writingwithfolklore

[writingwithfolklore]

How to Improve Your Writing

Writing can be done in an infinite amount of ways by an infinite amount of people in an infinite amount of styles. No, I don’t think the monkeys would have written Shakesphere. I think they eventually would have written something we’d refer to as Monkey-Sphere.

What I’m trying to say is that improving at writing is not a one-size-fits-all kind of process. There’s one important thing you need to consider if this is your goal:

What kind of writer do I want to be?

To improve at commercial fiction is going to look a whole lot different than improving at literary fiction. If you’re a bit lost here, check out my post: what kind of writer are you.

Once you have a solid idea of what kind of writer you are/you want to be, you can start focusing on the demands of your style.

Commercial Fiction

You are a writer who focuses on a snappy, engaging, fast-moving plot with fun and equally engaging characters. Think The Inheritance Games, The Maze Runner, Divergent, The Hunger Games.

To improve at writing commercial fiction, you’re going to focus on three things:

Your pacing

Your plot and its hook

Your characters

The expectations of your genre

Literary Fiction

You are a writer who focuses on beautiful language and challenging the reader, either how they think of themselves, or how they think of society (or both). You see your pieces as works of art that hold a greater meaning in society—they aren’t just entertainment. Think To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, The Secret History, Flowers for Algernon.

To improve here, you’re going to focus on these things:

Lyrical prose

Deep character development

Complex themes

Breaking from the “norm” or convention of novel writing

Understanding the world and society on a deep, educated level

Upmarket Fiction

Seen as the best of both worlds, you are a writer who has both the ear for lyrical, beautiful language and the instincts for an engaging plot and characters. Think Blood over Bright Haven, Gone Girl, The Time Traveler’s Wife, The Night Circus

You’re going to focus on these things:

Sensory/lyrical prose – vocabulary!

Character-driven plots with a sharp hook

A solid theme

Expectations of your genre

Taking these pointers, the best way to improve in your area of writing is to read in your area of writing. And read intentionally, really analyzing how other authors build their sentences, their plots, evolve their narratives, etc. Write down interesting word choices, lines you love, details about characters, themes (this is where an inspiration journal really comes in handy!)

Click on the links above to see my related posts!

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[writingwithfolklore]

Looking to get into Stephen King and I need the people's opinion

[writingwithfolklore]

This from In Writing, a collection of writers reflecting on practice, really resonated with me.

[writingwithfolklore]

What kind of writer are you?

There are about a million different ways and styles to write, and they’re all valid. But if you’re in a space in which you need to market yourself or your writing, it’s helpful to be able to put terms and descriptions to your way of writing, so here’s a handy little quiz to figure out which terms fit your writing best.

Planner vs. Pantser:

Planners plot out their works, from an outline to character development and arcs, worldbuilding, and everything in between.

Pantsers start with nothing written down, letting themselves be guided by inspiration as it strikes.

You may also be a mix. Maybe you plan out some aspects while leaving others to inspiration in the moment.

Commercial or Literary:

Commercial writers focus on engaging, fast-moving plots and equally engaging characters. Think The Inheritance Games, The Maze Runner, Divergent, The Hunger Games. They have clear genres and stick to the expectations of their genre (fantasy, mystery, etc.) and they tend to sell well.

Literary writers focus more on beautiful language and challenging the reader, usually commenting on people or society. These pieces are seen as works of art that hold a deep, important meaning in society—they say something. Think To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, The Secret History, Flowers for Algernon.

Upmarket is a mix between commercial and literary writing—with a fast paced, accessible plot and deep characterization, but also the lyrical, beautiful prose leanings of literary writing. Also known as Bookclub fiction, upmarket is considered the best of both worlds.

Target Audience:

0-8: Children’s.

              Includes board books (0-3), picture books (3-8), early reader (5-9), chapter book (6-10ish)

8-12: Middle-grade

12-18: YA

18-~29: NA

29+: Adult

Genre:

Crime: Focuses on justice, on putting right a wrong usually through puzzles, and usually against high stakes. Read more about crime here.

Fantasy: Features magical and supernatural elements. Subgenres include urban fantasy, magical realism, high fantasy, low fantasy, which all contain a different balance of realism versus ‘fantastical’ elements. Read more about fantasy here.

Horror: Intended to scare or thrill. Typically focuses around a central villain that reflects a society’s fears. Includes subgenres such as found footage, Lovecraftian, psychological, slasher, which all center down a different ‘other’ that plays the central villain. Read more about horror here.

Thriller: Takes the basics of crime/mystery and adds a deeper element of danger. Also, your protagonist may not be a traditionally trained detective, but may still have helpful knowledge to the case. Read more here.

New Adult: Characters and intended audience are a bit older, from 18-25ish. Tends to deal with issues surrounding with technically being an adult but not old enough to have the wisdom that comes with it—a ‘new’ adult, you could say. Read more here.

Romance: Focuses on relationships between characters, but can vary across many subgenres such as: commercial romance, romantasy (romance-fantasy), erotica, historical romance, LGBTQ+ romance, etc. Read more here.

Science Fiction: Surrounds real or imaginary science and technology as a core part of its plot, setting, or theme. The science, while it can be fictional, is depicted as based on real scientific principles, rather than magic. Read more here.

Speculative: An umbrella term that covers all fiction that breaks from reality—can include elements of fantasy, sci-fi, horror, etc. But remarks in some way about the future (or current nature) of society—thus, speculation. Read more here.

YA: Written for readers from 12-18. Tends to focus on challenges of youth, but can also delve into other genres (romance, fantasy, etc.) Known for being mostly written in commercial style—fast paced plots, engaging characters. Read more here.

(see my post word count matters)

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[writingwithfolklore]

“I think there’s a rich ream of horror, from The Haunting of Hill House to Ghostwatch, that delves into the idea that certain places can simply go wrong – and once these bad environments have been established and ostracised by society, they can’t be exorcised. They simply keep accruing power through the individual stories that play tragically out in their shadow.

“I mention a real-life example of that kind of bad architecture in one episode; the Pope Lick Bridge in Kentucky, a place that looks and feels so sinister that it developed its own local folklore about a goat-man who attacks people who stray too close to the edge – and which has ended up resulting in deaths as visitors peer over the side trying to get a peek at the monster.

“I find this kind of stuff fascinating, because it plays into my own paranoia about environments, and my dislike of ghost stories with explicably human antagonists. Like David says in the first episode, people aren’t frightening. Places are frightening.

“If I’m sitting alone at home on a dark and stormy night, and I glance nervously up towards the bedroom doorway, my fear is not that my house is being haunted by a spirit called Mabel who died in the 19th century at the age of fourteen and is constantly seeking her favourite teddy bear… because all of these details both humanise her and make her ridiculous.

“My fear is that there will be something standing in the doorway, because the doorway is where things come to stand.

“Because unoccupied spaces, in our imaginations, must find something to fill them.”

— from “The Saturday Interview: ‘I Am in Eskew’ podcast”

[writingwithfolklore]

Start an Inspiration Journal

If you’re facing the blank page day in day out without any other source, you’re truly making this whole writing thing much harder on yourself. I would know, I was you up until like a week ago.

I’ve been thinking a lot on wanting to improve my writing and that my manuscript is just not quite hitting the mark for what I want it to sound like yet. So, I needed a place to gather lines and passages and books that were hitting that mark. Stuff that I wanted my own writing to sound like one day. A place where I could really unpack it, pick it apart, and see how it ticked.

But there’s another category of stuff I wanted to track—the stuff that makes me feel inspired to write. Whether it’s a movie, a photo, an article, a blog post, or even something random like a smell or a taste or a concept, having a place to go when I should be writing but can’t seem to muster up the courage to do it, I thought would be helpful.

Lastly, I added one more piece to my document—a place to keep all the positive feedback and comments I have ever received on my work. A place specifically for when I’m in the dumps and need a pick me up.

Thus, my inspiration journal was born.

Depending on what I need, I go to a certain section before I start writing anything. Even if it’s just a reminder of the kind of tone or rhythm I’m going for when I’m writing, a quick look sets my brain in the right mode to achieve what I’m trying to.

I think I’ll also start adding all my unrelated, random ideas to the journal as well. One day, when I’m finished with what I’m working on now, I might use it to jump into a new project.

Lastly, I think it’s really helpful to start every writing session with a warm-up of some kind. Even if it’s a few sentences, getting those vibes in your head down onto the page before you start working on your manuscript helps the words come a lot easier.

All this to say is that writing is an art, it’s a practice, it isn’t something you can just conjure at the ends of your fingertips from nothing. Don’t try doing it with your hands tied behind your back and blindfolded, you can use sources and inspiration and practice rounds to get going.

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[writingwithfolklore]

Hello 👋 are you an author if so please how did you promote your books online

Hello!

I am a writer, not a (published) author yet :,) I'm still trying. I do have a background in marketing and communications though, so here's my 2 cents!

How to Market a Book

Know your audience

You can spend all day (and all your efforts) posting and creating content, but unless you're posting the right things in the right places, it'll be a wasted effort. You should only focus on posting content that will reach the people who would want to read your book.

So take your genre/age range/themes of your book and try to connect them with an ideal reader. Your audience might look like "girls aged 12-15 who like dark magic, are fans of Maggie Stiefvater, and identify with a warm climate" for example. This gives you a start on where to reach these people.

1.5 Research your audience

When you come up with an audience you believe would be most likely to read your book, you now need to do research on them. Most importantly, you need to know what they need--what pains them in life, and how does your book fulfill that need?

Other things you should know about your audience:

Where do they hang out online? (Social media platforms, forum rooms, communities, etc.)

What are they searching for?

How do they prefer to consume their content?

What key words or hashtags are they likely to use/be attracted to

What do they appreciate from online messaging? (younger generations prefer authenticity, older generations tend to prefer clarity)

You can do this through searching it online, or better, talking to people who would be part of your target audience and asking them about their habits.

2. Form your brand around your audience

Your brand is more than just colours and fonts (though having that consistency is important too). Mostly, it's about how you interact with your audience and the world. Are you cheeky, genuine, funny, edgy? This should depend on what your audience wants to see.

Most brands align with what's called an archetype:

The archetype provides a structure on your brand voice, colours, values, and essentially how you present yourself to your audience.

Different audiences will appreciate different archetypes. A younger, fantasy-loving audience may feel more aligned with the Hero + the Jester for example. I'd recommend looking more into these + examples to get a sense of which would be best for you.

3. Post content your audience will find value in, where they are likely to find it

By this I mean, if your audience is most likely to be on Instagram and TikTok, that's where you should be too. This information comes from your target market research.

Also from your research, you should find out what your audience values and how that aligns with your product. So, let's say your fantasy novel comments on real world social issues, and you're aiming for a Gen Z audience. This is a perfect pair because Gen Z tends to value social issues and the environment (among other things), so you should be posting things that really highlight that aspect of your work.

3.5 Social media tips!

Success on social media is nebulous, but there are a few things you can do to help your chances:

Follow trends (that make sense to your brand)

Worry less about posting often and more about posting consistent, high quality, and valuable posts

Do what you enjoy (trust me, trying to post things that you don't love to do will not last that long. Focus on using social media in a way that you're proud of your product and like the process.)

Engage your audience--reach out to them, instead of waiting for them to come to you.

Engage with others in your circles as well! Other fantasy authors, editors, artists, etc. are a great beginnings of community, and can provide opportunities for guest posts and collaboration

Go to IRL events too and invite people you meet to follow you (open mic nights, networking events, festivals, book readings etc. are all great events. Just make sure you're not focusing too much on plugging yourself, and make genuine connections!)

4. Have a hub

Social media is a great starting point, but it's important for long-term brand and audience building to have a hub that belongs to you for your audience to collect. For example, if your audience is entirely on Instagram and IG suddenly closed the next day, you'd be left with nothing. However, if you also have a newsletter and use your Instagram to lead people to your newsletter, you never have to worry about that suddenly going away, you own and can control that newsletter and how you interact with that audience.

On that note, if you've read this far, help a gal out and check out my website or follow me on Insta @gatesannai thanks!

[writingwithfolklore]

My First Manuscript Took Almost a Decade to Write—And I Nearly Didn’t Finish It

When I started my manuscript (let’s call it… ALU, for no reason at all), I was around 15 years old and had no idea what I was doing. I’m getting deja-vu, I think that’s something I say a lot.

It was not my first novel, or even close—I’ve been writing novels since I could slap words together—but it was the first I felt like I was equipped to write. I wasn’t a kid anymore! I was a highschooler! I could do this!

(Spoiler alert: I could not)

My earliest drafts were written in the Gates Annai patented (still pending) technique of throwing words on a page and seeing what stuck. It’s such a departure from what the manuscript is now that I could tell you anything about it and it wouldn’t be a spoiler. The FMC gets poisoned and commits religious blasphemy. There you go, see?

You could argue that it doesn’t even count as the same story, to which I say… have you ever heard of the ship of Theseus? If you slowly replace a novel piece by piece, at what point is it a separate novel?

At the very least, these early drafts were inspiration for what it would eventually become.

Read the rest on my website here!

[writingwithfolklore]

How to Write Lyrical Prose

By lyrical I mean sensory, I mean beautiful, I mean it kind of has an artistic quality. It exists not just to tell the action of the story, but incite feeling and thought from your reader. The kind of lines that make you pause and go woah.

Here are some examples:

‘…in my dreams I see Dharsi’s beautiful face and some other unknown one next to it. A frog, not transforming into a prince but shape-shifting into something frightening. The metallic taste of these dreams tinges my mornings like a flavor stirred into my coffee.’  What Lies Between Us by Nayomi Munaweera

"Facing the window, in the chair of dignity, sat a man about forty years of age; of heavy frame, large features and a commanding voice; his general build being rather coarse and compact… When he indulged in an occasional loud laugh at some remark among the guests his mouth parted so far back as to show the rays of the chandelier a full score or more of the two-and-thirty sound white teeth that he obviously still could boast of." The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy (1902) 

What do these lines have in common? To me, you can feel a sort of rhythm to them. It’s as though there is a steady beat somewhere in the distance and you can feel every thrum against the lines on the page. Especially in the second example: “…some remark among the guests his mouth parted so far back as to show the rays of the chandelier a full score or more of the two-and-thirty sound white teeth that he obviously still could boast of.”

That is a sentence packed with evocative information that brings you right into this character, right into this moment. It feels a bit like a bike speeding down a hill, you’re forced as the reader to fly down with it. The sentences are crafted as to pull your intrigue from the beginning to the end, they contain a series of surprises—you need to get to the end to unlock the full mystery.

“The metallic taste (?) of these dreams (??) tinges my mornings (?!?) like a flavor stirred into my coffee (!!!)”

That instinct towards rhythm and pulling the reader from start to end of a line is very commonly used in poetry. I have resisted poetry almost my entire life, but I now truly believe that every writer should study the poets as much as they study the classics (especially if lyrical prose is what you’re aiming for).

There is another thing lyrical prose does well—it makes use of the full expanse of the language it’s written in. You could easily write, “when he laughed loudly at something the guests said, his mouth was so wide you could see all his teeth.”

But instead, Hardy uses words like, “indulged”, “rays of the chandelier”, “a full score” “two-and-thirty sound white teeth” “boast”.

Same with our second example, “metallic” “tinges” and “flavor stirred into my coffee” are so much more evocative than, “the bad dream followed me into the morning.” Even the position of the sentence to show the dream as a taste on her tongue that ruins her breakfast creates a deeper, more intimate feeling with the reader.

Which leads into my last point, lyrical prose tends to make use of multiple senses. It’s not just about what things look or sound like, but what they feel like, taste like, the ‘vibe’ they give off. And like we’ve seen, taste doesn’t just need to be about food. Get creative with how you mix and match sensory details.

So, in short:

Read poetry—as much as you can get your hands on. Practice writing your own, imitating a different poet each time.

Read examples of lyrical prose (find them in upmarket or literary fiction) and do what we just did, unpack them, try to see what makes them tick, try to get a feel for them.

Expand your vocabulary. Don’t reach for a thesaurus, reach for more books—read outside of your typical genre or style, read classics and recently published, read debuts, read books translated to English. Start collecting your favourite lines into an inspiration journal.

Need recommendations? Here’s a list of books that contain lyrical prose for you to get started on:

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous – Ocean Vuong

The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender – Leslye Walton

The Song of Achilles – Madeline Miller

This Is How You Lose the Time War – Amal El-Mohtar

The History of Love – Nicole Krauss

The Book Thief – Markus Zusak

The Waves – Virginia Woolf

White Oleander – Janet Fitch

The Secret History – Donna Tartt

Grab more from the same list here.

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Head on over to www.gatesannai.com (or click here!) for exclusive blog posts, updates on my work, and pictures of my dog.

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[writingwithfolklore]

Book Terms to Know Before Self/Trad Publishing

Will continuously update. Last updated: May 2025.

ARC: Advance reader copy – a special edition of the book printed before the release date, may still need finalizing edits. Meant for creating marketing buzz.

CNR: Closed No Response, when a query has been sent for long enough with no response to be considered an auto pass

Contemporary Fiction: A book that takes place in the present day, typically lacking in a genre. Centers around a protagonist’s everyday life: work, relationships, and modern day struggles

Literary Fiction: Contemporary fiction but considered to have some sort of artistic value—typically character-driven and introspective, it’s meant to engage the reader in a personal or social commentary.

Magical Realism: A real world setting with magical elements. Typically, the magic in the world is unusual and a cause for concern for its inhabitants.

Manuscript: An unpublished piece of writing.

MG: Middle grade. Books targeted at readers 8-12

Monomyth: Another word for the Hero’s Journey

MS/MSS: Manuscript or manuscripts

MSWL: Manuscript Wishlist—a list of an agent's next “want to reads”, look under #MSWL on any social media, or the MSWL website to find.

New Adult: For readers just beyond young adult containing college-aged protagonists written in the commercial style of YA.

Literary Boutique: This is what small agencies tend to call themselves instead of saying "small". Usually they are very selective about their clients but are also able to give a lot more attention to each individual.

R&R: Revise and resubmit—the agent is interested in your work but needs a hefty revision before they can really consider it.

SFF: Science fiction and fantasy

Speculative Fiction: Umbrella genre of fiction that breaks away from reality—can be fantastical, supernatural, futuristic, or otherwise imaginative.

Upmarket fiction: contains the lyrical writing of literary fiction with the plot-focus of genre fiction. AKA bookclub fiction

Urban Fantasy: Subgenre of fantasy that places supernatural/magical elements in a contemporary, urban setting.

Women’s Fiction: An umbrella term for books targeted towards a female audience—typically about female issues or struggles. AKA Chick-Lit

Young Adult: Targets readers aged 12-18 with characters around the same age. Most typically a coming-of-age story.

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Head on over to www.gatesannai.com (or click here!) for exclusive blog posts, updates on my work, and pictures of my dog.

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[writingwithfolklore]

My History with Writing (how I gave up on my dream and then un-gave up on my dream)

Writing, for me, began with my older brother. He was (and still is) a very smart student, one of those ‘class-favourites’ but cool enough to not be the teacher’s pet. Practically everything he excelled at, I tended to fail—math, science, sports, making friends, etc. All except for one.

My brother struggled to read, and I was a freaking savant at it.

If you’re the younger sibling, you know how it feels to have even a bit of superiority over your sibling. He might have been good at everything else, but I had this. Reading and writing was, for most of elementary school, the one thing in school I was good at, and the thing I was most often rewarded for.

In fourth grade I got a green star sticker on one of my short stories I wrote for a class assignment. My teacher invited me to read it out in front of the class. Given I wasn’t a “share work at the front of the class” kind of kid… This meant everything to me. I wonder if she knows at all the impact that green sticker had on me. I still have that story, and I still have that sticker, and I still remember that teacher. Shout out to Ms. Kokesh!

This love followed me to middle school. I joined writing clubs and groups and was mentored in writing all throughout my youth and teenage years, and still use what I learned then in my writing now. Writing was also how I met one of my best friends. It’s how we bonded then and it’s how we still bond to this day, over a decade later. But then I started to grow up. I entered that stage where childhood dreams need to become adulthood realities, and not all our dreams are totally realistic. I’m jealous of people who dream of lucrative careers. Like, naturally their passions take them towards dentistry or engineering or something. I really wish I had a passion for boring things (kidding) but unfortunately nothing else clicked for me.

In highschool a teacher asked us what our ‘spark in life’ was to help us figure out our career path. I did not say writing. I said film...

Keep reading on my website!

[writingwithfolklore]

With your querying journey, do you have any tips on querying when you've already posted your story online?

I started sharing online because I had no publishing goals but a couple of years into it I've learned so much and want to rewrite my whole story bigger and better because I feel more serious and connected to it but I think this means I've lost 'first rights'? And while this isn't ideaI I know there have been some online-first stories become books (and movies) so it's not impossible, so just when would I disclose it? In the query letter?

No one reads my stuff anyway, while from a marketing perspective probably looks bad compared to an online story taking off with thousands of views but at the same time if no one read it it should be easier to wipe from the internet for a book? And what's even the limit? If I spend ten years perfecting it and the site goes down or whatever, is it really as bad? (I don't think it even shows up in a google search)

Hi!

This is tricky. While you're right, there are cases of online-first stuff being trad published--it tends to follow the author's major success or popularity. Essentially, publishing houses (and thus agents) care about what they can cash in on. They're interested only if it makes them money, and so online-first stories tend not to be that because they're already available for free.

I do think it is a bit more helpful for you to be on the low end of the popularity spectrum in this case, but you'd need to choose right now if you want to try to wipe it from the internet and get trad published or keep going online. I don't believe an agent would consider it if it was still up and available to read online at the time of the query letter.

This doesn't go for all of them, but Spark an anthology wrote this in their FAQ:

We consider works that can be easily found through an Internet search to be previously published, including stories and novels published to your own blog or to Authonomy and Wattpad.

So if you can't remove it to the fullest extent where it really is impossible to find, you may have a bit less luck.

If you can completely wipe it from an online search, you should be in the clear, and honestly I probably wouldn't mention that it had been published online unless you have readers/viewer numbers that might help.

In that case, what you could do is expand it to a larger work (it will likely end up looking far different in its final form anyway, especially after beta readers and editing and all that) and write in your query letter: "I am seeking representation for my (genre book) complete at (word count), inspired by a short piece I wrote for (site) which gained (#) followers/readers/etc." (If the number is impressive.) If not, just leave it out honestly.

Like I said, I think your end product is going to look so much different anyway that you don't really need to worry about it. It would be like me posting a story idea online--that doesn't mean that I couldn't then write it and get it trad published. But, the first step is always to remove it online first.

I hope that helps! I'm not an expert by any means, so this advice is based off my own current understanding.

[writingwithfolklore]

Looking for Contemporary Poetry Recommendations!

Hi all!

Could you please tag or reply with your favourite contemporary poets? I'm just getting into poetry and could use some recommendations!

Thanks!

[writingwithfolklore]

4 More Things I’ve Learned from Querying

1. Start local

This isn’t a rule by any means, you don’t have to start local, but I would recommend it. There are some agencies that ask you why, if you aren’t local, you’re reaching out to them, and being able to say “I’ve already reached out to all my local agencies” is a pretty air-tight reason. Plus, supporting local is cool, and I found a greater sense in accomplishment once I had crossed all my local agencies off my list. It brings order to what is otherwise a sea of like millions of agents across the globe.

2. The agency is more important than the agent

By this I don’t mean literally in terms of work. I more mean it as it’s more important that you make note of what agencies you apply to for organization, because many, many agencies require you to only submit to one of their agents at a time, and submitting to two might disqualify both applications. My organization at the start wasn’t great and I accidentally applied to the same agency twice, so definitely pay just as much attention to the agency as the agent.

3. It’s a test in confidence

I wrote an entire blog post about this over on my website (it will be coming out June 13!), but essentially, querying has been the biggest test in my confidence I think I’ve ever had to do. I thought I was prepared for endless rejections, and when I started, I wasn’t really all that concerned about being rejected. But the longer I went with 0 interest from the agencies I was applying to, the more I started to doubt my work.

Is my manuscript awful? Am I an awful writer? What are they all seeing that I’m not?

And the craziest part is that I went back to take a quick look at my manuscript and I did find it awful, where before I obviously hadn’t. This is when I wrote the post about dealing with self doubt. Even though I had started to look at my own work with a low opinion of it, I held onto the fact that my beta readers and my mentors and my editor all helped me make it better, and gave me their approval. Querying has the power to make you change your mind about your work and yourself—it’s important to be prepared for that, and to have strategies to pull yourself out of the pit when needed.

4. Read up on your terms

There are too many genres. There I said it. Why is speculative fiction and paranormal fiction and literary fiction and commercial literary fiction all on the same earth together? I think there should be like three genres: It actually happened, it didn’t actually happen, it’s a bit of a mix.

There are a million terms you’re going to bump into when you start looking into agents. What you might pitch as an urban fantasy to one agent would be better to pitch as a speculative fiction to another, so it’s important to know the terms or be constantly looking up the ones that you don’t know. It’s annoying, it takes more time, but it will also help you avoid pitching to the wrong person and make sure that you pitch your manuscript in the right way.

I have a silly example: I had been seeking out and pitching my manuscript to YA agents—which is a genre considered to be under the “children’s” umbrella. It wasn’t until far too late (about 30 queries in) that I discovered my manuscript actually fit far better as a New Adult. If I had taken the five seconds to look up the difference at the start, there’s a whole lot of people on my list that I never would have pitched to.

Lesson learned.

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(Psst... Did you know I launched a website?)

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[writingwithfolklore]

Being an Aspiring Author is a Full-Time Job and I’m Not Even Getting Paid

I tell this story often. What got me into writing as a little kid was that it was the one thing I was better at than my older brother. For a kid bad at pretty much everything and always trailing him around like he was the messiah, this small bit of superiority meant the world to me. Fast forward to 2022, I’m dropping out of film school with a diploma and diving head first into my dream of becoming a novel writer. In my parents’ eyes—I am going out of my mind.

I learned two things from film: 1) how to tell a compelling story, and 2) that I didn’t want to be in film. It was my plan B. My “well I can’t be an author so I might as well do something else creative”. My last-ditch effort to maybe pursue a career I could make money in. But it didn’t work because somewhere deep down I knew I didn’t have the passion for it to get me through the long hours. Also I really wanted a dog and that seemed like it might conflict eventually.

So, while yes I am technically still pursuing a plan B in communications (the corporate world is gonna love me), I didn’t give up on my lifelong dream, and I’m learning more and more about what that really entails...

Read the rest on my website here!

[writingwithfolklore]

Do you run an off-site writing/author blog? I want to talk to you!

Hi all,

I'm looking for writers who also have a blog off tumblr related to writing, author journeys, creative endeavors, books etc. who may want to do a guest-post exchange with my blog on www.gatesannai.com.

If you know someone who may be interested, or might be interested yourself, please send me a DM with the link to your blog!

Thanks!

[writingwithfolklore]

Hi, anon again with the "massive" book idea

How do I make my writing seem less beige? And less try hard or maybe it's me who cringes because I compare myself to others but I try not to

Do you have advice on dialogue? How do I know where to put it? How do I know how much to use?

I'm sorry, I don't have anyone who writes to ask and you're my favourite blog too

Hello!

Tbh it definitely sounds like it might be just you judging yourself too harshly (don't worry, we all do it) because 'beige' and 'try hard' seem to be more opposites to me. Gaining confidence and skill in your writing just comes from practicing.

In the meantime, check out my post: Dealing with Self Doubt

As for dialogue, I have this post: Troubleshooting your dialogue

But the best way to build those instincts on "how much" and "where" comes from reading. Read stuff similar to your work and super different and a wide range of authors, and bestsellers and debuts. Everything you read builds storytelling instincts that will come out in your writing subconsciously. Eventually, you will get to a point where you don't even really have to think about it.

In general, all these questions can be answered by practicing a whole lot (just getting words onto the page) and reading a whole lot more. I just wrote a post about reading more here.

As for writing friends, I can help with that too! Use this link to join my writing discord. It's full of friendly writers and we chat issues and projects and everything else to do with being a writer. If you have any more questions, you can always throw them out there and someone will be around to help!