Bear with me... (guest column by Nikki Nelson-Hicks)

This might all be horseshit

by Nikki Nelson-Hicks

Today, I hit a wall of disappointment.

Way back in October, a friend sent me info on an open submission call to an anthology that, if I were to get into, would really skyrocket my writing career.

“This is so up your alley, Nik!”

So, I wrote a story. I put everything on hold and worked on this mamajama for months and months. Sent it to friends who read it, gave me editing input, rewrote the whole goddamn thing again and again until it was finished.

And I submitted and waited. Every day, I’d check to see if my story had been accepted.

That was the perspective I used. ACCEPTED. Not, ‘Hey, has it been rejected yet?”

ACCEPTED. Putting out positive vibes into the Universe. Just like all the Motivational Posters tell me to do.

Today, I got the email: Thanks, no thanks. REJECTED, ya loser.

I swallowed my bile and went on with my day. I’m a busy bitch. I ain’t got time for none of that.

But it was still there. No matter how much I ignored it. The hurt. The shame. The OH FUCK, I SUCK.

But I went on with my day.

Until... a little voice in my head piped up, “Look at you, grinding your teeth. Why? Because of one little rejection?

Fuck those guys.

Look, let’s settle this, right now. Answer this question: What are you writing for? Why? Who are you writing for?

Because, sweetpea, here’s the real deal.

If you are writing for publication, then you need to study the market, see what sells, and write to please the Market.

If you write to tell a story that you want to share with the world…well, sweetpea, you just write what you want. Publish it. Put it in a sock drawer, fuck. It’s yours to do with as you wish.

What do you want?

If you want possible financial success, popularity, literary stardom, pursue the Marketing Path. It’s a Whore’s path, but accept it if you want. I’m not judging. You do you. Nothing is real, anyway.

If you want to have fun making up stuff and writing stories that you find challenging and might entertain a handful of friends, then pursue the Artist Path. It’s gonna suck. You’ll probably die alone, unknown. Your kids will inherit boxes and moth-eaten journals of all your stories, finished and unfinished, and probably throw the whole thing into a rubbish heap, but them’s the breaks, sweetpea.

Both paths are fine in their own way. Just, for the love of the moon above, decide where you want to walk, stop moping about one stupid story and get to work.

Damn.”

Yeah. My Guide is a tough broad.

(Originally published on Nikki's Substack.)

Joshua Fordyce: Pursuing What Molds Us

I met Joshua Fordyce recently at the Middle Georgia Literary Festival. You need to meet him too. He is a retired American Navy veteran who loves writing stories, songs, and movie scripts. He found inspiration to finish one of his hundreds of incomplete projects in the wake of his mother’s passing in 2022. Being a huge fan of both Westerns and Fantasy, he decided to merge the two genres to create Black Sleeve, his premiere book, completed in 2023. 

Tell us a bit about your most recent work.

I am currently working on Book 3 of the Arms of Malar series called Rune Sleeve. 

What are the themes and subjects you tend to revisit in your work? 

Growth through suffering. There is a tendency in today's society to say that suffering is bad, but in all honesty, our suffering is what truly molds us into who we are. 

What happened in your life that prompted you to become a writer? 

My mother passed away in February of 2022. After that, I wrote my first book. There was an article about it published here.

What inspires you to write? 

Thomas Hraynyk: Writing Is My Escape

Thomas Hraynyk is Canadian-born from Oshawa, Ontario. At forty-three, he is accomplishing a long dream of publishing his first novel. Through many obstacles over the past five years, he has persevered and worked hard to get to this point. His story goes far beyond that and is pretty darn inspiring, so you should check out his website for the rest of it. 

Tell us a bit about your most recent work.

A.M.P.D. Artificial Military Prosthetics Division Book 1, and Book 2 The Phantom Limb releases this coming March. It is a series that follows a handful of soldiers who end up with weaponized prosthetics. I have also just published a short story on Kindle called Hearts on the Apex: The Afterburn. This is a story about a young race car driver with all the skill and potential to be great. However, life happens, and everything changes, and he decides to disappear.

What are the themes and subjects you tend to revisit in your work?

I have experienced a lot of loss and hardship in my life, and my writing is my escape. It is also the way I strive to motivate and encourage others to never give up. Even though my novels are science fiction, the message is in the characters and backstories. Soldiers with weaponized prosthetics have to cope and deal with loss and PTSD, while trying to protect the world. It also looks at the debate of choice and orders.

What happened in your life that prompted you to become a writer? 

I had this Idea for A.M.P.D. years ago, and one day, after losing my job, my fiance looked at me and said, "Why don't you write that story you keep talking about all the time?" So I started writing it on my cell phone. Years later, after life and living, she passed away tragically. She died in my arms, and after a year of grieving, I said to myself, "I need to do this." I need to get this finished and published. So I made the decision to learn and do whatever it took to get it done.

Amber Hansford: It Ties Back to Music

I met Amber Hansford recently at a Middle Georgia Book Festival. She is a writer, designer, and Dragon Con track director living in Atlanta, Georgia. A former UX Director turned full-time creative, she’s currently focused on stories, strange hobbies, and sharpening her Apocalypse Skills™.

Tell us a bit about your most recent work.

My most recent work is The Veil of Takhsha, Book Two of The Emari Chronicles, an epic fantasy series inspired by pre-Islamic Persian history and mythology. The series is a quartet, and the second book leans harder into political fracture, divine silence, and the personal cost of power. While the first book establishes the world and the magic, Veil is where things start to crack and the reader sees how the darkness and rot are revealed from a different perspective.

What are the themes and subjects you tend to revisit in your work?

Looking through my work in general, both published and not, I’d say that I tend to come back to what it means to be strong, especially when it comes down to the difference between being strong for others and being strong for yourself, and what that choice costs.

What happened in your life that prompted you to become a writer?

I have always been a storyteller, ever since I was little. I have around twenty books in some state in a digital drawer that I worked on for years before I realized, at 50, that I needed to decide what I wanted to do with my writing. The Hand of Mashyana became my debut novel, published a month before my 51st birthday.

What inspires you to write?

Almost everything I write ties back to music I love. Emari started because of a few lines in a song that I couldn’t get out of my mind because of the image that it created for me. While it may not be obvious within what I write, I always have a song, or sometimes even an album, that has inspired it. There will always be a playlist, usually best played on shuffle, that will give you the vibes of what I’ve written.

What of your works has meant the most to you?

The Hand of Mashyana will always hold a special place in my heart. It was my debut, my baby. It gave me my first published book and the world I’m building this quartet in. I think there are more stories outside of this series in Emari, but this quartet is the solid foundation.

If you have any former project to do over to make it better, which one would it be, and what would you do?

I once heard an author say that you hope your first book is your worst book. I have that digital drawer of things I’d love to revisit now that I’ve gone through what I have with Emari.

What writers have influenced your style and technique?

Oh, so many… and the list does change depending on what I’m writing and where I am at the moment, but for Emari in particular, R.F. Kuang, Brandon Sanderson, V.E. Schwab, and L. Penelope were all highly influential in shaping Emari into what it is.

Where would you rank writing on the "Is it an art or it is a science continuum?" Why?

For me, it’s very hard to separate the two when it comes to writing. The art is the story, and the science is telling it well. And in that balance, you find that great book that is someone’s favorite book.

What is the most difficult part of your artistic process?

Outside of balancing a full-time job and building an author career, I’d say that it’s trusting that the work will come together before all the pieces are visible to me. I tend to see pieces of a story before I understand how every part connects, and sitting in that uncertainty can be uncomfortable, and honestly? A blocker when I first started getting serious about writing. While editing isn’t the easiest, it’s still so much easier for me than drafting.

How do your writer friends help you become a better writer? Or do they not?

I fell for the whole ‘authors work alone’ trope myself for years, but my writing, both craft and career, finally found its footing when I found my current writing group. We all met via a writing workshop, and once the workshop wrapped up, we kept meeting every week since, now for over two years. They’ve been huge for camaraderie, critique, and support.

What does literary success look like to you?

Stability. Being an author, especially an indie author, is a long game. Your backlist is your superpower, showing that you’re not just here for a little while. I only half-joke about the fact that writing is my retirement plan, given the state of everything else.

Any other upcoming projects you would like to plug?

I’m currently wrapping up work on Book 3 in the Emari Chronicles, The Embers of Tamidh (working title, may change), with a release scheduled for mid-year 2026, and I’m also working on the final book in this series to release around the end of the year 2026. After that? I have a few things that wouldn’t let go of me until I got a beat sheet together, so now it’s just a matter of choosing what comes next.

For more information, visit:

My website, amberhansford.com, includes information on upcoming events, social media links, book details, and my direct sales shop if you’d prefer to buy directly rather than through major retailers.

Anna Holloway: Don't Forget to Wave

Anna Holloway spent her teaching and administrative career of forty-six years all at one HBCU (historically black college and university). I have written about my experience, especially the early part, and I’m still in the process of learning more about black people’s experiences. Originally from the Midwest and now in the South and the mother of two interracial sons, Anna writes about her life-changing experiences as a white instructor at a black college during the time of the Vietnam War, voting reforms, and public-school integration. 

Tell us a bit about your most recent work.

Be Sure to Wave: An Interracial Family in Rural Georgia takes place 1978-92 in very rural Macon County. We experienced a gunshot in our house and a local church reacting against our three-year-old son's attending Sunday school, and we were even touched by the KKK, it appeared. But we came to like most of our neighbors, our two sons loved being in the country, and we lived seeing the wildlife. We did work and took the boys to school in Fort Valley.

What are the themes and subjects you tend to revisit in your work?

In my memoirs and many of my poems so far, I reflect on real-life differences between being a Southerner and being a Midwesterner, and this is through my lens of coming from the Midwest in 1968 to teach at Fort Valley State, where I spent my career of 46 years.

J. Brice Odom: Becoming an Older Kid

J. Brice Odom was born and raised in the great state of Georgia and now resides in the beautiful city of Macon. Since he was a young child, he has enjoyed creating stories and investigating history. He has been writing stories of all shapes and sizes since he was in elementary school. As he has gone through high school and college, and out of and back into a teaching career, that desire to create worlds of words and explore the ideas of literature and history remains undiminished. He has been telling stories since he was a young kid and intends to be telling stories as he becomes an older and older kid.  

Tell us a bit about your most recent work.

My most recent book is hard boiled detective novel called Moonlight in the Tombstones. I tried to channel the feeling of the old film noir stories like The Maltese Falcon. The detective is wearing a fedora, the dialogue is often quick and sarcastic, there is a beautiful woman who we have no clue whose side she is really on, plenty of twists and turns, and a couple good gun fights along the way! 

What are the themes and subjects you tend to revisit in your work?

I am a pretty eclectic writer in terms of genre. I have a detective novel, fantasy novel, short story collection that has various genres, a little poetry book, and a history book. Ultimately, what I like to usually say is most often I write of the fantastic, whether that is fantasy, science fiction, southern lit, or any other genre.

What hapened in your life that prompted you to become a writer? 

I can't think of a time I have not enjoyed telling stories. I remember, when I was little, my Granny typing as I told her a story about a lava monster on her typewriter, and then putting it in a little plastic page protector thing. I got to make a cover and in some ways it was my first book. But I was writing stories all through elementary. I like to describe myself as an older kid still just telling stories...and I don't think I will ever grow out of it!

Creating Religion in Your Stories

Let's talk about religion. No, not let's argue about religion or discuss the viability of religious though and action and defense. Let's talk about religion as it relates to your fiction. 

Religion can be a powerful way to say something about your characters and about the world they inhabit. It can be a vital part of your setting culturally. Or it can even be a foil against which your protagonist rebels. 

Ignore It at Your Peril, Writer (Oh Life Is Bigger)

Let's be honest. Religious affections or reactions to religious dogma are a part of life. They are part of what shapes much of the world. They are the very reason for so many of our holidays, for example and any story that revolves around a holiday should have at least a cursory understanding of it. Sadly, so little of that makes its way into a lot of fiction. Granted, this is looked at more in literary fiction than Summer beach reading, but every empty spot is a missed opportunity. 

To be fair, we're not talking about using fiction to evangelize one religion over another (unless that's your character's, well, character -- after all, it worked for Hazel Motes in Wise Blood even if it didn't make him a nice person). 

Nor are we only talking about Western or Christian religious viewpoints. The world is much, much bigger than American and European history, and we should as writers be open to exploring as much of it as we can. 

Additionally, when we talk about religious viewpoints here, let's be sure to include the viewpoint of disbelief. Although atheism or agnosticism would never be considered a religion, they are religious points of view that choose not to believe rather than believe. 

What we're really talking about here is religion as part of a character's background, what goes into the development of that protagonist, antagonist, or bit character as a person (albeit it a fictional person). Religion can be as effective as race, location, education, hobbies and interests, and goals when it comes to creating a three-dimensional character.

Also, we're going to address religion as it relates to world-building. So much of Ursula LeGuin's work couldn't exist at the same level or excellence if she had ignored the religious inclinations of the worlds her researchers visited. The same goes for Dune, and for a lot of the writing of Asimov and Bradbury and Shūsaku Endō and Margaret Atwood and Toni Morrison and Zora Neale Hurston.

But, as said earlier, so many contemporary writers avoid any mention of religion, most likely (just my opinion here) due to the bad taste the merger between religion and politics has left in the mouths of so many folks nowadays and the fear of being labeled a "religious writer" instead of a writer using religion to build characters from words. 

There are several ways to go about this, and we're going to look at each of them. 

• Religions based on real-world faiths
• Dogmatic/theological religions
• Mythological religions
• Human as God religions

 

Building My Religion (I Thought That I Heard You Laughing)

It's far more common for writers of fantasy and sci-fi to create elaborate religions than it is for writers of mystery and romance. Now, that primarily happens because of the differences between a real-world and a not-tied-to-the-real-world (except maybe only tangentally) setting. Fantasy and sci-fi writers have the freedom to explore really out-there ideas or lock their created religions into more established norms. Writers who work in something based on the real world have less freedom (at least without becoming urban fantasy or romantasy). For them, the thousands of faiths across the globe are their base for research. 

Tighten the Tension

You know that feeling when your gut constricts and your brain starts thrumming. Your heart might even pound a little. When it happens in life, it can be terrifying. When it happens in a story, it means the author did something right. The author affected you in a real, emotional, visceral way. The author made you react.

That reaction is called tension. 

And if you can do it consistently as a writer, you’ll never fail to sell your work. 

What It Isn’t

If you research this stuff on the ‘Net, you’ll often hear this topic discussed closely with the idea of suspense. Some folks might even try to tell you that tension and suspense are the same thing. 

Don’t listen to them. They’re not. 

Tension vs. Suspense

Tension is an immediate feeling of discomfort or stress. Tension is the knot that suspense can create inside you. Tension is the uncomfortable feeling you get because a situation isn’t optimal, or even something you can cope with. Tension is the tiger roaring on the plains near your camp. 

Suspense is the feeling of anxiously awaiting a future event. Suspense is the buildup or increasing tension over time. Suspense is taking those uncomfortable feelings and combining them with anticipation. Suspense is the tiger’s roar getting louder every few minutes, making you look around for when its head eventually appears at the edge of camp. 

Tension vs. Conflict

If you have an absence of conflict, you will never have tension. However, just as tension and suspense are related but not equal, the same applies to conflict. Without conflict, there may be no tension, but tension isn’t conflict. 

It grows out of conflict. 

Which conflicts? Well, all of them. You can have great tension with a person vs. nature story (2012, 28 Days Later, The Poseidon Adventure). You can create tight tension ina person vs. society story (A Clockwork Orange, The Awakening, The Crucible, Their Eyes Were Watching God). The same holds true for a person vs. person plot (The Bourne Identity, any Bond novel, Kramer vs. Kramer). Even a solid person vs. self story can keep a reader all wrenched up inside (Hamlet, Fahrenheit 451, The Old Man and the Sea). 

A well-established conflict for your characters, particularly your protagonist and antagonist, builds a solid floor from which to create tension. 

Comics Script Advice from Gail Simone

by Gail Simone

NOTE: This was originally a series of posts on Twitter (X). 

I have read a lot of first comic scripts by new writers lately.

A lot of them have very good ideas, but make basic mistakes in execution.

Here are a few bits of advice if you are just starting out writing comics, things to avoid.

Other pros welcome to add to this thread.

1/NAME YOUR CHARACTERS.

This  is annoying, and even pros do it.  If you have a character we are supposed to know, you have to name them ON PANEL, not just in script.

I read a major publisher book recently where the main characters were never called by name. 

A huge mistake.

2/TOO MUCH DIALOGUE

Almost all writers do this at times. 

But it is wearying, it is exhausting to read, and mostly it shows a lack of awareness of how to use a comics page.  There are people who do this well and a LOT who do it badly.

It's alienating. Don't do it.

3/VARY THE CAMERA ANGLE

You can't always do this, and again, sometimes it's on purpose.

But for god's sake, page after page of it, it might as well not have art at all. 

Sometimes, you write a diner scene and it's static. That's okay, but I see it in action scenes too.

4/USE ESTABLISHING SHOTS FOR GOD'S SAKE

Establishing shots give us mood and tone and a ton of essential information. Over and over I read stories where I have no idea where the characters are.

A good establishing shot also helps the artist, they don't have to draw repetition.

5/THE READER DOESN'T KNOW WHAT'S IN YOUR HEAD

Really, this shouldn't have to be said, but read your script through (or have someone else read it) as if you were coming in cold.

The stuff that you think is super cool means nothing if it's not actually on the page.

6/TAKE A SECOND DIALOG PASS

This is serious, if your dialogue feels like you're heard it before, for god's sake, take the time to rethink it.

No one is excited by dialogue they have heard before. Only surprise makes an impact.

Write, then rewrite.

7/INCLUDE YOUR ARTIST

The artist is your collaborator and partner, try to avoid what they hate drawing, and LEAVE ROOM for them to add their skills and talents.

I usually choreograph fight scenes carefully. With some artists, you just let them go, because they kill it.

8/PAY ATTENTION TO STORY VELOCITY

Stories have a speed to them. Try to vary it a bit, include a speaking scene before or after an action scene.  The emotional response from the reader is well worth it, and it stops your script from feeling one-note.

9/THAT'S IT

Other writers feel free to add on. A lot of people want to try to write comic scripts, and it used to be that companies had editors teaching basics like this.

That doesn't happen as much now.

Take your lessons where you can and use what makes sense to you!

Also, feel free to ignore what doesn't work for you. Just be sure you're right.  :)

Good luck!

Movie Reviews for Writers: If You Believe

This Hallmark-style Christmas fantasy rom-com is my new, second-fave contemporary version of the Scrooge story (not that there isn't a huge gap between it and the number-one on the list, Scrooged, with Bill Murray and Carol Kane). Susan is a book editor for a big publisher who hasn't had a hit in a long time, and she has lost her zeal not only for the job but also for the people in her life. So, instead of three ghosts, she is visited by her inner child. Little Suze appears in her apartment one particularly awful day and won't go away, determined to remind Susan about the joy that she used to derive from both people and from her work finding and presenting new authors and new books to the world. 

After that, we get a lot of Hallmark city girl meets country boy tropes, but luckily, keeping the story centered in the publishing world makes it feel more original than merely formulaic.

But first, before the movie gets into any of that, we see a younger Susan at a Thanksgiving dinner, where she and her stick-in-the-mud husband Peter bicker as she brags about a wonderful new writer she has discovered. 

Susan: Last week, I found the most extraordinary first-time writer.

Susan's Father: Sounds great.

Susan: He's beyond great --

Peter: Susan, darling, you know I hate it when you gush. William Faulkner is great. Dylan Lewis is just okay.

Susan: I thought you liked him, Peter.

Peter: I do like him. I also like Donne. It doesn't mean I think it's great.

Regardless of Peter's party-pooper vibes, Dylan becomes a best-selling author and helps cement Susan's place at work. However, the honeymoon doesn't go on forever. By the time the movie begins in the present, Susan is trying to get new pages from a very late Dylan. Not only that, but she has one author already two advances in with nothing to show for it and another writer unavailable because she's in for treatment at Betty Ford. 

Susan: Dilly. Dylan, pick up, I know you're there. We need to talk. We have now entered the realm of the ridiculous. Walter is extremely upset and I have lost what little patience I have left. I need a real date when you are going to be finished, all right? No more excuses. Call me.

All these things lead Susan to question the choices that led her to her career. She isn't dating. She isn't doing anything she used to enjoy. She has become a sort of professional recluse and shut-in, at least outside of the office. 

Movie Reviews for Writers: Snowed Under

There's something special -- at least to me -- about those screwball, over-the-top, situation-gone-from-bad-to-loony comedies of yesteryear. Snowed Under is no less effective than the classic greats. 

Alan Tanner is a playwright with a rotten case of what we call writer's block. It's so bad that his play is set to begin practice in one week, but he still doesn't have a third act. 

To that, let's add the screwball situations. 

1. He's seeing a new girl who won't leave him alone so he can write during his retreat to the country cottage.
   
   
2. His producer sends his first ex-wife to help him finish the work like she did when they were married. 
   
   
3. His second ex-wife and her lawyer are arriving to either take his back alimony or, failing that, send him to jail until he does pay it. 
   
   
4. They're about to be snowed in together. 

So, as you can predict, hijinks ensue. I won't spoil it for you, but let's just say it's not a good day for our hero, Alan Tanner. 

One of my favorite parts is when Alan tries to explain writer's block to his housekeeper, Mrs. Canterbury. 

MRS. CANTERBURY: I figured you’d be coming up again sooner or later. Nice to see somebody in the old place again.

ALAN: I thought, if I drove up here for even one night, I could crash through the wall . . .

MRS. CANTERBURY: . . . crash through the wall . . !

ALAN: Of my writer’s block. I just can’t seem to get any work done.

MRS. CANTERBURY: Mmph. If Luke used that excuse in the barn, the work’d just keep piling up, anyway!

I love this way of looking at writer's block. It's something that only creatives seem to run into. I've often heard that plumbers don't get plumbers' block. Electricians don't get electricians' block. Middle managers don't get middle managers' block. Nor do marketing consultants don't get marketing consultant's block. They either work through any "funks" or they lose paying business opportunities. 

Movie Reviews for Writers: The Norliss Tapes

I can't believe I only recently discovered this flick. 

Considering just how big a Kolchak the Night Stalker fan I am, you'd think I would have seen it way earlier. 

Oh well. 

Coming into this movie, all I knew was that it was very similar to both the Kolchak movies and the series, and that it was produced by the same guy (Dan Curtis, also of Dark Shadows fame).

David Norliss is a writer working on a book debunking supernatural events. It's a book he pitched to his publisher. It's a book he has been paid a large advance for. Only, after almost a year, not a word is written.

Sanford: Hello, David. Been a while. How's the book coming?

Norliss: Sanford, I've gotta talk to you.

Sanford: I know, you're gonna tell me it's only half-written, and we're gonna have to delay our-

Norliss: Half-written, hell. I don't have a word on paper.

Sanford: It's been almost a year.

Norliss: I know how long it's been, Sanford. But I, uh... I can't write it. I'm afraid to write it. You're not making sense.

Sanford: We gave you a sizeable advance to write a book debunking the supernatural, which was your idea not ours. And now you tell me, a year later, you haven't even started it.

Now, before you chalk David's problem up to what is typically called Writer's Block, it's not that. It's much deeper. He's not distracted. He's not "blocked." He's terrified. 

Fiction Like White Elephants: Subtext in Your Stories

Let's talk about subtext, you know, that stuff that's hidden subtly in your stories even though it never really leaves a footprint.

Dialog. How important is the stuff your characters don't say or avoid saying to each other in your work?

Terrance Layhew: Creating subtext in conversation is necessary. It immediately gives an inner world to the characters and a larger world at play. What people avoid saying directly or indirectly raises stakes, but done too much makes the story a melodrama.

Elizabeth Donald: If my characters are as close to living, breathing humans as I can make them, the things they don’t say are wildly important - just as they are for us allegedly-real people. When a married couple sits at the dinner table and says nothing but “pass the salt,” that tells us a great deal about their relationship, their thoughts and feelings, the comfort level they have reached (or not) between them. There are many times when we feel spurred to speak and do not, either for fear of social or professional consequences, adherence to behavior norms in society, or our own personal tendencies; a person who is generally conflict-avoidant may remain silent when insulted, even as they are burning to speak - or shout - on the inside. All of these should come to play in our characters, if we are to make them real. The worst thing you can do is an “As you know, Bob…” where a character explains the blatantly obvious to a person who already knows this information. A little subtlety goes a long way.

Sheela Leyh: From my own experiences, the subtext and context both matter. What is said is often just as important as what isn't said. It can and does affect your readers, as well as how your communication is received and does affect meaning.

It is important in mine as I hear dialog early in the writing process, even before the plot unfolds fully. What isn't said is often left for the reader to piece together as part of my thisness layer, as well as to help hold the reader's interest. For context, thisness is an older writing technique that helps make a place more real to a reader without jarring the reader out of the reading experience. The Oxford Writer channel on YouTube does one of the best explanations on the thisness concept that I've seen so far. By trusting the reader to fill in some gaps by leaving out only what needs to be left out, it helps build that relationship with the readers.

Jessica Nettles: Dialog: Silence is a lot like white space on a page. It gives room for the reader to breathe and feel and think thoughts about what ought to happen. With dialog it also give space for things to grow between characters. Kate and Shadow have a LOT of unspoken stuff between them. For instance, neither of them have to say, “I respect you.” They say it in the way they work. There are readers who have picked up something more between them—and maybe it’s there. Shadow certainly won’t say what he feels about Kate, mostly because he isn’t sure what to do with that feeling. He files it under respect, but he would defend her until he faded away. She sees him as her equal, which is once again, never spoken.

Kristina Gruell: Found Family and Epic Magic

Kristina Gruell's stories revolve around found family, epic magic, and overcoming the darkest times in one’s life to step into the light. 

Tell us a bit about your most recent work. 

The Dark Moon is the first book in the Night Goddess Series. It follows five characters as they face challenges in a world that has just broken. Again. 

What are the themes and subjects you tend to revisit in your work? 

Triumph after adversity and found family. 

What happened in your life that prompted you to become a writer? 

I was in a vehicle vs pedestrian accident, and I wasn’t in the vehicle. A neighbor intentionally hit me with his truck, and I ended up in a wheelchair. I started role-playing online, then eventually writing stories to deal with the pain and loss of mobility. It was one of the things that saved me, writing stories. 

A.J. Porter: At Odds with the Supernatural

A.G. Porter is an author of YA Paranormal Thrillers. She loves writing about diverse characters in the Deep South who are constantly at odds with the supernatural. When she isn't working on her next YA Paranormal book, she is pouring her heart into her poetry collection or writing her next sweeping Romance book under Amanda Guerrero-Porter. She lives in Alabama with her husband and three sons. 

Tell us a bit about your most recent work.

I am set to release a Rock Star Romance in February of 2026. And while some people may say, "another one," there will be someone else who will say, "another one, yes!" Because the best thing about troupes is that someone is going to love them. The fun thing about this one is that my FMC is a Mexican American woman from the Deep South (Alabama) who has worked really hard to overcome past trauma to become the award-winning songwriter she is. 

What are the themes and subjects you tend to revisit in your work?

I always put Mexican American or Native American characters in my work. Whether it's the FMC or the MMC, though, I do tend to write from the female perspective, considering that is how I identify. I do this because I am a mixed-Mexican American from Alabama, and I didn't see a lot of representation in media as a young reader. Even if some of my work is paranormal, the theme of racial identity is very heavily focused on in all of my books. 

Spooky Stories That Affected You

For our Halloween week writer roundtable, tell us the spookiest or creepiest book or story you've ever read and why it affected you. 

Amelia Sides: Children of Men. *Waves vaguely at our current state of affairs*

Danielle Procter Piper: It's a very short story... I wish I could recall the title or author, but it's published in a book I read long ago. Two medical students are still cleaning up their workspace after class has ended and begin a conversation about how cadavers sometimes move due to a buildup of gases in their decomposing bodies. They've even been known to sit up or fall off tables! As they finish up, they wheel their cadaver down the hall to the elevator to return to the morgue...and a power failure leaves them stuck between floors in total darkness. That's it. I think the story might be three pages long? So, anything frightening that could happen in real life scares me, while fantasy horror is just for fun. This, Misery scares me more than any other Stephen King story. It could happen. It's the difference between the news and a nightmare you had.

Seth Tucker: Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House and Matheson’s Hell House spooked me. Despite being two very different styles of haunted house stories, Jackson got to me because of the unreliable narrator, which leaves every event in question, while Matheson made you believe in a malevolent cadre of specters enjoying the torment they filed out, and then that reveal at the end. Both of them build atmosphere equally though, which I don’t see as much in more modern ghost stories.

Looking into the Abyss of 'Why Bother'

by Judy Black

I have to be honest, the past month I have been struggling. 

My mind constantly circles the 'why bother doing this?' question constantly. I wonder if I'd be better off spending my limited free time sleeping or catching up on all the TV shows I still haven't watched. I wonder if it's worth it, or if anyone would care if I stopped making things. 

Thankfully, I have a wonderful group of creative friends who worry about this too, but who also grab my shoulders and shake me while lovingly screaming 'I'd care if you stopped making things you weird little potato!' which is very reaffirming. 

But, almost every creative person I know struggles with this question. Circles this abyss and feels it start to pull them apart.

Creating things is hard in the best of times. 

Creating things when *gestures vaguely to the chaos of the world* is happening, feels impossible, like trying to bail out a boat with a cracked teacup.

But every time I think 'I'll just stop, why bother?', I can't bring myself to put down the cracked teacup. I want to create, I want to share stories, and games, and weird little ideas with all the people out there like me. Creation is a way to share pieces of ourselves with the wider world, to say 'I'm not alone, and neither are you' and it feels magical when that connection is made. 

So, to everyone else out there circling the edge of the abyss, staring into that bleakness of 'why bother?', I see you and I'll hold your hand until you can move from the edge, and you'll hold my hand when I inevitably teeter towards the edge because that is what art in all its many forms does.

It connects us when we feel like no one else understands our hearts. 

So, I guess all this rambling is just to say, why bother? Because I want all the other weirdos like me to feel a little less alone in this chaotic, scary world. 

This article originally appeared in Judy Black's email newsletter.

The Backstory Iceberg

For our new roundtable, let's talk about your characters, specifically their backstory.

How deep do you go into figuring out your MC's backstory? Your lesser characters? How do you determine how far is enough?

Jessica Nettles: It depends on the character and how much I think I need to know. Sometimes that changes as I get to know the character and learn more about them and where they fit in my world.

Sheela Leyh: I used to go very in-depth in the past to get to know everything about my main character. The lesser characters I used to do quite a bit of detail, However, I've stopped doing that as much. It's more of what is needed to move the story along while still giving it life. I noticed that when I stopped going as deep and let the story emerge unhindered that it started taking off easier for me. I let my characters talk to me and then gauge it as it comes up during the writing process.

Elizabeth Mirasol: I'm a pantser, so as I'm writing, my character shows me more of their background and I can build on it. I just start with a brief personality and image in my head and go from there.

Wade Garret: I created DnD character sheets for my MCs and some secondary.

Sean Taylor: Mine vary. I used to go a lot deeper, but the more I wrote, the more I internalized that process and didn't need to address it as a strategic part of my process. I was able to have it take shape as needed as I wrote, leaving on the major character beats as something I needed to spec out before writing.

However, when I create characters that other writers will also tackle, I create a very, very in-depth story bible because I can't afford to leave anything stone unturned (as the cliche goes) or anything to chance.

What I Learned from Dead People (Mostly)

No. This isn't a post about me whipping out a Ouija board and contacting the dead, no matter how much I love ghost and horror stories. 

It's just that the bulk of my favorite writers tend to be of the "late" variety. I'm one of the oddball readers who doesn't just call a writer a favorite only because I like their work, but instead they become a favorite more because I learn something from them. I become a better writer because I read them. They influence, nay, infect me with their work. 

That said, I'm really working hard at discovering more living writers who have something to say to me about the craft -- something that isn't just a rehash of the lessons from the already dead folks. (Sure, call me a snob. I've earned it.)

Ernest Hemingway

Papa re-taught me how to write. I totally ignored Hemingway in high school when we read "Indian Camp" and "Hills Like White Elephants," but when I discovered him again in college and tackled books like The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms, I actually paid attention. 

What I had thought was boring in high school, I later appreciated as direct, succinct, non-flowery. And I loved it. Then, when I took a class on short stories and revisited the Nick Adams stories (and Hills Like White Elephants), I realized I was seated at the foot of a master craftsman in the art of dialogue. He was the first writer I found who let people talk around the things they wanted to say instead of talk about them. 

And that is a lightbulb moment that has followed me in my writing ever since.

Zora Neale Hurston

Woman have the most important keys of all, according to Zora Neal Hurston, in her collected folk tales Men and Mules. Those are the keys to everything that drives a man to want for himself, the kitchen and the bedroom, food and sex, his belly and his, well, you know. 

Hurston never shied away from the truth of her world. Women didn't have the power they deserved. They were treated like second-class citizens, and if one was a black woman, it was closer to third-class, right behind black men. Still, she knew the power and pride and ability she owned as an African-American woman, and those things permeated her works. Their Eyes Were Watching God, even if divorced from her full body of work, shows the life of a woman who was willing to every tool at her disposal to live life on her own terms and to achieve personal freedom, even if she had to move from man to man to man to no man in order to do it. 

In short, Zora taught me about how who I am and where I am as a writer influence me. Those things make me the way I am. They contribute to my beliefs and my character and my ideals. And there's no reason to shy away from them just because I'm telling a story. Let them flow. Chase the things I believe in and trust the story to find others who believe in them too. 

Ray Bradbury

I can write whatever the hell I want. That's the lesson I learned from Ray Bradbury. 

Do I want to write a collection of science fiction stories? Then do it. Do I want to write a mosaic novel about growing up in a small town? Then do it. Or maybe a sci-fi pseudo-novel told in short stories? Go ahead. Time's a wastin'. How 'bout a horror novel? Sure. Go right ahead. 

Don't let the machine pigeonhole you. Pay no attention to the genre markers that tell you "Thou shalt not pass." The whole of the world of storytelling is your plaything. 

There are no areas of the map you can't travel to. And there's nothing the machine or the marketing department can do to stop you. 

Chris Jackson: Real People in Fantasy Worlds

As a professional sailor, writer, scientist, and life-long gamer, writing nautical and RPG tie-in fantasy came naturally for Chris.  His Scimitar Seas novels (Dragon Moon Press) won multiple gold medals from Foreword Reviews Magazine, and his Pathfinder Tales—Pirate’s Honor, Pirate’s Promise, and Pirate’s Prophecy (Paizo Publishing)—have received high praise and are fan favorites. Though he’s built a reputation writing pirate stories, his Weapon of Flesh series about a magical assassin has hit the Kindle bestseller list several times, and is now being released as an audiobook, too. Chris has also branched into other genres including horror with his novella The Deep Gate, a tie-in story for the Arkham Horror game (Fantasy Flight Games), and satirical science fiction with his Cheese Runners trilogy of novellas. His latest series—The War of Souls and Seeds of Darkness Trilogy—are being published through Falstaff Press.

Tell us a bit about your most recent work.

I recently wrapped up two trilogies nearly on the very same day. The Eternal, Book 3 of the War of Souls Trilogy, is published by Falstaff Books, a gritty, post-apocalyptic fantasy. The other, Son of War, is the third in a high fantasy trilogy, The Seeds of Darkness, set in my own world. Really satisfying!

What are the themes and subjects you tend to revisit in your work?

Personal struggle, deep emotion, quite often romantic elements, though not always, and humor. I tell my fans that I create real people in fantasy worlds (SF and Horror, too), and real people are messy, conflicted, emotional, and complicated. My own world is a “magic lite” fantasy. I have two nautical fantasy series there, the Scimitar Seas novels, and the Blood Sea Tales, but also magically augmented assassins, swords and sorcery, and dark fantasy.

What happened in your life that prompted you to become a writer? 

The answer’s kind of tropey, but running TTRPG adventures taught me storytelling. I ran a very long and involved adventure for friends in grad school, which, when it was done, had created an entire region of my current fantasy world. With the players’ permission, and my then girlfriend’s (now wife of 35 years) impetus, I wrote the adventure as a novel, which morphed into a trilogy. After you write 400K words, you can’t tell yourself you’re not a writer anymore. I took that ball and ran with it.

What inspires you to write? 

That’s a hard question to answer. People ask where I get my ideas, and I’m always like “Really?” My brain is a bit like trying to drink from a firehose on full blast. I have more ideas than I’ll ever be able to put on paper. I’m inspired by other writers, fans, games, travel, cultures, food, and even politics. I got one of my best ideas, for the Scimitar Seas novels, simply by looking up at the night sky and a thin crescent moon. I thought “that looks like a scimitar” and then “Huh… Scimitar Moon” and realized that was the title of my next book. I built an entire series over that title.

What of your works has meant the most to you?

The Weapon of Flesh series was our most successful, by far, and was life changing. Because of the success of that series, we were able to extend our sailing adventure from the planned 3-4 years to 13 years! I haven’t had a “day job” since 2009, largely thanks to that series.

If you have any former project to do over to make it better, which one would it be, and what would you do?

Another hard question. Nothing really comes to mind other than a very few anthologies I’ve taken part in that didn’t sell well or were at the behest of a manipulative “publisher.” I don’t regret writing the stories, but really should have been more “eyes open” as to the motives of the publishers. Live and learn, and always read the contract thoroughly!

What writers have influenced your style and technique?

Steven Brust (his Vlad Taltos novels) Elizabeth Moon (her Deed of Paksinarion Trilogy) and Jacqueline Carey (her Kushiel series), all for different reasons. Brust for his simplicity, Moon for her consummate storytelling and emotion, and Carey for her amazing use of the English language.

Where would you rank writing on the "Is it an art or it is a science continuum?" Why?

Art, by far, but as with every art, there is technique involved, which can be called a “science” but not in the scientific definition. As a scientist by training and education, I take exception when people call something “a science” when it’s really not. Science is hypothesis, testing, theory, experimentation, analysis of results, critiques by others, and more experimentation. Writing is simply a learned technique, like flying a plane or building a piece of woodwork. It’s beautiful when it’s done well, and artistic, but a result of practice and learning methods and using tools.

What is the most difficult part of your artistic process? 

Keeping up the momentum. There’s a chart often shown by writers of enthusiasm, it starts high, then dwindles until it’s really low, usually about three quarters of the way through a project, then increases again. At that low, I find it hard to continue each morning… but I do.

How do your writer friends help you become a better writer? Or do they not? 

If they didn’t help me become a better writer, they wouldn’t be my friends. Mostly, through enthusiasm and little things like beta reading and bouncing ideas around. They call it “networking” but it’s really just being friends. On a larger scale, I belong to the International Association of Tie-In Writers, which is an absolutely fantastic group. If you have any question about a tie-in project, there’s someone to help you who has been there.

What does literary success look like to you? 

That’s something that I don’t know if any writer can point at and say, “I’ve succeeded in my career as a writer.” It’s different for every writer. For me, it’s continuing to entertain my fans with original, meaningful, emotional stories. At this stage of my life, I’m not in this for the money, though it would be nice to have a bestseller. But I think even that success would be more of a thrill that I was reaching than many more fans, enriching their lives a tiny bit with a good story.

Any other upcoming projects you would like to plug?  

I’m working with Paizo Publishing on a new Pathfinder novel, which is still going through development stages (even though the novel is written). My very first tie-in novel was with Paizo, and I love working in that world.

For more information, visit: 

http://jaxbooks.com