouns aren’t just ‘she/her’, they’re ‘they/ them and their’, I felt like I was giving myself room to breath. To speak, act, dress and relate to others in a gender neutral way when I was in a gender neutral mood. To be masculine on occasion and to act feminine when I felt that. With a balance of feminine and gender neutral, in clothing, speech, actions and how I relate to other people, throughout my day and week, I’m comfortable. Happiest. Myself.

Manipulator’s War: A YA Fantasy’s Origins

March 8, 2022 / Elise Carlson / 0 Comments

My first novel began as a speculative mission seeking answers to things teenage me wanted to know. Like, if grown ups are so mature, with so much knowledge, patience ect, why do sane adults start wars? And where can I hang out with people as emotionally mature as me? And when can teenagers do shit that actually matters, instead of stereotypical, hormonal, dull, monotonous real-world crap? Where’s the action, adventure and interesting places? And how fast can you rush through them, trying to achieve how many goals? This blog explores the influences that answered these questions in my first YA Fantasy Manipulator’s War.

Narnia’s Influence

My escapism into fantasy began with Narnia, read to four-year-old me by my mum. To this day, I enjoy re-reading the books periodically, so naturally my first fantasy featured a royal heir and characters from the real world. I liked contrasting a blunt, irreverent Aussie cast with posh, British-inspired rulers, so Linh, Troy, Fiona and Michael are Australian. And while Narnia seemed a place for C.S. Lewis to revisit his childhood, teenage me was grappling with grief and trying to understand the world I lived in. So my Ruarnon Trilogy was going to be darker. It would be as uncertain and insecure as I found life (and later the pandemic). There wouldn’t be physically present gods, this would be an antheist’s reply to Narnia.

Archaeology and Realism

Teenage me knew that in kids books bad guys are bad and good guys are good and those are the lies adults tell kids, the real world being far more complicated (and hopefully less sexist and gender diverse oblivious now than it was when I was a kid).

At Uni, I studied the ancient Mediterranean World. I learned that for all the talk of nobility and what’s right and just in kids books, usually people start wars because other people have stuff, and they want it. But that was boring. A king who believed in pacifism declaring war would be much more interesting. Maybe I could have the greedy bastards wanting to seize stuff somehow twisting said ruler’s arm to make them go to war against their will? What would that take? Yes, Manipulator’s War answers this question.

As for ‘bad guys are bad and good guys are good’, wouldn’t it more interesting if the ‘hero’ and ‘villain’ had the same values, goals and desires? The same motivations? So Kyura and his traitor-filled court came to be, opposite Ruarnon and their generally more loyal court.

My external conflict would be people wanting stuff. Those people (the Zaldeans) philosophies and beliefs about the afterlife are influenced by Celtic Warrior culture. To make it interesting, they’d need to be an empire. But ’empire conquers kingdom in exponential expansion’ = boring. Rome vs. Carthage is more interesting because it could go either way. What about a war that had gone both ways, between an empire invading a colony-turned-kingdom allied to a second empire? The allied empire would need to be a sometimes selfish, unreliable ally, because undying loyalty is predictable. Enter the Timbalen Empire.

The Ancient World

As for a setting, I studied ancient Egypt at Uni, so there was every chance fashion, architecture and Tarlahn afterlife beliefs would have Egyptian influences. I particularly liked the idea of the heir becoming co-ruler with the current king, for on-the-job learning. Meanwhile, in the Zaldean Realm, the governors would be siblings of the king, the royal family’s power being more comparable to that of Persian emperors —over life and death—not weak medieval dependence on nobility for wealth and resources.

The fashions would be more androgynous than the world I’d grown up in, and Tarlahns would be more accepting of nonbinary and gender non-comforming people than say, the Romans. Pharoah Akhenaten’s style of art and fashion would influence this. Meanwhile, the Zaldean Empire would be hardcore warrior culture and generally toxic masculinity, hence the Zaldean insatiable appetite for war, wealth expansion (again, similar to the Celts, but to be fair, also the Romans).

Characters Getting Bits of Me

But what of characters? I’d have a ‘prince,’ yes. But I’m nonbinary, and I wanted to write an alternate form of ‘masculinity’. In hindsight this was a nonbinary main character using he/him and they/them pronouns. But mixed pronouns for a point of view character written in third person may do reader’s heads in, so I stuck to they/ them. To balance the patriarchy and sexism of the Zaldeans, and ‘good guy’ Tarlahns, I’d need ‘gender non-comforming’ (read kick arse and highly competent ?) women: enter Ruarnon’s best friend Lenaris and General Takanis.

What of the Aussie characters? As recently as 2020 I thought, I really should write some more diverse characters. So Michael became an Aboriginal Australian. (The Murai were always BIPOC, and never colonised or enslaved). But what of LGBTQ+ and neurodiversity? Well, my aversion to labels had, it turned out, prevented me from identifying as nonbinary. I knew I was asexual, though only later in life did I hear of a-romantic. When I did, sure enough, I realised I’d subconsciously written a nonbinary main character (Ruarnon) and subconsciously written them as asexual and aromantic, with an Aussie offsider who was also asexual and aromantic (Linh).

Diverse Characters & Creating Character Voice

So it only seemed fair to give other LGBTQIA+ identities a place as well. When I thought about it, it made a lot of sense for people loving Troy to be pan-romantic. It wouldn’t just be trauma and a lone wolf nature that introverted Michael was quiet about, he’d be queer too. And it would be wrong not have lesbians. And in this day and age I feel trans people’s humanity needs to front and centre in their representation, so both trans women in this trilogy are in loving relationships.

I decided to give the portal characters their own personalities and voices by portioning my own character traits between them and exaggerating those traits. Again, only later in life with the benefit of much reflection, can I spot that Michael got my autistic traits, while Troy embraced my ADHD ones wholeheartedly and Linh I think has a smattering of both. Fiona was the ‘normal’ character, but she’s a sweety, so I think we can forgive her.

Internal Struggles

Ruarnon would carry the weight of their people’s survival on their shoulders. They would be a bookish heir, standing in the shadow of a war hero father, defending their people. Inexperience and an introverted personality would make them struggle to persuade others to follow them. They would be quiet and thoughtful, when the people are used to loud, large leaders swinging their spears around (yep, this would not be sword and sorcery ????).

As for Linh and my portal characters, having apparently stumbled into a fantasy world by accident (it wasn’t accidental ofcourse, but only later do they learn why), uncertainty would be the bain of their existence. Restlessness, and having to choose between staying safe and never seeing loved ones back home again would propel them into danger. And through the experience none of us wanted of uncertainty during a pandemic, their challenge would mirror ours. As may the strategies they would learn to maintain perspective and to manage their mental health.

L.O.T.R, Final Fantasy & Shakespeare

I love the fellowship in Lord of the Rings, and how close knit (after Edmund sees the light) the Pevensie children are. Friendship in the face of adversity was an obvious theme to explore. But so would be manipulation, treachery for self-gain and the struggle to sustain belief in what is right in the face of overwhelming opposition. That way was likely to lead to tragedy and is how I suspect studying Macbeth, and learning that tragedy in ancient Greek stories was thought to expunge the spirit of evil thoughts, bled into Manipulator’s War and Kyura’s character arc.

Another large thread of my Ruarnon Trilogy was influenced by playing Final Fantasy, a thread of mystery. I loved the experience in those games of learning about the big baddies piece by piece, fighting their lieutenants first, then finally meeting the big baddie in a dramatic in person clash.

Cozy Mysteries Influence

I also love murder mysteries, Midsummer Murders and Poirot being among my favourites. But the standard elements of a Who Dunnit are SO familiar to readers and viewers. I wanted something less predictable, an alternative, like why is Nartzeer only sending his lieutenants abroad to fulfil his will?

But the greatest mystery I could align with my story was who is Nartzeer, what does he want, and how can everything my characters learn about him be turned up-sidedown? How can Ruarnon and allies anticipate, let alone combat an enemy whose acts of hostility make no sense to them?

That mystery, and developing my ultimate antagonist, King Nartzeer and his backstory were my favourite parts in writing this trilogy. I hope you have (or will) enjoy reading Manipulator’s War and the Ruarnon Trilogy nearly as much as I enjoyed writing them.

Why I Chose to Self Publish

January 5, 2022 / Elise Carlson / 0 Comments

Birds eye view of a market table lined with books and prospective browsing buyers. — Photo credit: Maico Pereira.

Self Publishing wasn’t the first publishing path that appealed to me. Nor were small presses. Like many writers, I figured I’d need a literary agent, because they’re the gatekeepers of middling to large publishing companies and because I didn’t know much about book marketing. Then I worked with multiple critical readers, discovered how difficult it is to know when you’ve finished editing, and figured an editorial agent would do nicely. But when I really thought about it, I was facing down all the usual querying obstacles, plus a couple of large experience-related and some personal ones. The following are the factors I weighed and measured before deciding to self publish my first trilogy.

The Early Querying Journey

It was fine at first. As anyone whose pitched an 80+ thousand word novel will tell you, writing 280 character tweet pitches is HARD. As is writing a query pitch. And a synopsis. All were challenges. I like challenges, and learning. I quickly found these things worked better when people helped each other. So I created a query letter critique group, which quickly became five Twitter DMs, each with five writers trading query letter feedback.

I made a Twitter DM for discussing querying, and another for tweet pitch critiquing and supporting each other in pitch parties (there were 3 of those at one point!) Then I consolidated query package feedback and query discussion onto a Craft & Querying Discord. I met fellow querying writers, we shared our journeys, helped each other hone our querying craft, and encouraged each other with the uphill struggle that is querying.

By the time I made my first foray into the querying trenches, I’d spent three months talking to querying writers. I was well aware I may need to send out 50 queries to get a few full requests. Later, I realised I could send out 100 queries and still get very few full requests, and no offer of an agent contract.

I saw friends write entertaining stories, with well rounded characters, querying till they ran out of agents to query (over two or three years), shelve book that book, write the next and query it. Yes, a very small minority did sign with agents and a few with a small press, but over a two year period, the vast majority didn’t.

Killer one: Time

I spent YEARS writing and more YEARS editing. I was studying full time and am still teaching full time. I’ve lived and worked overseas and generally done a lot. It doesn’t leave much time for writing.

By the time I’d pantsed a trilogy, re-written it, read up on writing craft and worked with critical readers -and completed a structural edit based on a manuscript critique- I was TIRED. It had taken 20 years for a series of novellas to become a fully drafted, near query-ready trilogy (with a second trilogy not far behind). So how did I feel about waiting years before someone else let me publish? Not very motivated.

If not for lockdowns bringing most things writing related to a grinding halt for me (yes, I queried in 2020), I’d intended to query at least 50 agents, over 6 months to an absolute maximum of two years, then move on. But the pandemic hit, lockdowns dragged on and it took me 1.5 years to query 19 agents and 14 presses. It was taking too long. I’d worked too hard, I just wanted my books published already!

Killer two: Interest

By this stage, I’d critiqued over an estimated 200 tweet pitches and probably around 50 query letters). I’d learned loads about what makes a good pitch. As much as I could from querying this particular novel, and I had a second ready. So I started pitching wip two in pitch parties and continued to hone my skills. But the issues I had with my pitches and queries now weren’t about general pitching skills. They were how best to pitch, in one case, a multi-pov, portal, epic fantasy in which writing only one pov in a query or synopsis felt like pitching a (misleading) book fragment. Compared to the first three months of query writing and critiquing, I was learning next to nothing. And because of that, I was losing interest.

Killer three: Patience and Tolerance

Here’s where my querying story differs. In my state one year teaching contracts are FAR more common than ongoing positions. So, almost every year, for 8 years, I’ve filled in the same bloody paperwork. I’ve updated the same six, single page mini essays, updated the same interview notes, and spent HOURS looking at potential jobs, schools etc. How does this relate to querying? Its a LOT like searching for agents. Do we have the same goals? The same work ethics? Will my style of teaching go well with this school/ my personality and writing style match this agent?

Querying is a numbers game, but so is continuing to have a job as a teacher. I forget how many jobs I applied for before getting my first. 50? 60? It was similar the second year and the third. By the forth (year in a row), I reached burn out after applying for 80 jobs that year alone. I went from enjoying reflecting on my teaching practice, to fed up. From hopeful and curious about where the next job was, to stressed about facing potential unemployment every year, while writing student reports, because job application season coincides with the busiest time of the teaching year.

Burnout and Swearing Time

In year four of job re-appling, I thought, fuck this shit, I want to go the Europe and travel. I calmed down, thought it through and moved to England, which has a serious shortage of teachers (understandable, given their system is brilliant at chewing teachers up and spitting us back out again). I went through agencies who found schools for me, and didn’t have to apply for as many positions.

When I returned to Australia, I applied for around 20 positions. In my eighth year of reapplying (yep, my eighth year in a supposedly professional job of proving I’m worth continuing to employ), I realised I was beyond burnt out, and past caring. I had so little interest in the reapplication process that I seriously considered leaving the profession, despite that I love and am just as passionate about teaching as I am about writing.

I didn’t leave teaching. Instead, I moved to New Zealand, where an agency asked my criteria for schools and handed my resume (yep, just a resume!) to four schools, the first offering me a job. This is when I began querying. The process of endlessly trying to make teaching application paperwork perfect, of spending countless hours researching who to send it to annually, the enormous investment over a period of weeks (usually 2 to three months) over eight years of teaching, was day one of querying for me. So my tolerance for doing the same shit over and over and getting the same results was low from the outset.

Killer Four: Marketability and Motivation

I may be wrong here. It may be that my YA Fantasy Manipulator’s War is sufficiently ‘fresh’, and ‘unique’ and ‘stand out’ enough for a literary agent and sizeable publisher to think it will sell. (Getting an honourable mention in the YA category for Pitch It may indicate so.) Maybe my writing craft and querying skills don’t do the marketable idea of my novel justice, and that’s why all 19 agents (yes, that’s not many) gave me form rejections. Maybe that’s why I had to pitch in around 15 pitch parties before getting my first (and second) literary agent like. But setting aside that YA Fantasy is very competitive, and visibility at pitch parties is almost winning the lottery in itself, my gut always said ‘prince’ (even a nonbinary one) + ‘war’ =’insufficiently original and marketable’ to appeal to a literary agent or sizeable publisher.

Yes, the right literary agent for it may exist. Yes, if I send enough queries, I may get lucky enough to one day query that agent. But in the face of waning interest for the process (a point I’ve reached with teaching twice, and overcome), with my impatience to have a book out, my intolerance of monotony and potentially endless waiting, doubt and lack of motivation tipped my scales for this trilogy well onto the side of ‘nope’.

Killer Five: the Need to Achieve

If you’re querying and plan to do so longer, I recommend also pursuing writing related things that let you experience a sense of achievement. Write a short story (and submit to anthologies!) Start your website, or a blog. Kick off your newsletter! Whatever you choose, make it something writing related you can point to and say: see? Finished! Because a novel without a literary agent or publishing contract can feel unfinished, and can make you feel like you aren’t achieving anything.

I didn’t set out to develop my author platform for this reason. Having moved back to Australia to spend lockdown with family, my personality clash with remaining indoors and extreme cabin fever made me so restless and unfocused that I couldn’t focus on wips. Building a website? Easy! Writing blogs? -perfect length! As for an author newsletter, I figured I needed to develop my voice in speaking to people as an author, and getting used to writing one would help me overcome imposter syndrome. So being me, I took on the website, blog and newsletter all at once (NB: don’t be me. Do one thing at a time -its much easier!).

Developing my author platform was fun, and engaging. It was new and novel and most importantly (as a former technophobe) it was a challenge which involved learning to do lots of new things. I was motivated and happy again, just as I’d felt when I began querying. But for me, the sense of achievement at having developed a blog, newsletter and website made me question. I wondered, why should I spend more time, effort and energy querying with (likely) no book to show for it, when with my blog and newsletter established, my next big step could be self publishing and having books to show for it?

Personality Factors

In considering which publishing path is right for you, I think personality is an important factor. The first time I considered that, I immediately thought: I’m adventurous, impatient, restless and a very sociable person. My personality is perfect fit for self publishing. My love of challenges and learning positions me well to learn to self publish, and book marketing clearly poses challenges and opportunities to learn new skills. In January 2021 I was thinking, is traditional publishing the right path for me on personality grounds alone? No. I’ll need to get lucky, because I have no desire to stick around for the numbers game of querying.

Industry Factors

What I say here is my personal -and not hugely informed impression- which is that the pandemic seemed to throw a spanner in the works of traditional publishing. I saw one agent talk at a conference where he said his agency quietly shut their doors to queries while editing with existing clients in 2020, then remained closed while putting those clients on submission in early 2021. I wondered, is this a shit time to be querying?

Then there are the issues of labour and supply shortages, (more details in this blog by Kathryn Rusch), which again make me think now is not a good time to debut in traditional publishing. In a few years, after I’ve self published my YA Fantasy trilogy? Then I’ll sniff the air, see what’s happening and maybe reconsider.

Alternatives? Small Presses?

Back in January I thought: let’s give small presses a shot. From conversations I’ve had with many people who enjoy fantasy, my YA Fantasy does have reader appeal. Perhaps a small press focused on fantasy and more willing to take a risk on a debut book than literary agents and big publishers, was a good idea. If I signed with a small publisher, I would still have an editor (and wouldn’t have to pay them out of my own pocket). I’d get to work with people with more editorial and marketing experience than myself. I assumed those conversations could be invaluable as a newbie author. And as a sociable person whose worked in close collaboration with colleagues in my varied teaching roles, I liked the idea of working with a small team to bring my book into the world.

How many presses did I query? At final count, 14. Why? Well, I was busy moving house, starting a new teaching job, then learning to teach students via video call over multiple lockdowns, which became a second big lockdown. It was exhausting, it was all consuming and 2021 wasn’t the right time for me personally to query.

The return to teaching on site was so hectic I figured I might as well throw out a final round of queries while I waited for the school year to end, and the time, headspace and energy to self publish. The summer school holidays (January) would be the best time to self publish my first book. If I didn’t do it then, I’d have to wait another YEAR to take control of when my book FINALLY became available to friends, family and colleagues I’ve been telling about it since FOREVER.

Do I Self Publish?

It would be a LOT to learn. LOTs of work. But I like learning. And challenges. I find them stimulating, interesting and energising. Everything that querying no longer is to me- self publishing is likely to be. Sure, I’ll probably make hardly any money and most likely won’t sell many books. I don’t care. I understand that you need a good back catalog to make money self publishing and that takes years, spending money and serious work. I’m prepared to tackle that. And I love teaching too much to give it up, so I’m not relying on writing to pay my bills or put a roof over my head. (I’ll be relying on teaching to pay for covers and editing very soon).

The thing that appealed to me most about self publishing, was that after two years getting my books and then query package to the best standard I could get them, self publishing is efficient. It moves fast. I could choose to make my book available in a matter of months, instead of waiting unknown years, over which I have no control, for other people to make that happen. After all the uncertainty covid brought into our lives, having the ability to make the decision to publish -and when- had more appeal to me than ever.

But what about the two years I spent honing my pitch craft and supporting other writers to hone theirs? Well, it should put me in good stead to write book blurbs, and advertising copy for my books. No skills will go to waste! (And yes, maybe I’ll query another trilogy/ series in future and have a head start in writing queries for them).

If I Self Publish, am I Quitting?

I once had this idea that I ‘wasn’t a quitter.’ The things is, we don’t always choose what’s best for us. I slogged through a job once, for as long as I could stand it. The day I handed in my resume, I could not stop smiling! I was so happy! Only then could I admit how much I hated working there!

Why did I ‘quit’? Because staying on would have meant killing myself trying to please people I believed were holding me (and everyone else) to ridiculous standards. They seemed to expect that we overwork ourselves (8am to 10pm Mon to Fri or spend all weekend working too), to the point we were under constant stress, always tired, didn’t have the energy or time to enjoy life. tI at least, was putting my mental health on the line for that stupid job.

Having had that experience with non-writing work, I don’t see choosing an alternate publishing path over querying as quitting. I tried a path for a particular trilogy. It wasn’t for me or that trilogy. Now its time to move forward on the path that lets me do just that.

Conclusion

For me, for my first trilogy, at this point in time: self publishing is the option I feel happiest and most motivated about. I can’t wait to dive in! (and probably will have by the time you read this.) Will I query something else in future? I’ve also written a MG Fantasy that’s high concept, and I feel is much more marketable. It will take time to hone its pitches (the one thing I haven’t done is paid critiques or querying workshops- which I would like to attend).

But in a couple of years, having brought closure on a trilogy I’ve worked on and off for over twenty years by self publishing it, and finished editing the SciFi-Fantasy series I’ve worked on, and off, for the same length of time, maybe I’ll query again. [2026 thoughts, now I’m diagnosed with ADHD and a chronic illness; fuck no! I may pitch that MG Fantasy in one or two Bsky parties for kicks, then self publishing baby!]

Choosing Your Publishing Path

If you’re debating publishing paths, I suggest talking to other writers. Find out which personality factors, motivations, experiences and book goals led (or are leading them) to a particular path. Consider which of those factors do or don’t apply to your personality, skill set, lifestyle, book and goals, and to what extent. When you weigh everything up, which publishing path do you feel will best meet your needs? Your books needs? Is it one path for now, different paths for different books, or do you lean strongly to a single publishing path for everything?

2023 Addendum

It’s been two years. book #1 and #2 are out in the wild, and book #3 (War in Sorcery’s Shadow) is set to join them in April 2024. Since going indie, I’ve seen a lot of anecdotal evidence of marginalised authors being gate-keeped out of traditional publishing. I’ve heard of the Great Resignation hitting editors at major publishing houses and seen literary agents posting about taking on a third job because agenting and their second job isn’t earning enough to pay their bills. The latter two seem to mean that manuscripts need to be close to publishable standard at the time of querying, requiring less input than in previous years from agents and editors alike.

Yes, a few more of my friends have signed with literary agents over the past two years. For the rest, it still seems an exceptionally competitive, soul destroying time to be querying, and traditional publishing still seems to be in a state of crisis, or at least a huge mess. With the death of Twitter seeing pitch parties suspended, post-poned or leaving the platform, even my idea of pitching my more marketable MG contemporary fantasy has little appeal. [2026 update: those pitch parties are mostly moved to, even resurrected on Bsky.]

Having heard mostly very bad news about the state of traditional publishing since before the pandemic, this queer, neurodiverse author currently feels that the best publishing path for their future books is indie. I’m now planning to self publish my middle grade Fantasy and SciFi-Fantasy series, then review the state of trad publishing again in 2027/28, when I hope to begin writing a new series (I suspect I’ll be fully committed to staying indie by then, but never say never.) [2026 me would like to note that 2021 one me was correct about that last.]

Querying Your First Novel

December 5, 2021 / Elise Carlson / 0 Comments

Congratulations on finishing your novel! Savour the moment, then buckle up. There’s a whole new skill set to learn, resources to peruse and critique partners to work with, on your query and synopsis craft. To help you with this, and on the challenging and honestly, often discouraging querying journey, I’ll also delve into networking with querying writers for mutual support (you’ll need this!).

Crafting a Query Letter: Suggested Steps

Research: the Content of Query Letters

If you google ‘what should I put in my query letter’ you’ll get a list like:

-Greet the agent/ publisher by name

-write a hook for your book

-pitch your book in 2-3 paragraphs and around 300 words

-include two comparison titles which give an idea of the tone and style of your novel (within its genre and audience range, published in the last 1-5 years)

-write a short bio, including your day job and publishing credits (if applicable)

-thank the agent/ editor for their time

Research: How to Write Effective Queries

Query letter ingredient lists will tell you what goes in a query letter, but often neglect to tell you how a query letter is written. For example, the above list says nothing about how to craft a pitch which clearly introduces your main character, your conflict and the main characters personal stakes in it. It gives no advice on crafting a query likely to entice anyone to read your opening pages. To learn how to do these things, I suggest reading detailed resources like:

Patrick Bohan’s Mad Libs Formula Blog Post (a fictional query, which uses humor to nail pitching).

Susan Dennard’s first (and annotated) successful query letter.

My detailed query letter and query pitch break down.

Then read some of the 600+ successful query letter examples in your genre linked to this spreadsheet.

Take notes on what the above resources do that you haven’t, what they do more effectively than you have so far, and any ideas they give you for revising your query.

Query Revising and Critical Feedback

This is how I write and revise queries. Whether you’re editing for the first time or are mid-revision, I hope it gives a good idea of steps you can take to avoid VERY common premature querying.

Revise query, multiple times.

2. Cross check query with notes on query letter ingredients to check you’ve included everything.

3. Read successful queries and detailed query advice blogs above (again). Make more notes on what they do well and you’re still revising.

4. Revise your query using step 3’s insights.

5. Feedback. Get writer feedback on your query. Author bias can blind you to how successfully you implement everything you’ve read. And as you know everything about your book, it can be very difficult to tell how clearly you’ve communicated your character, conflict and stakes to someone who knows nothing. As for your novel, so with your query letter and synopsis, fellow writers are your rear and sideview mirrors, helping you see your blind spots.

6. Content Revision. Revise using writer feedback (suggestions which fit your story, its tone etc). Your goal here is to get all the details that belong in a query pitch in, everything that obscures key pitch ingredients out, and to word everything clearly enough for unfamiliar readers to understand. This may take more than one round of feedback and revising.

7. Wording Revision. It’s easy to go round in circles of query pitch feedback, revise, query pitch feedback revise. BUT, I suggest once you and your readers are happy with your pitch contents, get one more round of feedback. When your pitch ideas are solid, it’s easier for other writers to suggest removing unnecessary words, rearranging your ideas for effect, or adding imagination catching details/ adjectives. Your goal this time is to polish your wording for maximum reader impact.

What Feedback Should I Discard?

Some query feedback might be, ‘but what about’ and ask you to explain EVERY thing your query mentions (or alludes to). In your query, it’s unimportant whether the murder victim was found inside, or outside, or on which day of the week. The ONLY thing that matters is the victim was found at your MC’s house, because that’s the inciting event which gives your MC personal stakes and pushes them into the conflict. The ins and outs don’t matter and are details which can overload the reader, and obscure your character, conflict and stakes.

As with beta readers, its handy to get feedback from multiple people. Do multiple people flag the same points as needing editing? Or does one get hung up on things you don’t think matter -and no one else seems to think they matter? And while feedback will aim to make your pitch sound great, does it represent your story and tone well enough? Or is that great suggestion open to misinterpretation, and potentially selling a story other than the one you wrote?

Query Readiness Checklist

According to you and writers who gave you feedback, does your query pitch clearly:

State your conflict, MC’s role in it and your MC’s (and world’s) stakes?

Include details which make your characters motives/ goals/ conflict/ stakes unique (eg. the MC is the only one without special powers)?

Evoke the tone/ style of your novel?

Is it around the 300 word mark?
(SFF may have good reasons for being nearer 400, but if you have only one point of view character and one main conflict, a 500 word query letter probably has details it doesn’t need, which can weaken your pitch.)

Do the writers who gave you feedback think its ready?
Yes, some feedback will be subjective and not a sign of unreadiness. No, not everyone will realise when they are or aren’t being objective, including you and all of your critical readers. This is where it gets messy, and having multiple people’s feedback agree can help you make decisions about what to edit and overall readiness.

A word of warning, “That sounds great to me, I don’t have any(more) suggestions,” may not mean your query is agent-ready. It may just mean that person hasn’t read enough successful queries, or spent enough time revising their own, or had enough experience critiquing pitches to identify and suggest possible improvements. So when using feedback to help you decide whether your query is ready, consider whether feedback from multiple writers agrees, AND how much pitch critiquing experience the people giving it have. If you know someone whose quite experienced with pitching and they can’t see any objective holes/ weak points -that’s a good sign of readiness.

Querying Resources, written on envelop with wax seal.

Realistic Expectations

Premature Querying

Querying writers I know have tended to either confidently begin premature querying, or not know when to stop editing and begin querying (or do both in that order.) So how can you judge querying readiness?

After each major edit, did you shelve the book and query long enough that when you returned, you clearly, instantly spotted multiple areas for improvement? (For me, this is a good indicator of whether I still have the ability to view my work objectively, or have edited it too many times and lost perspective).
Acting on the Best Feedback. Yes, as the person most invested in your book, you know it best and will spend the most time evaluating its and it’s pitches readiness. But don’t undervalue critical feedback just because it surprises you. Keep an open mind when considering critical reader feedback to act on. If you’re unsure, try it out. If it doesn’t work, you can be confident you’ve edited based on the best feedback you have and made your book and query the best you can.
Do you think you AND and a second round of readers think you addressed the areas of development/ clarity your first critical readers raised?
As a pantser, for me this step is crucial. My latest wip has been through three rounds of feedback, the first and second compensating for my tendency to underwrite, the third to forth targeting specific critical reader feedback and elaborating on ideas that gave me.
If after 2+ rounds of critical reader feedback and editing, all you are doing is taking a word out here, substituting that word and generally making minor changes, then it sounds like you’ve done the best you can alone, with feedback. It’s time to let go, and send out your first round of queries!

The First Query Round

Querying in rounds is popular among Twitter’s #WritingCommunity. While those 5-10 queries are out, you’re taking a break from editing your query, hopefully talking to other querying writers, and perhaps pitching in pitch parties. This gives you more time to learn about querying and pitch craft, and to distance yourself from your query. After getting 5-20 form rejections -variations on ‘thanks, but no thanks, my opinion is subjective, other agents may disagree, etc’, you’ll likely realise you’ve learnt some new things. You may find that your query is not so ready as you had thought (many of us do to a greater or lesser extent ?).

Sending batches of queries gives you time, space, and a chance to revise, so agents you query later get a stronger version of your query. This is why I highly recommend not querying any agent you have any emotions about in the first round. Seriously, pick 10 or so agents who represent your genre and audience age, whose MSWL only vaguely relates to your manuscript (or just ticks ‘surprise me’), and query those ten agents.

“But what if one of them offers to represent me and there were others I wanted to query first?”, you ask. I’ve talked to several hundred querying writers, and do you know how many got an offer of representation on their first round of queries? Zero. Some got full requests, when querying their second, third or later novel, but they all resulted in rejection. If you can’t bare the thought of not having an agent you’re keen on in round one, pick the one you’re happiest to be rejected by, and query them.

Rejections

Time for the bad news. Expect rejections. Many of them. Expect form rejections, which will occasionally not even include your name or will spell it wrong. “Dear Author, Your book is not a good fit for my list at this time. Other agents may feel differently. Best of luck -Agent.”

You’ll see many variations of this. Some are helpful, for example, some form rejections say “the pages didn’t pull me in”. Then, you know your opening chapter, and perhaps manuscript need editing. So you can post pone sending your next round of queries until you’ve finished editing (yes, you may well need to pause querying to edit your MS. This is not unusual).

Do Rejections Signal an Issue with My Query or Pages?

Many rejections unfortunately, leave you guessing. Does my query or manuscript need more editing? Or did the agents not fall sufficiently in love with it to help me edit it to publisher submission standard? Do I need to work on my craft, or did the highly subjective (and competitive) nature of the industry mean I missed out on one of very few client vacancies at an agency?

If you keep getting short, vague form rejections, yes, your query may need editing and agents may not be reading your pages. But how many form rejections signals this?

I suggest seeing how many agents you want to query in total, then deciding after how many form rejections you want to edit your query package. That way, you’ve still got people to show your hindsight-benefitted, most polished query to. For example, if you’re only querying 60 agents, consider getting more feedback and editing at the 20 and 40 rejections marks, so you don’t get 50 rejections, THEN realise you need to fix something after most agents have rejected your query.

Personalised Rejections

These are RARE. I’ve had a form rejection from someone who requested my full manuscript. Yes, you might get personalised feedback on a query and opening pages an agent really liked, but didn’t think they had the editorial or marketing experience to take on. But don’t expect personalised feedback. Even if you get a full request, be aware that you may get not only a rejection, but a form rejection. When I first started talking to querying writers early in 2020, personalised feedback for (full or partial) requests was the norm, but unfortunately that has changed.

Why Was My Manuscript Rejected?

Reasons we’ve read about and discussed in one of my querying groups.

“The pages didn’t pull me in.”

“There wasn’t enough voice/ the voice didn’t resonate with me.”

“I don’t have the burning passion required to provide one or more sets of edit notes to prepare your novel for submission to a large publisher and to sell it.”

“I don’t feel I have the editorial experience to help you prepare this particular book for submission.”

“Don’t believe I have the knowledge/ experience or contacts to sell this particular book.”

“One of my clients has or is planning to write something similar to your book,” and existing clients come first.

I say ‘particular book’ because maybe they rep SFF and you sent them an SFF of a sub-genre or with a strong theme or element they don’t have experience with. So your book could be ‘of the genre’ an agent represents and still not the right fit.

Then there are things form rejections are too polite to mention: underdeveloped characters, underdeveloped plots, structural issues like lack of story tension and pacing, and general craft issues.

If you’ve bothered to read this post down to here, I doubt you’ve skipped enough homework to have this issue, but critical readers only have so much time to analyse your writing and communicate feedback to you, and sometimes things get missed that way. That’s another reason I like a second round of critical readers for everything -they may catch things the first round missed, or tried to tell you, but couldn’t convey clearly enough.

If there’s any chance you still harbour unrealistic querying expectations, here’s literary agent Rachelle Gardner’s list and rebuttal, covering unrealistic expectations all the way to promotion and sales.

Don’t have a ‘Dream Agent’

Bearing in mind everything I’ve said about rejections, don’t have a dream agent. As you’ll see in Jericho Writers article Having Realistic Expectations, one agent may receive several thousand queries a year and sign 2-3 authors a year. In New York, those are the odds. The chances of you getting an agent aren’t good, while the chances of being offered a contract by your dream agent are astronomical.

When researching an agent, I’d just take a cursory look at why they may be a good fit for you and your books -or why not. Then read/ view a bare minimum of details to perhaps personalise your query (if you have a relevant connection) and try not to get attached!

So the odds aren’t good and querying is a ton of work- Now What?

Find Your Querying Community!

If you’ve read the How I Got My Agent or Indie Publisher interviews on this blog, you’ll notice a common theme is how important and helpful community has been to these authors. I created a group of querying writers on Twitter in March 2020, then one on Discord in September. Sharing our experiences, advice and helpful resources we found with each other (I’ve cataloged resources here), taught me pretty much everything I needed to know about having realistic expectations. Being in querying writer groups also made participation in pitch parties an infinitely better experience.

Where Can You Meet Querying Writers?

I’d search hashtag’s like #AmQuerying or #Querying using the search function on your favourite writing community social media. If that’s Instagram, Blue Sky, Mastodon or the dead bird app, you’re likely to find individual writers posting about querying that way, and have the opportunity to interact with them.

Before & During Bsky Pitch Parties

Post to say you’re pitching, on the party hashtag. If you’d like to trade pitch feedback, say so. To get to know other pitching writers, ask them to share a pitch, mood board or other information about their novel to encourage them to interact.

If you’re happy to comment on fellow writers pitches, say so. Talking to writers by commenting on their pitches and replying to their comments on yours is a great way to get to know fellow querying writers and to make friends. If you’re not on a writer’s discord with a pitching channel, its also a great way to feel less alone in a sea of pitching writers.

But I think the best option (in addition to posting) is trying to find a Discord of pitching writers, where pitch feedback, comments on posts etc may all happen, along with conversation and company. This gives you people to ask party, agent or querying related questions of, to get help from and to cheer on and be cheered on by. Twitter DM groups (before Musk broke Twitter) was my favourite way to pitch in parties and the sole reason I pitched in so many. Other writers made it fun. I enjoyed their company and they helped motivate me when the odds would otherwise have made me give up. (Note, this is all past tense as now in 2026 I’ve self published four books, and my fifth is on its way.)

Finding Querying Writers On Discord

Originally a space for gamers to create their own forums, a lot of writers groups started on Discord in 2020. The Strictly Writing Discord Community (of which I’m co-admin) has a channel for querying discussion, one for seeking/ giving pitch feedback and one for seeking/ giving query letter and synopsis feedback. If you’d like an invite to access it, send me a message on my contact page, or reply to my posts about Discords on Blue Sky or Mastadon.

To search for other Discord servers, you can you use your social media search bar to see who’s been posting about their server, by typing ‘Discord’ and ‘#WritingCommunity’/ writers into it.

Where can I find Literary Agents?

For resources introducing you to literary agents (including warnings on finding a reliable, non-shonky one), databases to find literary agents and what they’re looking for, and advice on communicating with them, see Querying & Literary Agents in my Querying Links post.

How Long Do I Query?

This is a question to which I think every querying writer should have an answer. Sure, it would be great to sign up with a literary agent and a big publisher. But how many years and hours of your life are you prepared to invest in that process? And what if the novel you’re querying isn’t the one that will appeal to literary agents (or that publishers think will sell)? What if no-one you submit to feels the connection and burning passion required to help you edit that first novel and sell it?

If you post saying you’re thinking of giving up querying, many well meaning writers will reply encouraging you to keep it up. But some writers don’t sign a contract with a literary agent until their third, fourth or later book (or don’t get a literary agent).

So how long are you prepared to query each wip? If 100+ agents represent your genre and audience age, will you query them all? How many rejections suggests this book is not marketable (money making enough) for agents/ big publishers to take it on? 50? 100? Every agent you can find? Do you have other wips you want to query and when will it be their turn? And how long do you think you can sustain balancing querying, writing the next book, your life and wellbeing? (Burn out is real, and mental health matters!)

Things I Suggest Considering While Querying Long Term

How is my mental health?

When do I need a break from querying and how long for?

Have I fallen out of love with writing, and do I need to take time off querying to focus on writing and just enjoying the creative process again?

Do I know enough querying writers or need to extend my querying community for support?

Am I open minded to querying small presses and if so, when should I start?

Am I open minded to self publishing? Do I wish to learn more about it while querying? If I’m prepared to self publish, how much time do I want to spend querying before switching publishing paths?

If you somehow made it to the end of one of my longest blogs, well done and more importantly, I wish you well on your querying journey!

2021’s Journey -A Poem

November 7, 2021 / Elise Carlson / 0 Comments

Fantasy novels are my favourite thing to write, but I like to pen the occasional poem. It helps clear my head, and expresses feelings I can’t seem to show any other way. 2021, a poem is one of a few I’ll start sharing on my blog, and it contains a message for you, dear reader.

A road long
A journey vast
Allies fleeting
Some didn’t last

An attempt to pull together
Battling as one
Clinging to hope
Seeking the sun

We wander on
Finding our way
Seeking what works
Inviting it to stay

A myriad of strategies
Wobbles and falls
A quest for community
To weather it all

A grand race
Spanning the globe
Some reaching the summit
Others toiling bellow

Sun dappled path through Cyprus trees and palms at Footscray Park, raised stone bordered garden beds (left), grassy, sun soaked lawns (right). — A lockdown walk in Footscray, very much seeking the sun.

But many sharing
Much that they know
And handing out means
To help others follow

We all dream
Of days of light ahead
But some see only darkness
A cloud about their heads

Some begin to tire
Others cling to hope
We all question at times
And do our best to cope

Wherever you stand
In quests of the year
I wish you the tools
To withstand our fears

To navigate life’s challenges
And nurture your health
To be kind to those around you
And to care for yourself

I hope that you find
What nurtures your mind
That 2022
Be to us all
More kind

Indie Authors on Indie Authoring

October 4, 2021 / Elise Carlson / 0 Comments

I’m sure many of us have been curious about indie authoring at some point. About self publishing’s advantages and disadvantages, and its greatest challenges (broadly speaking: its marketing ?). When it comes to things like writing styles, we often talk about doing what works for you as a writer. So what may work (or not work) for you as an indie author? I talked to four indie authors to find out; Cheryl Burman, Lily Lawson, Dreena Collins and Paula Peckham.

What is it about self publishing that appeals to you the most?

The sense of control over your own destiny and relief of getting away from dependence on other people after three years in the querying trenches. I’m too old to wait for agents. Cheryl

You can usually make more money per sale and it’s quicker. Paula

I’m impatient, so when it’s ready and it’s edited I want it out. Dreena

That I am in control.
Lily

What do you feel you’re missing out on by not publishing traditionally?

Kudos and respectability. Some people won’t be very good and some will be exceptional. Some people who don’t understand publishing will think you vanity published. It’s getting people to overcome that old fashioned view of publishing and to understand. Dreena

Trad. authors get a lot of support around the launch of their book (if they’re lucky), but after those few months you’re as much on your own as if you self publish. It gives you a kick start, however, which is good.
Cheryl

What were your goals and expectations when you set out to self publish?

Dreena’s Goals

I set myself a target to write a story a week. But not about being published. After I published a first collection I realised I could publish more. I jumped straight in without knowing the ropes. I didn’t know what my publishing goals were.Dreena

How Lily Published

I had zero goals and expectations. I’ve written for a long time. I’ve had things published in anthologies no-one’s heard of. Uni put an anthology together and I decided ‘what the heck, I’ll send them some poems and a short story ’ and they published all of them. I started to talking to people about publishing and it took me well over a year to put a book together. When people say they love my stuff or give me a review I still go what?
I’ve been published in more anthologies through Uni, but I don’t necessarily believe in myself as a writer of fiction. I ended up on Twitter because I got hassled into it. I have a website and a newsletter because I got hassled into it. My whole author platform exists because I was hassled into it. I am very grateful and I feel very lucky to have people around who care enough to hassle me. Lily

Cheryl’s Publishing Path

I started writing my book secretly. I bundled it all up and sent it to Curtis Brown. They didn’t immediately offer me a contract so I thought I’d just shove it up on Amazon and let the money roll in. I’ve learnt a lot in the last few years. It takes time to learn what’s going on in the industry and how it all works. Cheryl

Paula’s Goals

Because of the sales goal number given to me by the publisher [a small press publishing one of Paula’s books], in her eyes, a successful book will sell 500 copies. I thought I could do that easy. That was not easy, I discovered with my first one to self publish. I’m realising that has to be done differently or there’s no way I’ll sell 500 copies. I’m using my experience with a publisher to learn the process I’ll have to do myself. The whole launch thing is necessary. There’s so many books coming out in a day. Paula

How have these changed over time and what changed them?

I think we’ve all just become more realistic. Get something out there, keep on learning and be thrilled when people say they love it. Cheryl [Everyone agreed].

Which aspects of indie authoring have you found most challenging?

Covers

My very first cover I after replaced after only a year. I learnt very quickly that it wasn’t right. Dreena

Covers are the bane of my life, but we have the wonderful Rue. Cheryl

They saved us. Lily

My main concern was coming up with a book cover. How to arrange the different parts, how big to make the words and pictures, which fonts to use? I have looked at books in the store to try to learn – what makes this look professional? How does it compare to the ones I’ve seen that look amateurish? I was in a panic about having to do that myself. Paula

Technology

[But there was something else pretty big Paula raised that everyone agreed with.]

There’s so much technological stuff. You have to know formatting for Amazon, how to make a video for Tik Tok. Everything has this whole learning curve behind it, and the writing portion is only this much [Paula held her finger close to her thumb] of it. The other day I had 4 tabs open on my computer. One was an excel spreadsheet to keep track of expenses. But I read an email where someone said Tik Tok is the best place to sell books now. So now I need to know how to edit videos. I was googling ‘best free program to make videos’. It was so complicated. Here’s a layer for your audio, here’s one for your video, I need to learn what all that means. I can’t even learn one new skill before the next comes up. I need to focus on my goal for the day, write it down, get that one thing done, and learn it before moving to the next one. Paula

I found things like doing my website challenging as well. David [Cheryl’s husband] is great moral and practical support but I’ve forced myself to get to grips with it all. For me it’s: what are the most important things? If you spend hours doing a video for Tik Tok, how many books is that going to sell? Everybody says the best way to sell books is to get more out there. I think it’s taking what you can personally cope with,, setting priorities 1, 2 and 3 and after that I don’t care. Cheryl
[Everyone laughed and agreed].

Confidence

I find it difficult with confidence. If someone said write about my book I’m like do I really have to do that? Lily

I kind of role play it. It’s like it’s Dreena the writer doing this bit now. With a pen name I have to put on a persona and it really helps. Dreena

Followers to Fans

I enjoy making the images, videos and all that. The danger is you can focus on that instead of the writing. I’m not trained in a techie way and I don’t even know the terminology for what I do. The difficulty for me is getting likes on Instagram where I have 12k followers but how can I turn that into book sales? Dreena

Having thousands of followers doesn’t translate into sales. Lily

A lot of people who follow you are writers. But breaking into being followed by a reading community is really hard. Dreena

They tend to go for traditionally published, big names. Cheryl

Be Your Own Fans

This could be a mindshift in ourselves. In my local writing group, we started a book club. Every few months Stacy will put up 7 or 8 books on a Facebook poll, and we’ll vote on which to read next. We buy the book, read it on our own time, and then meet as a group to discuss (via Zoom). Often, she can get the author to join us and we talk about the book and writing in general. I told her, “Stacy, stop listing all the big names for Christian writing. It’s a small pond, it’s not hard to get big. Start listing us. We’ve written books. Let’s read our own.” It’s being confident enough to say, ‘I’m an author. I’m published. Let’s read my book.” Paula

Networking

I had a good opportunity to build contacts with the local literary community by helping with a local a festival. It takes an awful lot of time to build these contacts and feel comfortable. I met a famous author through this, but I still can’t bring myself to ask them to review my book… You’ve got to build these relationships so that when you do go to a library to flog your book, they don’t just say “thank you” and put it on a shelf, they actually do think of you to give a talk or something. Cheryl

[When an organisation Paula works with wanted a volunteer to take on a role similar to Cheryl’s]. I’ll do it because it gives me the opportunity to meet people who are farther down the path than me. What behind the scenes things can I learn? ACFW does all these contests. They need people to organise the entries. I’m like “Yes, I’ll help do that.” So now I’m working everyday with people on the national board of ACFW. I don’t understand why people don’t get out there everyday and make those connections. It means that you have a claim. Paula

Some people find it horribly painful and some people don’t have the time as they work [I, Elise, silently raised my hand]. My children remind me constantly that I’m supposed to be retired. The marketing is a challenge. Cheryl

What’s worked well for you in overcoming these challenges?

I was freaked the first time I did Zoom. There’s always a part of me that goes “I’ll just run away”. It’s fine now I’m used to it. To begin with it was like, “So scared.” Lily

Practical things like having a persona in writing I found an easy way to overcome insecurities. Dreena

Moving outside your comfort zone does help. All my life I had a job I didn’t know how to do when I started it and I learnt as I went. I had a fantastic mother who told me I could do anything. When the local radio says, ‘Can you come live on air’ you’ve gotta push yourself out there and think: what’s the worst that can happen? Cheryl

Take on one thing at a time. My day with 4 tabs open? I never finished any of them. Just pick something. Learn it. Then you can move on. Paula

Critical for me has been actually engaging in the Writing Community in Twitter and meeting friends like yourselves. It has helped me so much and taught me so much. The kids laugh at me but they’ve stopped now. I think because of covid and having to learn this technology, that has helped so much as well. For me personally, one thing that’s worked really well has been building community with other writers. I also buy your books. Cheryl

My shelf is growing with books by people I know. I think that’s cool. Paula

The first time you pick up a book by someone you actually know, it’s brilliant. The fact my critique partner has published her book means almost as much to me as publishing my book. Lily

Have you found anything easy?

The blog tour I’ve just been on has been a useful tool. I’m paying this woman, she’s giving me a service and she does all the connecting with the people who read my book. I found it really helpful and it did work. Of 20 people who signed up there’s 1 who didn’t read it yet. They did what they said they would do and all I had to do was pay for it. It’s an example of not really expensive and I only had to give away 18 ebooks. The fact someone else was the pivot made it easier for me than having to call lots of bloggers. Dreena

The writing is the easy part. And it’s not all that easy. Paula

Nothing’s easy. Cheryl

Getting people to read my book and pick it to bits was quite easy for me. I just put a message on my FB book page and asked if anyone would read it for me and 6 people were like “I’ll do it.” Some read it more than once. That’s because I already had a community of people I’d known for over a year. Lily

What do you consider to be one of the most important lessons you’ve learned as an Indie?

Author Platforms

Build your platform first. If you don’t have a platform when you are ready to launch your book, there’s nobody to tell. That website where you post your newsletter or short stories you’ve written has to be there ready to use when you publish. The hard thing about doing it before you have a finished book in your hands is that you don’t feel real yet. It just feels like you’re playing. Paula

Having somewhere people can come to, to find more about you is important because it builds into the whole marketing is the key point and you have to start that way before you launch your book. Cheryl

Authenticity

Be yourself. Trying to do things the way everybody tells you to, you end up feeling like a bit of a fake. I try to do things my way, instead of going “what does an author do here”, because that isn’t me. Lily

You have to be comfortable. You have to be you. Authentic. Cheryl

Yeah. I know they’ve been doing this longer than me, but the change they’re suggesting doesn’t feel right. I’m not always going to do it that way. Paula

Formatting

The interior of the book presentation, layout and all of the tricks I really rushed in the first book. I’ve spent longer and longer with each one. I went back and reformatted everything because people are paying money. So I think the design and formatting of the interior needs to be spot on. Dreena

I looked at books and the fonts and where to put your name. Then hard copy proofs. It’s always important to see how the book will actually look. It’s the same also with the editing, grammar, punctuation, chapter headings. I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist with those things. Kobo messed up the formatting of Keepers the first time. It didn’t show the scene breaks. The only clue was no indentation in the first para. Somebody gave me a review saying I had head hopped within scenes. Horror! I put proper scene breaks in with a symbol now, not just a double space. Cheryl

Poems can be a right pain with formatting. Lily

What advice would you give to writers beginning Indie Authoring?

Writing Community

Be part of the WritingCommunity on Twitter [this blog is from 2021, before Twitter and it’s #WritingCommunity imploded] and find your people whether that’s on platforms, or geographically. Learn as much as you can from reading, webinars, asking questions. Don’t be scared to ask people for help. If you think its a stupid question, chances are there’s somebody going, “Oh I wanted to know that.”
Know your limits, what you can do and can’t do and be willing to get someone to do what you can’t do for you. I did do my cover for My Father’s Daughter, but now Rue’s re-done it, it’s a better job. It doesn’t always cost you money. Some people are willing to share things with you and help you for zero pence. Sometimes it’s you teaching people and they’re teaching you. Go your own speed and your own way. You learn at your own speed. Lily

If you want people to reach for you, then reach for other people as well. Lily

I’m in another group and there are some people who are very conspicuous by their absences. Some people have more chutzpah than others. Cheryl

Other

Find a critique group. Paula

Subscribe to Jane Friedman’s newsletter and take advantage of all the topics there. And be willing to engage with other people. Cheryl

Get a good product. Be patient and learn from others. Cheryl

I know I said take your time with formatting and all that, but at the same time don’t wait too long and doubt yourself. Don’t think it’s not a great time. The time is now. Some of that hesitation will be from a lack of confidence, but people will support you and guide you and you’ll learn from that. I would say don’t hesitate. Dreena

I think you have to be ready. Lily

But it’s good fun. I think we all do it with very little expectation of being fabulously rich, because for me anyway, it’s just what I do. I treat it almost as a job these days. It’s what I like to do. Cheryl

Tell us a bit about you, your books and where we can buy them.

Cheryl Burman

I came late to writing, inspired largely by where I live, in the beautiful Forest of Dean in the UK. Over the past few years I’ve published a children’s fantasy trilogy, a slim collection of short stories (several of them prize winning/commended) and a women’s fiction novel which is being met with positive reviews. In between getting on with two current projects, I’m much involved in my local writing scene including working with students in local schools to encourage their creative spark.

You can see all my books (including the dog’s best selling book) on my website.

To keep up with what’s going on, including in my local writing world, join my mailing list for my monthly newsletter.

You can follow Cheryl on: Blue Sky

Paula Peckham

Paula's book on a side table with coffee.

A fifth-generation Texan, Paula Peckham graduated from the University of Texas in Arlington and taught math at Burleson High School for 19 years. She divides her time between her home in Burleson and her casita in Rio Bravo, Mexico. Her debut novel, Protected, was an ACFW Genesis semi-finalist in 2020 and will be published March 2022 with Elk Lake Publishing, Inc. She also writes short stories and poems and is a member of ACFW and Unleashing the Next Chapter.
For more about Paula and her books, visit her website.

Lily Lawson

Lily Lawson is a poet and writer who has self-published two poetry collections; My Father’s Daughter and A Taste of What’s to Come. She has had poetry, short stories and creative non-fiction published in anthologies.

For more about Lily, visit her website .

You can follow Lily on: Blue Sky Social

Dreena Collins

Winged person hovering beside a flock of birds and 4 of Dreena's book covers.

Dreena Collins was born in Jersey, where she lives with two males and a dog.
She has also been listed and placed in a number of writing competitions, including the Mslexia annual awards, and the Bridport Prize. She writes earnest short fiction under her birth name, and feel-good light reads as Jane Harvey. Jane’s debut novel – The Landlord of Hummingbird House – is out now.
Her hobbies include eating spicy food, unintentionally waking at 4.30 am, and falling over.

For more about Dreena and her books, visit her website.

Critical Reader Checklist: Act 3

September 5, 2021 / Elise Carlson / 0 Comments

Blonde woman reading a book seated on a window sill with early morning sun pouring through the bow window, open behind her. — *Photo by* Yuri Efremov

Your book has covered a lot of ground to reach Act 3. Now its time for reader payoff. If you’re a writer, this critical reader checklist of questions will help you ensure Act 3 is clear and rewarding for readers. If you’re a critical reader, responding to these questions will help you provide invaluable feedback to the writer. (Missed my previous checklists? You may like to start with Chapter 1 or Act 1.)

Story Progression and Reader Engagement

Does each scene build your anticipation of the final resolution of the conflict?

Does each character realisation build towards the character’s Moment of Truth?
(Or even foreshadow their final state, particularly if the character is an antagonist with a positive arc, who changes sides at the end)?

Does the tension of Act 3 pull you in and hold you in from start to finish?

Scene Level Considerations

Do scenes give you enough time to absorb events and information, especially character deaths?

Are there thematic or scene-level elements (too many things going on) which distract you from the resolution or which make it harder to follow?

Climactic Moment

Are you with the main character, whose at the heart of the action during the climatic moment?

Or does narration flit between point of view characters scattered between conflict locations too often?

Or does the main character observe others actions too much, making this scene feel emotionally distant?

Does anything else distract you, or make you impatient for the scene to get a move on or reduce its tension?

Has the writer positioned you to scream encouragement at the main character through the climactic moment? Are you excited, thrilled or really happy when they triumph? Or shattered if they don’t?
Or did you not connect emotionally to them well enough throughout the novel to care much either way?

The Resolution

Is each aspect of the conflict, and each step of how it needs to be resolved and why clear to you?

Do particular skills or abilities of each pov and secondary character play a relevant and fulfilling role in the resolution of the conflict?

Does the resolution deliver on thematic promises, e.g. character lessons, framing key themes of the story and showing the role they play in the resolution?
Or was it mentioned that Tom needed to learn to make friends, and that subplot was forgotten? Did it play no role in the resolution, breaking that promise to you as a reader?

A Satisfying Ending?

Are you feeling satisfied by the way characters resolve their differences?

By how supporting characters being their typical self helped resolve the story problem?

Are you satisfied with how the story is wrapped up, and with the state in which you depart the story world and its characters?

If not, is this because the ending feels rushed? Or did the story stop too soon, leaving things unresolved that you wanted to know about and which would have made the ending more satisfying for you?
Or does an epic conflict leave the world in a state of devastation, instead of fast forwarding to a scene showing that the world does in fact recover?

Not the Last Book in a Series?

If this book marks the end of one stage in an epic conflict (as opposed to a stand alone novel), do you still feel there was a clear beginning, significant plot development and that it took you on a journey? Is Act 3 leaving you satisfied with the ground covered in this book?

Are you satisfied with how much characters have grown in this book, or did they feel flat or their growth stagnate at any point?

Does this book’s final state scene show which things pov characters are still grappling with, foreshadowing what their character development may involve in the next book?

Is it clear how, despite this book’s main conflict being resolved, a significant element of conflict is still out there? and are you left with some idea of who it still threatens and how?
Does this suggested continuance of conflict feel like an organic continuance of story, or like its been tacked on? Does it feel like another great instalment in a saga, or a prequel movie designed to make it producers money?

World Building Geography

August 14, 2021 / Elise Carlson / 0 Comments

If you want to build a rich world for readers to immerse themselves in, geography is your friend. By selecting specific geographical features, you can authentically shape everything from land and architecture, to transport and trade, farming to food and fashion and your characters potential jobs. This world building geography blog lists possible geographical features, ideas and prompts to help you use geography to shape the physical culture of your world, including its impact on religious beliefs.

Choosing Somewhere Different

What’s the most inspiring geographical location you can think of? Where don’t we expect to find cities, towns, homes etc?

One of my favourite locations in Final Fantasy was a ruined, underground city. Its floors split or cut off and gave way to gaping chasms. Occasional daylight beamed down from the highest points of cavern ceilings, onto fallen beams and broken off pillars. In choosing a setting, consider, what’s the most evocative place, with the strongest cultural and or technological ties to your human or other races?

If your civilisation is industrial, is it built on ledges carved from the mountainside, using water wheels or hydro to operate steampunk technology?

Or is it built on the shores of the ocean, harnessing the tide to power the city?

How does Geography Impact on architecture?

If you have jungles full of bamboo, are houses made of bamboo? Or bamboo and fabric screens?

If, like in ancient Egypt, your people have access to limestone, is there a tradition of monumental public building created from stone blocks?

And if there are lots of forests, are timber cottages with thatched roofs common?

Are roofs slanted for rain to run off with gutters and drainage pipes? Or is your city near a desert, built of mud-brick, with flat roofs and courtyards with rooms built around and shading them? Alternately, does the roof slope to the ground so the weight of snow doesn’t cause the roof to cave in, like in northern Europe?

If the climate is extremely hot, do people dig their homes into hills and under hillsides, like in Coober Pedy, Australia (yes Hobbiton too, but Coober Pedy is an actual, inhabited town). Or have extreme heat, endless war, persecution or other calamity driven your people to dig a city inside a mountainside, or connect natural caverns to inhabit them?

Geography and Defensive Architecture

Sure, lots of castles throughout history have been built on hills, and you could do that. But you could also make the geography more interesting, and the site more defensible. Put your castle on the edge of a cliff, or halfway up a mountainside. Or make it a mountain on a peninsula or an island, surrounded by water and ‘unscalable’ cliffs. Place it in a desert, underground, watered by springs and with limited passageways to enter, each defended by its own array of booby traps. Build it in a jungle with a mountain behind, two rivers becoming waterfalls flowing either side and a cliff on the forth.
Consider every kind of geographical feature which could be an obstacle -hills, mountains, cliffs, rivers, waterfalls, seas, a dense wild jungle with no roads inhabited by man eating creatures -be creative!

Freshwater, Sewage & Hygiene

A lot of cities in the real world, especially premodern ones, are located on rivers, lakes and places where there’s usually fresh water. Medieval Europe may have had wells, buckets and limited hygiene, but you can have more advanced, yet also ancient plumbing and irrigation. Think ancient Egyptian style canals to redirect water from a river to water crops. Consider using hills and fired clay pipes (or the more perilous Roman lead pipes) to plumb fresh water for bathing into homes. Have clay pipes direct waste water into sewers of fired clay, mortared Roman (or Indus Valley) brick or stone sewers under ground.

If your city (or farms) are isolated, do you have Egyptian style canals redirecting water to the fields? What about Roman style aqueducts transporting water to towns? Or are the farms based on mountain sides, on terraces through which water is piped, like East Asia?

Do you have floating cities or townships like in Vietnamese Ha Long Bay? If so, do you have waste boats or waste disposal, or is the waterway bath, washing machine, dishwasher and toilet?

Volcanic island on horizon, blue seas and black basalt rock pools in foreground, sand among them nearer foreground. — Beach off the coast north of Auckland, New Zealand, photo by me.

Does your city’s water source have to be boiled before its safe to drink or hygienic to wash in? Are your people aware of this or are water based diseases like typhoid rampant?

Do your people have a culture of bathing -immersed, standing and pouring water? Or do they have steam or sweat tents and laver sweat and dirt off their bodies? Alternately, are they unwashed barbarians (like the Georgians) with no understanding of how poor hygiene can foster all sorts of disease?

Farming

What is the farming system and how does geography influence it? Is it a dry land fed by canals, mountain terraces fed by pipes from mountain lakes, or European fields watered by the rain? If the former or latter, do people harvest one field and leave another fallow (making them prone to famine if crops fail, like in medieval Europe)? Do they have a three plot system (more likely to produce enough, or surplus grain like early modern Europe)? Or do they slash and burn the jungle, plant and harvest a certain number of crops, then let the jungle regenerate and slash and burn elsewhere (like in Indonesia)?

Waterways, Mountains, Deserts and Travel

Do you have riverine, island or coastal based cultures? If you’re writing a civilisation set between the Neolithic and the invention of steam power, shipping down rivers and along coastlines will be the fastest (non-magical) mode of transportation. Without a Roman style empire build roads everywhere, the ‘roads’ may take days to travel just a few kilometres by horse and cart -especially through muddy, rain-prone, hilly and mountainous areas. Meanwhile, if you have people traversing deserts, they either need access to semi- regular oasis to restock their freshwater, to sail around the desert or to fly. (Yes, you could have an army march across a desert, but Alexander the Great lost a lot of men to dehydration crossing the Gedrosian Desert that way ?.)

Bearing all this in mind, do you need characters to move swiftly across terrain? How might poorly maintained roads (or lack of paved or maintained dirt roads), deserts, mountains, wild forest or other geography slow people down? Can magic, sea or air travel speed things up, how much, for how many characters?

Thermal Heating

If, like the Romans, your people have discovered thermal heat, do your buildings feature tunnels and vents guiding hot air up through floors? Or if your civilisation colonises places where thermal heat is lacking, do they dig fire-pits deep bellow buildings, and channel the hot air up through pipes to floors?

How are Geography and Afterlife Beliefs Intertwined?

Inhabiting an island but lacking ocean-going ships, Celts in Ireland envisioned the afterlife as the distant, unreachable for the living Isle of the Blessed. In ancient Egypt, a short journey east or west of the Nile brought you swiftly from lush greenery and palm trees to desolate desert sands. So one of multiple Egyptian afterlife beliefs viewed the Land of the Dead as the desert beyond the western banks of the Nile, the direction of the setting sun (whom Egyptians worshipped as a god Ra/ Re).

If you have a civilisation based in the mountains, do they worship the gods of the skies? Do they have notions of a sky burial -like in Tibet- where the body is place on a mound of stones and left to the birds? Or like, the vikings, for whom boats were a treasure producing treasure through raids, do your people bury their dead in boat burials, so they can row across your River Styx in the underworld? Alternately, will they join Re in his daily voyages across the sky, and nightly voyages through the underworld?

Magic Meets Geography?

Is magic present in the air itself, in physical objects or cursed lands in your world? Are there bubbling pools of power atop mountains, or buried in the deepest caverns? Is magic guarded by ancient beings, controlled (and exploited) be a select few? Or forgotten or not properly understood until your story begins?

Is there a forest oozing and poisoned with dark magic? Are their magical curses which effect forests, crops, or wild or domestic animals? Are there areas of mutant plants and monsters effected by magical wars, curses or powerful magic gone badly wrong?

Do you have locations only accessible by magic? Have you gravity defying islands floating in the sky? Islands only reachable by crossing cursed seas or streams (like Voldemort’s horcrux in the seaside cave)? How about cities inside mountains (or atop them) surrounded by geographical barriers -solid rock, cliffs few dare to climb- reachable only by magical transportation?

Sacred Spaces

Are there spaces beyond settlements of cultural or religious significance to your people? A cave where a prophet had a revelation? Mountains believed to be inhabited by gods, angels or elves (as in Iceland). A garden of Eden? The place where Hercules performed one of his labours?

Are there locations associated with cultural or religious myths which make them sacred? For example, do local creation myths narrate the story of how goings on between the Ancestor Spirit Beings (from whom the local people are descended) shaped local geography, and the animals which inhabit it (as with Indigenous Australian myths)?

Do sacred sites have shrines? Or religious buildings -even if they’re in the wilderness?

Are sacred spaces open to the public, to only those in power or only to priests/ priestesses? Or, like among Indigenous Australians, are some sites linked to rites of passage -to becoming a man, woman or nonbinary adult- and sacred to and only to be entered by a particular gender?

Alternately, are your scared spaces known only to local people, without fences or gates? Do they have earthworks, like neolithic barrows in Britain and Europe? Or are they marked only by flowers, or trinkets -offerings to the spirit of the spring, the forest or the mountain?

Gods/ Powerful Magical Beings

Are gods/ spirits/ magical beings associated with geographical or natural elements? Do spirits flow in the streams or Ride the winds (like in the Stormlight Archives), or dwell in the trees? Are local volcanoes seen as gods? (Are they actually?) Is that forest wild because Mother Nature lives at its heart? Do the skies above those plains attract hyenas and birds of prey because the god of death dwells nearby, ensuring food for them all? Occasionally, so people glimpse objects in the clouds because a ‘divine’ being actually lives in them, receiving the occasional visitor?

How has Geography Shaped Religious/ Philosophical Beliefs?

This may sound like an odd question, so let me use ancient Egypt to explain. Along the Nile once lay the geographically largest kingdom in the world. Every Spring, snow melt brought fertile soil down from the mountains via the Nile, depositing it in Egypt and watering and enriching crops. One king ruled the length of the Nile, but beyond its banks and canals the kings built and maintained lay a vast desert. A desolate space of heat and death. A space roamed by nomadic, ‘savage’ tribes in the west.

In the north east there were other cities, ever at war with one another, falling to empire after empire for several thousand years. To the ancient Egyptians, Egypt was a land of order, blessed by the Gods. And foreigners were agents of chaos, their god being the god of chaos. These geographical realities seem to have resulted in the belief that it was the sacred duty of every Egyptian king to extend the borders of the kingdom, thus extending the sacred world order of Maat. This was a worldview, a belief about kingship and a conscious and deliberate foreign policy of expansion, all influenced by geography and its impact on human life.

So think of your own fantasy peoples. Where do they live? How easy or hard is life for them? Do they, like the Chinese emperors, believe their rulers to be sons of heaven, the sacred Middle Kingdom blessed by the Gods because of its geographical blessings? Conversely, do they live near a volcano and believe its periodic eruptions are punishment for their sins?

Ruins

Do you have majestic ruins where a combination of geography and climate change has forced people to abandon their civilisations and move on? Ancient cities left adrift -like some in Egypt- in the desert, as the waterways move, the city dries out and is buried in sand? Does an expanding polar icecap in an ice age bury your northern mountains in snow, and force people out of the mountains, seeking new lands to farm? Will the snow one day melt -during global warming- to expose their civilisation to your characters? Then, will oceans rise and flood coastal cities, and be visited by foot during low tide?

Or are oceans retreating, revealing strongholds of magic or lands of myth -does Atlantis rise again from the sea? Alternately, does an empire like Rome collapse, government becomes localised and impoverished, and great buildings are abandoned in favour of small towns? Does stone from grand monuments of the past become a quarry (like in Egypt)? Or does the empire collapse and do people move on, leaving brick temples buried by the jungle -like the Mi Son temples in Vietnam?

Geography and War

The opposite of the kingdom blessed with fertility by the gods would be kingdoms experiencing severe famine. A famine in the Russian steppe once led to a displacement of starving people. They pushed south, driving people south of them further south. Eventually, the Mediterranean Sea was overrun by displaced pirates raiding for a living (the Bible’s Philistines among them). Does a poor harvest due to people farming unforgiving landscapes, drought, or subsistence farming push populations to war because they cannot sustain themselves?

Or does the advantage of geography and greed of rulers or entire people’s fuel war? For example, in ancient times, Cyprus’ location in the Mediterranean Sea made it an excellent base for controlling sea trade. So Cyprus has experienced a great many invasions throughout its history.

Other geographic reasons for war include geographical disadvantage. If the majority of trade and the fastest transportation in your world is sea trade, a landlocked kingdom with the power to seize its own patch of coastline is going to want that coastline. Alternately, if you’re Kuwait -the West is going to want your oil. Whereas, if you’re Australia or New Zealand -England has run out of farmland and wants your land.

If you want to have realistic reasons for war (beyond the exhausted trope of ‘power corrupted whoever and made them an evil megalomaniac’), consider who has geographical resources, or controls strategically important land -mines, trade routes, farmland, forests etc. If physical objects, materials or sites are associated with magical power in your book, these may also be factors in war.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this post as much as I enjoyed writing it!

For the curious, yes, I studied archaeology at university, and that’s the very much the lens I view world building through. Its also the source of many historic references I’ve made in this article. I’ve also travelled widely. I heard that up until around fifty years ago belief in elves occupying the higher parts of the mountains was still popular in Iceland while I was in Iceland. I’ve also seen many locations I’ve referred to in this article with my own eyes. If you haven’t had the chance to travel much, I’d Google images of or search Pinterest for pictures of different geography for world building inspiration.

Further World Building Reading

Power & Conflict considers different types of power individuals and organisations may wield, be it personal, social, political, religious etc and how different power wielders may come into conflict with each other, or the general public.

Humanoid Life offers suggestions on how physical things like clothing, food, work, pastimes, family life, legal status and opportunities may differ among social classes and offers food for thought on sexual and gender diversity.

Cultures: asks probing questions about The Arts, Science, Religion and death.

Food & Fashion

Geographical Inspiration

10 Houses Built in Weird Locations, 3 min youtube video by Earth Titan.

10 More Houses Built in Weird Locations, same as above.

12 of the World’s Most Beautiful Deserts -illustrated blog by Trips to Discover.

Beautiful Forests Around the World, illustrated blog by The Active Times.

Most Beautiful Rivers of the World, illustrated blog by The Better Vacation.

Critical Reader Checklist: Act 2

July 4, 2021 / Elise Carlson / 0 Comments

Mixed race woman with long curly black hair in black velvet hat sitting cross legged on a sofa reading, with a bookshelf — *Photo by* Seven Shooter

Some writers dread the middle of a novel. Its an easy place for characters, themes, plots and subplots to get stuck, lost, or to go on unnecessary tangents. The critical reader questions in this post are designed to help reader feedback to support the writer in keeping Act 2 on track, and ensuring it gives the reader a good experience. (I developed them while working with and as a beta reader, and they have companion blogs for Chapter One and an Act 1).

Are the Characters Engaging?

Are you seeing enough character actions, and hearing enough dialogue and internal thoughts to feel tensions between characters?

Have you seen enough of character’s personalities to understand why certain characters are drawn to or inclined to be in conflict with each other?

Do you react to some character actions with ‘of course he/ she/ they did!” because you feel you are getting to know them?

Do you know any characters well enough to guess what they may do next? Does this make the story more engaging?

Is the Story Engaging?

Does each chapter end by doing at least one of the following:

-adding tension between key players?

-providing another clue in the overall mystery?

-affirming or challenging the lie the pov character believes?

-adding another complication the pov character must overcome to resolve the main conflict? Eg. the character gets something wrong and makes their own life harder.

-moved the pov character nearer to getting what they want, what they need or (if it differs from both) does each chapter take them a step closer to resolving the main story conflict?

Character Development & Plausibility

Can you follow the character’s logic as they persist in believing a lie, or begin to realise the truth?

Do you see and are you convinced by why the character still clings to the lie?

Are you convinced by how characters experiences are changing them?

Progression

Are you being shown or reminded of things you’ve already seen (especially when it seems unnecessary?) Or is each scene making you feel like the story is moving forward and drawing you on to its next stage?

If you don’t feel the story is moving, and you’re starting to lose interest -which bits aren’t appealing to you? Do you know why or what the writer could change to resolve this?

Are relationship dynamics between characters -positive or negative- being tested and changing? Or is everyone getting along perfectly? And is the supporting cast solely focused on helping the MC achieve their goal (instead of characters having their own goals? And are character relationships too idealistic and or flat?

Story Tone

Occasionally, I’ve beta read books with an Act One mixing serious themes, humour and playfulness, then in Act 2 -boom! The story turns a corner and is suddenly twice as dark or twice as violent as Act 1’s tone led me to think it would be. So are you jolted by how light or heavy, how serious or playful, how gentle or violent later chapters are, compared to earlier ones?

Story Focus

Does the story home in on particular themes, particular relationships and particular character goals?

Does it focus on too many things for you to follow or appreciate?

Or does it focus only on one or two main things, when there’s room and other things you’d like to see further developed to give you a real sense of payoff?

Connections

If the characters went to that place, or the MC was given that thing, or we know a secondary character loves x, does the middle of the story start referring back to and building on these?

Examples:

Does the secondary character’s knowledge because of an interest you’ve already read about, or skills from a hobby mentioned earlier start helping the MC tackle aspects of the story problem?

Does the location where we met key players later yield clues in solving the murder? Or is it a place about which we know family secrets are kept or where other allies are now being sought?

If there something about a character, a place, a device etc that got your interest, but hasn’t been developed and that you would like to see more of?

Action Scenes

Can you picture who is where, doing what? Or are there so many details that you lose sight of the main actions in a scene?

Are you hanging on the edge of your seat, reading short, sharp sentences which narrate at the speed the scene unfolds? Or is some of the suspense and tension killed by long winded sentences?

I’m Writing/ Have Drafted My Book, What Now?

1. Craft Knowledge

2. Start Building Your Author Platform: Social Media

3. Critical Readers

4. Editing

5. Decide on Cover Art

Creating Your Own Cover

Blurbs

Cover Artist

6. Choose Your Distributer(s)

2026 Edit: Do You Sell On Amazon?

Itchio Shared Marketing, Instead of KU

Kobo Promos, Instead of KU

Library Sales

Draft To Digital 2026 Update

Draft To Digital Alternatives

Going Direct

Your Own Direct Store

Other Distributors

Imprints: do you Need or Want One?

ISBNs: Do you Need or Want them?

National Book Deposits & Library Re-imbursements

7. Extend your Author Platform

Website

NewsLetter

Part 2

Acknowledgements

Further Reading

As a Kid, Gender didn’t matter as much

I Don’t Quite Fit

Early Teens

Struggling to Relate

In my Twenties, Nonbinary Clues

Gender Fluid Clues

I know Who I Want to Be When I Grow Up!

Gender Fluid –Wardrobe Development

Still Not Relating

Appropriate Labels

Gender Identity Became A Thing

Label & Personal Pronoun Aversion

Overcoming my Label Aversion

Related Reading

Narnia’s Influence

Archaeology and Realism

The Ancient World

Characters Getting Bits of Me

Diverse Characters & Creating Character Voice

Internal Struggles

L.O.T.R, Final Fantasy & Shakespeare

Cozy Mysteries Influence

Related Reading

The Early Querying Journey

Killer one: Time

Killer two: Interest

Killer three: Patience and Tolerance

Burnout and Swearing Time

Killer Four: Marketability and Motivation

Killer Five: the Need to Achieve

Personality Factors

Industry Factors

Alternatives? Small Presses?

Do I Self Publish?

If I Self Publish, am I Quitting?

Conclusion

Choosing Your Publishing Path

2023 Addendum

Related Reading

Publishing Paths Interviews

Crafting a Query Letter: Suggested Steps

Research: the Content of Query Letters

Research: How to Write Effective Queries

Query Revising and Critical Feedback

What Feedback Should I Discard?

Query Readiness Checklist

Realistic Expectations

Premature Querying

The First Query Round

Rejections

Do Rejections Signal an Issue with My Query or Pages?

Personalised Rejections

National Book Deposits & Library
Re-imbursements