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Addressing the Fear of Traditional Publishing – Guest Post by K. Orme

For a while now, I’ve noticed that a lot of authors in the indie community seem to be afraid of traditional publishing for one reason or another. While I fully believe that that traditional publishing path is not for everyone (I don’t think it’s for me, as a general rule), I do believe that we should think clearly about both publishing routes and choose one because it’s truly the best fit rather than because we’re afraid of the other! Today, I have K. Orme on the blog to dispel some of the fears that tend to crop up around traditional publishing, to further the informed choice between traditional, independent, or hybrid publishing. I hope you enjoy and find her article informative!

I have spent the last seventeen years learning my writing craft and studying publishing trends, deciding which publishing method is right for which of my books. Publishing has come a long way since then. It’s come a long way since I studied publishing in college, which was a course I took for my degree. (Officially, I have a BA in History and a Minor in Creative Writing, though I have enough credits to count for a second BA in English/Creative Writing, though it is unofficial.) And that’s only my college education. This doesn’t account for the multiple classes outside of college I’ve taken hosted by conferences and online colleges leading up to this point.

Suffice it to say, I know a little about the publishing industry and have seen trends come and go, as well as pervasive fears about what publishing can look like. And here I am, your resident overthinking author, to give you a little calming moment to set your mind at ease if you’re afraid of traditional publishing.

First, let’s define some terms.

Traditional publishing is a method of publishing by which an author, via an agent, is picked up by a publishing house (such as Random House and their imprints, for example). The publishing house does the heavy lifting with the editor, cover designer, formatter, some marketing, and various other street team things. This should cost the author generally nothing, as the agent makes their fee from a portion of the advance you receive. (You are more likely to receive an advance than royalties in trad publishing. This is a lump sum at once as opposed to a constant stream of money.)

Indie publishing is when the author either uses a small publishing house that does not require an agent to be seen or owns their own house (or buys their own ISBNs). If the author is picked up by a small independently owned press by someone else, the editing may be part of the deal, or they may need to outsource their own editor. Furthermore, if the author owns their own house, everything is on them. By far, this is the most expensive way of publishing a book, because you are generally footing some part of the bill to pay the indie house to help publish your book, with the expectation they will help market you and you’ll make that money back. And even if the author owns their own house/ISBNs, it’s still very expensive, because they outsource editors, formatters, cover artists, so on, so forth, and then do all the marketing. But generally, you have more creative freedom if you do it all by yourself.

I cannot speak for an indie press that publishes other authors’ books, but the idea is that indie presses in general give authors more creative freedom.

Thus, the number one fear I’ve seen across Facebook writing groups and other writing groups, in-person and otherwise, is that traditional publishing strips the author of their agency and creative freedom, and will force a (generally religious) author to write things they don’t want to write.

And this just isn’t the case. In all my years of being in the traditional and indie publishing worlds (which I must say are not separate, but a nice Venn Diagram—mmm, I love diagrams…) I have never seen an author being forced to write something with a value set they don’t align with.

If a publishing company wants to publish a book with a certain theme/plot/character, they are going to find a book with that theme/plot/character that they want and not find something that maybe vaguely fits what they want and then force a writer to give them what they want. It’s just not how they operate.

I believe all of the writing conferences I’ve been to have actually been what would be considered “secular” and all the agents and editors actively advocate for their authors. That’s what their job is. They want their author to succeed.

Just like you can deny an edit from an editor that you outsource yourself, you can also decide not to apply an edit that your editor or even sensitivity reader from a publishing house gives you. It’s not a make-or-break. They won’t drop you.

It’s what contracts are for. I know contracts may seem Faustian, but really, all they are for is to make sure both parties, (in this case, the author and publishing house, or the author and agent) are going to uphold their ends of the contract. (Payments. Rights. Values.) An author can put into their contract that they won’t write certain things (smut, for example) and if the publishing house suddenly is like “You must write the smut!” (which, they won’t. But, for the sake of the example, bear with me), the author just needs to point to their contract. If the publishing house forces them, then there could be a breach of contract. Which could be a lawsuit.

That’s not a suit that looks good on anybody.

Contracts are nice. If you are truly afraid of being forced to write against a value set, put it into a contract. Work it with an agent or a lawyer who works with authors. I think too often in fiction, contracts are seen as traps, but as a person who has collaborated with multiple lawyers both for my work and in my personal life, it’s just a way of life. Nobody wants to trap you. I promise.

Here are two anecdotes about authors about value sets, and creative freedom in trad publishing.

The first is one I heard from Mekisha Telfer, the editor who worked on To All the Boys I Loved Before, during a panel at a SCBWI in 2018. She takes on a lot of LGBTQ+ sorts of books (moreso now than at the time of the anecdote) and that sort of value set. In this instance, she was working on a book where the author had her main character “come out” to their friend group. The friend group embraced the friend with open arms and “came out” as well. She actually said this was unrealistic, and to take away some of the acceptance, for the sake of the plot and tension. Which was great writing advice. If the main character never faces any opposition, where’s the story? I’m sure the author wanted a positive YA LGBTQ+ book, but now had to think critically about which characters would naturally have to accept or deny the main character’s way of life. I don’t remember what the author chose to do. But I do know that the author wasn’t forced to do anything, just to think critically about their plot. That’s all they were required to do.

The second anecdote is about an author named Sophie Lark, who did not decide to apply edits that sensitivity readers mentioned. Book became published. So… while this is an interesting sort of topic. It’s a hot topic actually. Without weighing in on the topic of whether or not Ms. Lark should have applied the edits, Bloom Books still published her book. I wanted to mention this one, because of the creative freedom Ms. Lark retained within the trad publishing world. I do not wish to engage on whether or not she should have applied the edits that were presented to her by the sensitivity readers.

I do want to mention for a moment now, how to get rid of these pervasive fears that plague authors stepping toward publishing their books.

Fear breeds fear. If you are finding yourself in a writer’s group that is constantly drumming fear around certain publishing paths (there is also an undercurrent of fear in the indie world), and they cannot be reached through critical thinking, or conversation without cyclical arguments, or without the “I heard it from my cousin’s sister’s mother-in-law’s coworker’s friend’s daughter’s teacher’s college volleyball coach that ‘this one thing’ happened,” it may be time to find a new group with people that can help you find the correct path for your project. You need to find a group with people from all sorts of publishing paths, and all stages in their writing journeys to help you figure out where to go.

Publishing is not an absolute path. There is no right or wrong. It is the right option for a particular project at a certain time. For my book, Pondered in her Heart: A Novel of the American Revolution, while, yes, I did have various “value set” creative freedom fears at the time (due to the constant drumming of fears of a writer’s group I was in at the time of drafting it), I decided it was best to take it the indie route for various technical reasons, such as the multi-genre aspect, branding, so on, so forth.

Did I look into traditional? Yes. Did I decide on indie for that book? Yes. I have other projects I have set for trad publishing tracks and others for my own ISBNs that I had purchased in the bundle. And that is fine. No author or agent or publishing house will look at me sideways. (In fact, the aforementioned Bloom Books apparently loves finding and publishing previously indie published authors.)

You’re not limited to one type of publishing for the rest of your life.

Lastly, I highly recommend joining organizations and going to conferences. You can join the ACFW (American Christian Fiction Writers) or Realm Makers and go to their conferences. You can check out the SCBWI (Society for Children’s Books Writers and Illustrators, which has everything from ‘secular’ to ‘Christian’ books.) Historical conferences. Find your niche. Find your organization. Join. Check your libraries. Go to classes and small conferences. It’s your gateway into the publishing world, to see what it is like. And it’s eye-opening as well as anxiety-relieving.

The first conference I ever went to was when I was a sophomore in college, when I was nineteen. It was a small convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and it had all sorts of authors, from science fiction to thriller and mystery. I was… by far the youngest writer there (I was unpublished at the time) and everybody was so welcoming, even the “scary” editors who were just exceedingly good at their jobs, who regarded writing so highly as an art. I got to see the trad publishing world for the first time there.

Here’s another anecdote I’ll leave you with. I was talking with illustrator Pat Cummings at a SCBWI conference, as she signed my art book. She asked me how my meeting with Mekisha Telfer went, and I said “oh, it went amazingly. She loved my story. But she doesn’t think it’s actually a YA but a NA or an Adult novel” and she looked at me weirdly and said “you don’t need to agree with that. You can take it to another editor or another agent and have them look at it.”

In the end, I agreed with Ms. Telfer. I thought it was in my best interest to look more into the NA or Adult low fantasy for this particular project I presented to her. But I think about Ms. Cummings’s words a lot. I’m free to do what I want. I don’t need to listen and can get second and third and fourth opinions. Even in the traditional publishing world.

You are free. You are fine. You have free will. Don’t worry. And if you are still afraid, I think it’s time to drink some water and take a little nap. I probably need to do that too, to be honest.

About the Author

K. Orme is a cross-genre historical fiction author, watercolor artist, and cosplay performer. She is based in central Virginia, and when she is not writing, she is working at her sewing machine, auditioning for a local musical production, or practicing for a vocal gig. She has an Australian Shepherd named Petitaire (after Grantaire from Les Miserables) that is her service dog, and she is an advocate for representing invisible disabilities in fiction. She has spoken at the Historical Novel Society (North American Branch) on the topic of including disability representation specifically in historical fiction. As of 2025, she will have been in the writing and publishing industry for seventeen years.

 

Did this post address fears you had surrounding the traditional publishing route? Did it spark new questions about publishing options or one route or the other? Comment below!

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What is Your Cover Saying? – 4 Keys to Quality Cover Design

Adapted from “Clean Fantasy and Boring Cover Syndrome,” originally published Nov. 28, 2017

Since subscribing to a number of clean fantasy authors’ newsletters, I’ve come across a disappointing trend. A lot of clean fantasy books have really unimpressive covers. The same is often true of indie authors, as a whole. You know the old adage “don’t judge a book by its cover,” and that’s great in principle, but when it comes to books, readers really do judge books by their covers. As a reader myself I can attest to this. Heck, it’s why I’m writing this post.

The fact is, that’s not a bad thing. Cover art should communicate, and part of the weakness of a lot of clean fantasy and indie covers is that they’re communicating poorly–whether they’re communicating something undesirable about the quality of the book or they’re simply communicating something incorrect about the story inside. (Genre conventions matter in cover design!)

Here are some ways you can be mindful of whether or not your book cover is communicating effectively, and aim for a design that accurately represents your book.

*This post contains affiliate links, marked with an asterisk, which means that purchases made through those links earn me a small commission at no extra cost to you.Have Some Knowledge of Design

You don’t need to be a graphic designer in order to get a good cover; that’s what cover designers are for. But you should have some understanding of basic design principles, on some level, or you’re not going to be able to discern between what is really a good cover design and what’s not–or how to tweak a design draft–when you’re selecting and working with a cover designer. You should understand what colors complement one another, how much contrast is needed, appropriate proportions and alignment for both images and text, how much “white space” is necessary to keep a design from looking cluttered, etc.

If you’re an indie on a low budget and you’re determined to make your own cover, this becomes even more important and you need to invest even more time in learning and understanding the principles of design so that your cover doesn’t look “homemade.” You’ll also want to invest in high-quality design elements (images and fonts) and good photo editing software (I recommend Affinity Photo). For in-depth but affordable design courses, consider taking a look at Coursera*.

Have Some Knowledge of Cover Design

Cover design is built on the basic fundamentals of graphic design as a whole, but there are certain considerations that are unique to cover design. For example, you will need to be aware of how legible your title font is at thumbnail size when readers are scrolling through Amazon search results. You’ll also need to be aware of how well your cover prints when you get a proof copy; make sure nothing comes out pixelated, the colors are still complementary, all of the text is legible, etc.

Be Aware of Genre Conventions

As a part of understanding cover design, specifically, you need to understand the genre conventions of covers. Urban fantasy covers have a particular “look” distinct from the epic fantasy “look,” distinct from the space opera “look,” distinct from the cozy romance “look,” and so on. If you’re not sure what your genre tends to look like in terms of cover design, take a look at your sub-genre on Amazon and take note of the commonalities in design choices.

Do not underestimate the importance of this step. I’ve seen clean romance books that I skimmed over because their covers didn’t communicate “clean” to me; I’ve seen urban fantasy authors rebrand their covers to look more like generic fantasy covers that would draw me in only to disappoint me when I read the urban fantasy blurb. Make sure that you’re appealing to (and repelling) the right readers. If a reader likes fantasy but not urban fantasy, appealing to them with a plain fantasy cover isn’t going to make them more likely to read your book; it’s only more likely to make them frustrated with you.

Know What Your Cover Communicates

Everything about your cover communicates–your color scheme, font choice, imagery selection, etc. It’s your job, as the author who knows the story inside, to ensure that the cover you choose (or design) is communicating what you want it to communicate about your book, to the right readers, and in a cohesive manner. If your color scheme and overall imagery say “dark fantasy” but your font choice says “cozy,” potential readers are likely to be confused; cohesion matters.

Make sure your cover communicates the genre, tone, and general content of your story, and that it does so in a way that makes sense to and appeals to your readers. A really simple way to do this (though not necessarily an easy thing) is to look at your cover as a reader and ask yourself what you would assume of the contents (and quality) of the book based on the cover alone. Would it draw you in? Would you overlook it as shoddily made? Would it tell you the general tone and topic of the book? Or would you be confused as to what the book is about?

I love finding good clean fantasy and indie books. While decreasingly rare, they can still be hard to find amidst the not-“clean” fantasy and unpolished indie books. We need more independent authors who understand how to step into the reader’s shoes and think about whether or not the cover they’ve chosen will draw someone’s attention or if it will just be overlooked on the bookshelf or as a reader is scrolling through Amazon/Goodreads.

If your goal as a clean fantasy author is to bless your readers with something they can easily trust to not have sex scenes or language or whatever else we don’t want to read–or even if you’re just an indie author whose goal is to bless readers with something unique that didn’t have to pass through corporate gatekeepers to get in their hands–bless them by making your book stand out on a shelf, too, so that they can actually find it to read it. There may be some fabulously written books out there that readers will never know are fabulously written because the cover doesn’t make them interested enough to even look.

Now, this is not to say that all clean fantasy or indie books have boring covers. I know several authors who write indie and/or clean books and have wonderful covers (Miranda Marie, Abbie Emmons, C.G. Drews, Brooke Riley…), but it appears to be a general rule that clean fantasy has dull covers and indie covers are very hit-or-miss.

As a reader and author of clean and indie fantasy, I just want to ask a simple favor of any other indie authors out there: Please pay attention to your covers. Please put effort into them. The Book Cover Designer has fairly affordable pre-made covers, if you want to start there. 99Designs has been great for custom covers, in my experience. Whether you find something pre-made or get something custom made, give thought to your cover and understand what makes a cover work so that you can ensure that your own covers do the work you want (and need) them to do.

Readers, what is your biggest turn-off in book covers?

Indie authors, what is your biggest challenge in finding/designing quality covers?

Comment below!

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Developing Fictional Views on Providence, Luck, and Fortune

St. Patrick’s Day has nothing to do with leprechauns, four-leaf clovers, or lucky pots of gold… except in grocery stores and on my blog today because I did allow the seasonal aesthetic to inspire today’s topic. Today we’re talking about how your fictional cultures view providence, luck, and fortune–whether they see all three as synonymous or maintain distinct categories. Let’s get started! (And to be fair, here’s a video–albeit a somewhat comedic one–about the actual reason we’ll be wearing green next week.)

Establish Your World’s Baseline

Before you develop individual cultures’ views of providence and luck, it’s beneficial to have an idea of what those terms really mean in your world and who (or what) is truly responsible for events occurring the way that they do. Is your world guided by a sovereign god/pantheon? Do things really come about by chance or luck? Are events steered primarily by man’s choices?

Knowing how things truly work in your world will inform the patterns your cultures will be able to observe, which will inform their beliefs even if only in small measure. It’s harder for your characters to maintain a belief that reality shapes itself around man’s choices if they can see a pattern of events occurring contrary to man’s choices, for example. They may still cling to that belief for other reasons, but the true pattern of your world will show itself and alter, prove, or disprove cultural worldviews in the process.

Look at Your Culture’s Religion

Your culture’s religion is likely to play a significant role in their perception of providence and fortune. If they believe in a sovereign god/pantheon, that may settle the matter entirely; they may believe strictly in providence ordained by their god(s). If, on the other hand, they believe in less powerful gods, or gods who intentionally allow men to make mistakes and forge their own fortune–for good or ill–then this may be much less clear-cut. There may be more room in the latter scenario for your culture to believe in man-made destiny; in some impersonal and ethereal “fate,” “luck,” etc.; or in some combination of providence, man-made fortune, and “luck.”

Think about the character of your culture’s god(s). Are they personal or impersonal? Omnipotent/omniscient or limited in power and knowledge? What is their perceived design for humanity–or do they even have one? All of these factors may go into your culture’s perception of their gods’ influence on the direction their lives take.

The Agency of Man

Man doesn’t generally like to relinquish control of things. This is certainly true in the real world, and it’s probably true of mankind in your created world as well (your fictional races may be prone to this same weakness, or may avoid this pitfall in favor of different weaknesses). Many like to believe that man can shape his own destiny, determine his own fortune, make his own luck. Whether or not this is true in your world, at its core, there are likely to be cultures that believe this–and many cultures that believe it in part even if they don’t believe that man is the primary driver of events.

Your culture might believe, for example, that the decisions of men are responsible for all things. They’ll have to create an explanation for how it works out when individuals have competing interests and take competing actions, but perhaps this is their belief. Or maybe instead they believe that life is primarily driven by some impersonal “fate,” but it can be influenced by man’s choices and “fate” may take an interest in individuals–perhaps some individuals are naturally more in favor with “fate,” in this culture’s view, due to their connection with magic or for some other reason. Or perhaps they believe that the gods have the final say in events, but that they may bow to man’s requests from time to time, or work in cooperation with man. Some relatively few cultures may, of course, take the more extreme position of believing that their god(s) are fully sovereign and their own activities follow a course set by said god(s), with no effect of their own.

The question of providence/luck/fortune is, ultimately, a question of man’s agency, and how highly your culture thinks of itself and the design of man (or other races).

Environment Matters

This is an influence that may be easy to overlook, but your culture’s environment can play a part in how they view providence, etc., because their environment forms the shape of the world that they’re most closely observing. It’s a bit like the illustration of the blind men and the elephant; different cultures in your world are all observing the same world with the same fundamental laws, but a mariner culture will be most familiar with the patterns reflected in the sea, a mountain-dwelling culture will be most familiar with the rugged, solid nature of the mountains, a desert-dwelling culture will be most familiar with the shifting and unforgiving desert, etc., and these observations may then carry over into their conception of the nature and patterns of the world’s metaphysics as well as its physics.

Take that mariner culture, for example. If they apply their observations of the sea to be reflective of the metaphysical reality of time and providence, then they may see fortune as a fluid thing that passes in repeated cycles. They may also acknowledge that it has moments that are less predictable, wilder and more surprising, that throw things out of the comfortable order one may have been used to. Perhaps they believe that man can steer through destiny, but will have the most success when he steers in tandem with the natural flow of providence.

You don’t have to tie your culture’s view of providence quite so closely to their observations of the natural world, but it is worth noting that cultures which have done less to divorce natural revelation from the metaphysics underlying their world may draw heavily on that natural revelation in their efforts to understand those metaphysics. Of course, your culture may have undergone this divorce of the physical and metaphysical, in which case their environment may have very little to do with their perception of providence, except perhaps as vestiges from a previous time prior to that division.

What This Means for Everyday Life

None of what this post has covered has any bearing unless it impacts how your characters think, observe the world around them, and go about their daily lives, since that is what matters in your storytelling. The good news is, the matter of providence can influence those things quite a bit!

Your culture’s view on providence and luck can affect your character’s voice, which can then be reflected in how they interact with the world and (if you’re writing in 1st person or in limited 3rd person) how they narrate their story.

It can also affect how they perceive their own agency, which can influence how they behave with regard to the plot of your story. Do they believe their actions have drastic consequences, that they’re duty-bound to follow the path laid for them by providence, or that their actions have little consequence? This will affect how they respond to events in the story and how they do or don’t drive the story forward.

Looking to ensure your plot events are character-driven? Check out the plotting prompts in the Scribes & Archers resource library!

It can also affect the type of story you’re telling, in some cases. “Chosen One” stories and other prophecy-driven stories rely on certain cultural views (and underlying mechanics) of providence and fate in order to function, and whether your core culture is in agreement or disagreement with these views and mechanics can drastically alter the tone and trajectory of such a story.

On a more surface-level note, your culture’s view of luck, etc. can also affect their language and common sayings, which can color your character voice and make your setting more immersive.

I’d love to hear from you. How do the cultures in your world view providence, luck, etc.? How does this affect your characters and plot? Is this a topic you’d considered before? Share in the comments!

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5 Benefits of Writing Challenges

Originally published Sep. 17, 2019; adapted and republished Mar. 4, 2025

While many of us may have developed a habit of preparing for NaNoWriMo in the fall and have now migrated to various alternatives, there is still something to be said for participating in designated writing challenges. Maybe you’re a veteran author who’s done NaNoWriMo or other writing challenges before, maybe you’re a veteran author who’s never been sold on short-term challenges working for you, or maybe you’re new to the community and you’re wondering what “writing challenges” I’m even talking about. Wherever you stand, here are five benefits I’ve found of participating in writing challenges.

First of all, a quick explanation of NaNoWriMo and writing challenges for anyone who’s new to the idea: NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month; it refers to an event that spans the month of November, in which authors are challenged to write 50,000 words in a month. This is the average length of a novel, and the idea is that the month results in a completed first draft of a novel you haven’t started yet. That’s not always the case, since some novels are longer, or some authors (myself included) choose to work on an already-started draft, but that’s the basic idea.

The organization behind NaNoWriMo has unfortunately taken a nosedive in the past five years, but there are still similar challenges to be found online–including my personal favorite, Christine Smith’s FicFrenzy challenge, one installment of which is coming up March 15-April 15!

What these writing challenges have in common is a designated time frame in which to collaborate and compete with other authors to accomplish a particular writing goal–whether that goal is designated in the challenge itself or decided by the individual participating author.

Now, on to the benefits of participating in such things!

1. Writing Challenges Provide a Concrete Goal

This isn’t a struggle for everyone, but if you’re someone who finds it difficult to set concrete goals in your writing, a writing challenge could be just the solution. Such events have built-in deadlines and sometimes built-in word count goals–and even those that don’t dictate a word count goal still challenge you to lock in a progress goal for yourself. Having a concrete goal allows you to split the project into manageable pieces and know what your aim is for each day or writing session, which makes it easier to actually achieve your goal. Knowing that your goal is 50,000 words in 30 days, for instance, allows you to determine that your daily word count should be 1,667, or you can divide it in whatever way works best for you and your schedule (there are some word count tracking tools, like Pacemaker or WriteTrack, that make this really easy). But having a concrete starting point makes the smaller goals possible to figure out.

2. Writing Challenges Provide Outside Accountability

It can be hard to keep yourself motivated and disciplined to keep working on your writing project, but writing challenges provide accountability–through the communities around them, or even just through the goal itself and your progress through the month–which can help to keep you on task and motivated. Whether you’re competitive and get spurred to write by trying to keep your word count higher than your best friend’s, or you just want to hit the word count each day, or you want to challenge yourself to hit the goal as fast as you can, or it just helps to have someone there cheering you on… Whatever your accountability style, writing challenges can be a great opportunity to revive that determined spark and get you writing consistently.

3. (Some) Writing Challenges Provide an Automatic, Encouraging Community

Not all writing challenges have communities built up around them, but many do–FicFrenzy included. When you join most online writing challenges, you’re joining the dozens or hundreds of authors–sometimes from all over the world–who are undertaking the same challenge, and the majority of them are going to be super excited to cheer on a fellow writer. Whether you find a community around your chosen writing challenge itself, find people in your existing writing groups who are participating, or attend write-ins* in your area, chances are you’ll have at least one person you can turn to when that mid-month writing slump sets in. (If you ever need a writing pep talk, feel free to shoot me an email!)

*Write-ins are in-person meet-ups in a community, where local writers get together to work on their current projects. They usually include writing prompts, word wars, and snacks. Write-ins are often hosted by libraries or coffee shops, so check out your local venues to see if they have anything set up.

4. Writing Challenges Provide an Excuse to Carve Out Writing Time

Whether your family isn’t good about letting you get time to write, or you have too many engagements to make time, or you just keep putting off the novel you’ve been wanting to write for ages, taking part in a writing challenge provides a designated window of time in which you have a clear excuse to give people (or yourself). Having an official event makes it way easier to tell people you need time to yourself to write and get them to take you seriously.

Of course, there are some things you simply can’t shrug off (work, for instance–although I’ve known some people who have taken a week off work during November to give themselves additional hours to write), and you should always make sure you’re flexible and aren’t totally shutting people out for a month (I see you, introverts). But it does provide a solution to something I know is a legitimate problem for a lot of people.

Still not sure how to make the time? This post covers seven time management tips for authors.

5. Writing Challenges are Just Plain Fun

Whether you “win” or “lose,” writing challenges are a ton of fun. Chances are you’ll make new writing friends, or better get to know the friends you already have, and be challenged to write more than you would ordinarily. You’ll have a chance to participate in word wars, to read other authors’ snippets and share snippets of your own, and maybe to push yourself out of your comfort zone with your writing. If you’ve never tried it before, I definitely recommend participating at least once and checking it out.

Additional Resources

Why Bother with NaNoWriMo? – Pen of a Ready Writer

Checklist: 30 Things to Do for NaNo Prep – The Road of a Writer

Waiting for NaNoWriMo: Making October Count – The Sprint Shack

Have you participated in a writing challenge like this before? How did it go for you? If you’ve never participated before but you’re interested in trying it out, I’d love for you to join me in participating in FicFrenzy this month!

Need some help prepping for your next writing challenge? Sign up to the newsletter and get access to the Scribes & Archers resource library, including a writing challenge prep checklist!

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Organizing Years of Scattered Worldbuilding with Scrivener

One of my primary goals over the past month has been to flesh out and solidify the world of Lightning and Thunder. This world has existed in my brain for somewhere around a decade (and I’ve published snapshots of it in Short Story Collection vol. 1), but it took me until now–writing a longer project in that setting–to finally compile all of my notes into one place, flesh out more specifics in areas where I’ve been banking on aesthetics and general principles, and iron out the inconsistencies that have popped up over a decade of scattered note-taking.

If you’ve been around for a while, you may have noticed that I have a pretty consistent worldbuilding process in terms of organization (usually one running document of notes that has information from it gradually transferred into World Anvil for better organization and presentation), but I also adapt to the needs of whatever world I’m working with. For this project, I decided that the best way to parse through everything and reference it neatly would be with Scrivener* (though I also intend to use World Anvil* as the presentation platform for this world in the future). Today, I’m laying out what that process has looked like for this world and how I’ve put Scrivener’s various features to work for this project, in case it’s a process that appeals to you too!

*This post contains affiliate links, marked with an asterisk. Purchases made through these links earn me a small commission at no extra cost to you.An Overview of Scrivener’s Display

Before we dive into how I’ve used various Scrivener features, let me give you some context of what the Scrivener display looks like and what elements I’ll be referring to. This is the basic Scrivener display:

To the far left, you have the “binder” index.

In the middle, you can see the “corkboard” of “cards” that represent each document within the selected folder. These show up with their titles, colors based on their labels (when applicable), and notes beneath the titles (none of these particular cards have custom notes on them, so they display the first bit of text from inside the document instead.) Above this, there are options to switch your view of the folder from “corkboard” to “composite” (or the “outliner” view, but I’ve never used that one).

Off to the right is the “inspector” sidebar, which displays the “card” for whatever document you have selected at the top, with notes below. There are other tabs as well that can be useful, but I’m not making use of them for this particular project.

This is what the display looks like for an individual document:

It’s pretty much the same, but here I’ve selected one where you can see that the “card” section of the “inspector” sidebar reflects the description and label color of the document just as it would in its containing folder’s “corkboard” view.

Later on, you’ll also see what the “composite” view looks like and more of those labels and descriptions in use.

The Initial Collection

The first step of this process was simply to collect all of the notes I had on Concordia from their various documents into one central Scrivener project. I’m cautious of deleting anything (plus, a few of these documents had comments on them from author friends, which I wanted to have on hand for future reference), so I didn’t delete any of the original documents, but I did copy and paste each one into its own page in Scrivener. In titling these, I included the date(s) of the original document, as well as where I could find it again later, like so:

As you can see, I’m using the format of “Document title – Date (Original location).” I kept the dates as specific as I could find; some had clear dates marked, some did not, and some I couldn’t find a date on at all. I’ve also kept the document title exactly the same as on the original, so that they’re easy to search for in their original locations should I need to reference said originals. That’s why some of these have really generic or odd titles, lol.

As I’ve compiled and developed more of these, I’ve maintained the same format in titling them for the sake of consistency and ease of organization. Date is particularly important for this world’s notes, because I have notes spanning so many years and having the dates readily visible lets me see which are newer vs. older when I’m considering which conflicting notes to keep or toss.

After taking this screenshot, I grabbed more notes from World Anvil and also wrote up new notes in the 30 Days of Worldbuilding workbook by Angeline Trevena which I copied over into text form so that, again, everything would remain in one place and readily accessible:

Note Sorting & Reference

Once everything was in one place, I had to categorize it. Most of my worlds are organized by nation because those are the biggest delineations in how I use the world; for Concordia, however, I mainly focus on a singular continent and the bigger distinctions are between eras. Thus, my top-level folders cover the various eras of the world in order. Beneath those, I have categories for areas of development: technology, key organizations, government, military, etc. Originally, I also had a section for the magic system and its related elements within each era, as you can see below:

(I also added, early on, the time-spans of each era for easy reference.) As I was working with the project, however, I realized that it was obnoxious to have to hunt through the various eras for notes on magic and so on, which remain somewhat consistent over time, so I added a separate top-level folder for the magic system and its associated notes:

Within each of these folders, I’ve taken my compiled notes from the first section and divided them up based on topic. So while one document in the “Compiled Notes” section might cover ten topics, I’ve copied and pasted those into ten separate files that are sorted into “Categorized Notes” folders accordingly. While this makes for lots of very brief files, right now, it allows me to see what I have and haven’t already developed in a certain category and to have all of my notes on a given topic in one place, without the clutter of other topics. If I want to see a note in its original broader context instead, I can always just hop back over to the document I pulled a note from in “Compiled Notes” to see what it was connected to.

Here’s an example of the detail I might split these notes into, in the “corkboard” view:

Then, if I want to see everything in a given category, I can switch over to the composite view and it will display everything from a given folder in a single document (the images above and below show the same folder, just in these two different views):

There are a couple of things I’ve done to keep these smaller notes straight. First, I’ve used the “corkboard” view to make notes on each file’s “card” of what original document it came from (which allows me to reference the document’s date) or, for newer notes that went directly into a category, the date on which it was started. Like so:

The colors of the cards indicate their level of development. I’ve used Scrivener’s “label” function to see at a glance which notes are in progress, need more consideration, have been scrapped in favor of something else, etc. Here’s my key:

I’ve also set these to display in the “binder” sidebar, so that I don’t have to go into a folder to see the colored cards of the documents within it, but can see these labels at a glance in the index as well:

The abbreviations after titles in the magic folder refer to eras (Stone Era, Golden Era, Titanium Era), so that I can keep all of my magic notes in one place but also know which era each note is most relevant to. While there is overlap (especially in some of the more basic technical notes), some details of the magic system really are pretty specific to a given era. GenDevs don’t exist until the Titanium Era! Tacking era abbreviations onto note titles is how I’ve balanced having everything in one place but also seeing what era each note best relates to.

Wrapping Up

This system is newly developed, so I’ve only tested it but so much. That said, it’s serving me well so far and there are a few features I can say make it optimally useful (at least for me), besides the Scrivener-specific features I’ve already shown off (different folder views, labels, etc.).

Consistent titling – This makes it easy to find what I need, as well as to name new documents with minimal mental effort.

Dates on everything – I try to keep dates on all my writing notes anyway because I like to be able to see progression of story ideas, world development, etc., but this is especially helpful with a long-in-development, scattered, sometimes conflicting compilation of worldbuilding notes.

Flexibility in categories – While titling and dating is consistent, organization of folders and categories can be more flexible depending on the needs of an era, etc. For example, returning to the first “note sorting” screenshot, you can see that I have “science and technology” as a single sub-folder for the Stone Era, but I have individual folders for “technology: ID chips,” “technology: transportation,” etc. in the Titanium Era. I’ve tried to balance consistency and flexibility in this system.

Multiple “views” – Obviously, part of this is a feature of Scrivener itself with its corkboard view and composite view, etc. But part of it I’ve built into the system myself, as I have my “compiled notes” where I can see everything in the context in which it was originally written, as well as my “organized notes” in which I can view things topically.

Tracking progress – With my progress labels, I can easily see which elements of the world need more work, which are finalized, and which ideas have been scrapped and can usually be ignored. This is especially useful while I have particular topics I’m working to flesh out and finalize, as I can easily see where to focus on developing things from scratch, where I just need to solidify what’s already there, and where I’m already good to go.

This system may not work for every author or every project, but it has been really helpful for me in collecting scattered and conflicting notes and putting them in usable order, so if that’s something you’re dealing with as well, Scrivener* might be the right tool to help!

Have questions or feel like there was something I didn’t cover? Comment or send me an email!

Have you ever used Scrivener for your worldbuilding before? What does your process for that look like? Do you have another tool you prefer? Comment and share your thoughts!

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5 Ways to Transition Between Scenes

I recently got a question from a newsletter subscriber about how much is needed when transitioning between scenes–especially when there is a jump in time and/or space involved. For example, if your characters are traveling, how much do you actually need to show and how can you transition smoothly if you skip over the details? Today’s post is expanding on some potential answers to this question, to answer it for others who might be wondering.

There are a number of ways to transition through travel sequences and the like, depending on the needs of your story and the particular transition you’re addressing.

The Quick Summary

For example, “After several hours of trekking through what seemed like an endless desert, he finally arrived at the outskirts of Sha’nil.”

The quick summary is a good choice if you want to give a general idea of how much time has passed and maybe a quick outline of the weather/terrain, but don’t need any more detail than that in order for the story to make sense and the transition to have meaning. It’s useful if you want to keep up the pace of your story and/or keep from losing your reader in excessive description of your setting. (Even if you love your setting and want to show it off, you still need to ask yourself whether it’s actually relevant to the story right now or if you may need to kill your darlings and keep the description to yourself.)

If a summary feels insufficient but longer description isn’t necessary, it may simply be enough to make sure that the details you are sharing have some relevance to the plot/characters; maybe the description of their traveling environment sets up a character getting sick shortly after their arrival, or maybe the brief description of the terrain they’ve been covering can be contrasted by a longer description of their destination and how it might seem refreshing in comparison (or discouraging, if it seems like more of the same). Maybe one of the characters who’s been traveling to Sha’nil collapses at the gate from dehydration because they didn’t adequately prepare for their long desert trek, or they rush to the well as soon as they arrive to quench their thirst. You can use your brief transition summary to set up the next bit of movement in your story.

The Scene Divider

In some cases, even a transitional summary is more than you really need and you can get away with just a scene divider. With this approach, the most important thing is to promptly reestablish time and setting in the following scene. Maybe your transition looks something like this:

Hoisting the heavy waterskin higher on his back, Fior took his first step onto the sprawling dunes, toward Sha’nil and the rising sun.

***

An evening breeze cooled the sweat on Fior’s brow as he approached the gate of Sha’nil, stars already beginning to peek out from the twilight beyond.

That’s extra heavy on description to make the point, but something like this can eliminate needless travel time without disorienting the reader. Note, this will create a different pace than a summary transition; a summary maintains motion and keeps up an active pace, while a scene divider creates a mental pause for the reader and teleports them from one scene (and time/setting) to the next. Think of it like the difference in a movie between showing a travel montage vs. cutting directly from one scene to another.

The Timestamp

If you want to do a scene break that has a built-in mechanism for reestablishing timing and/or setting, you can go the timestamp route and accompany your scene divider with, “four hours later…”

Variations on this would include full dates, setting identifiers, etc. “January 1 – Sha’nil,” “Sha’nil, four hours later,” etc. How much you include will depend on what’s necessary to the story, what you want to establish in the timestamp vs. through description, etc.

I would say that this route is the most likely to impact and/or be dependent on the tone of your story. It’s particularly suited to narrators who are more interested in the facts than the story, narrators who are in a hurry, narrators who just don’t think this transition is all that important, or stories in which time is a critical component (whether for the entire story, like Nadine Brandes’ A Time to Die, or for a portion of the story where there’s some sort of “ticking time bomb” that you want your reader to be aware of and able to keep time with). The less detail you rely on the time stamp to communicate, the more tone-neutral it is (e.g. “Four hours later…” gives a less analytical tone to the timestamp than something like, “Grantech Headquarters – 0700, January 1.” Again, exaggerated for emphasis.)

The Montage

Some transitions actually need to be fleshed out because the travel time (or whatever the scenario may be) involves events important to the story/characters. Even in this case, however, you may not need to convey the entire travel sequence, merely to focus on the scene or two that are crucial to the story. (Sometimes you may need the entire travel sequence, but then it’s not a transition like this post is discussing.)

Maybe the first two hours of Fior’s desert trek is uneventful, but it’s important for the reader to know that he ran into a sand snake after that and was bitten, or he killed it and brought it with him for its venom, or both. And maybe an hour after that he ran out of water, despite having filled a large waterskin before he left, so he spends the last hour carrying a dead snake around his neck as dehydration begins to weaken him and slow his progress.

In this case, you want to focus on these two events, but you can still cut out the two hours beforehand, the hour between, and the vast majority of the final hour. This will basically require separate transitions between his departure and the snake encounter, the snake encounter and emptying the waterskin, and emptying the waterskin and his arrival in Sha’nil. You could use the same kind of transition for all of them, or mix and match. Maybe you want to show the long delay between his departure and the snake by using a scene transition, but you want to make it seem like he’s just dealt with the snake when he runs out of water so you use a summary to keep up the pace, and you want to share a bit of detail around his growing tired and weak in that last hour so you use a summary there as well. Or maybe you decide that if you’re going to summarize twice, you might as well summarize the first transition, too, to make the pacing more consistent. It all depends on your goal for the montage and the pacing you’re going for within the larger transition from Point A to Point B.

For more on writing montage sequences, check out this post.

The POV Shift

If you have multiple storylines being told from different perspectives, the beginning of a travel sequence may be a good time to cut over to your second POV; this allows you to come back to the first POV after their transition is complete and merely establish that they’ve completed their journey before moving on with the next part of the story (much like the “scene divider” approach; you’re just using the secondary POV as that scene divider).

While this approach is very similar to the scene divider route, it does less to slow the pace of the story because you’re cutting to another active POV instead of offering a pause within the same POV, and the first POV gets to keep moving along as soon as you come back to it. It shifts focus instead of pace. While this can still distract your reader (especially if they strongly prefer the first POV to the second, which can often happen), it doesn’t offer the same kind of pause.

When you’re transitioning a scene, sometimes you don’t need more words, just to make those few words do more; and sometimes it’s less distracting to cut past the summary altogether. It’s all going to depend on the context and how much information you feel like the reader needs about a given transition.

Comment below with your favorite transition style! Bonus: What do you like about that style? How many of these styles have you used? I’d love to hear from you!

Not sure how to keep your story active, or what your characters should be doing next? Sign up to get my list of “plotting prompts”–character-driven prompts for plot movement that can be applied when outlining, drafting, or editing!

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Why I Love the Best Friends-to-Lovers Trope

Hello, and Happy Valentine’s Day a little early! Today’s post is part of a week-long collaboration, where each author talks about a relationship trope they enjoy. Laura kicked us off yesterday with a post on the “marriage of convenience” trope, and today I’m picking up with the best friends-to-lovers trope. Stick around to the end to be sure to follow the authors who will be contributing the rest of the week!

The best friends-to-lovers trope is one of my favorites–which especially shows when I talk about love triangles and invariably prefer the steady best friend to the new Hot GuyTM–and today I’m going to talk about a few reasons why I appreciate it so much.

Emphasis on Friendship between Partners

A relationship needs more than chemistry and physical attraction to hold it together. If you don’t like who your SO is as a person, your relationship isn’t going to last. The best friends-to-lovers trope emphasizes the stability that comes when a relationship is built on mutual affection for something deeper in the other person, and existing trust and friendship. I hesitate to use the word “compatibility” because it can easily be taken too far, but there is something in who these characters are that is well-matched, and in a best friends-t0-lovers story we get to see that applied both to friendship and to something “more” between them.

Obviously, this is not to say that all relationships that started out as “more than friendship” lack these foundations! These can absolutely be built within a relationship, and I love stories that show that process, as well. But best friends-to-lovers showcases these traits from a unique perspective which I just always enjoy seeing/reading about.

Prioritizing Emotional Connections over Physical Attraction

To build off of the last point, I appreciate that the best friends-to lovers trope inherently focuses on the emotional connection between two characters more than on their physical attraction to one another. There’s nothing wrong with physical attraction–and it often does play a role in best friends-to-lovers stories, as it should–but it is certainly not the be-all, end-all that it can come across as in a lot of other kinds of romance threads. Lasting relationships, again, have to go deeper than that, and best friends-to-lovers stories acknowledge that in their very nature; two friends realize that their relationship is even more important to them than they realized, and they can’t imagine living without one another because of what the other adds to their life–and even to who they are and how they act. That’s the sort of deep connection that I really enjoy seeing emphasized in romance plot-lines.

Slow Burns are Great

I have to admit, I just like slow-burn relationships. I like seeing two characters take time to develop their relationship, without rushing into things, and seeing them figure out a new dynamic with one another. (Which is funny, since God wrote my own love story to develop very quickly with no pre-established relationship beforehand, but I still love reading slow-burns (and I still love the story God gave me and my husband).) Best friends-to-lovers is the ultimate slow-burn, because the characters aren’t even thinking about romance at the outset; it creeps up on them slowly, and they tend to move forward with it slowly out of care for the existing relationship (more on that in a moment).

Besides this, the dynamics that characters have to sort out are just different when they’re transitioning from friendship to “something more” than when two characters meet and pursue a romance from an early stage of their relationship; both dynamics are fun, and I like seeing both addressed, but the awkwardness of best friends realizing they have feelings for each other and learning to navigate a new kind of relationship with one another–while also clearly being well-suited to one another and having a great deal of rapport already in place–is unique to the best friends-to-lovers trope.

Highlighting the Importance of Platonic Friendship

Lastly, I want to talk about the way that the best friends-to-lovers trope not only naturally emphasizes elements of a strong, stable romance, but also emphasizes the importance of friendship right alongside its celebration of romance. This comes up especially if one friend realizes their feelings before the other, or when one friend realizes they have feelings for the other and the second friend doesn’t feel the same way at all. Generally speaking, the characters in a best friends-to-lovers story don’t rush into romance–as we’ve discussed–and generally speaking this is because one or both of them are afraid of distancing the other and ruining the friendship they already have. The friendship they have, and the other character’s comfort, are more important to them than their own romantic feelings. (This also highlights true selfless love, which is another point in the trope’s favor!)

The strongest examples of this focal point on friendship is actually when there is no “to lovers” because the romantic feelings are unrequited and the character feeling them chooses to place the friendship first by permanently setting aside their own attraction and focusing on the friendship they have. (Obviously, this is a little outside the scope of the trope, but it seemed appropriate to mention all the same.)

Those are a few of the reasons I love the best friends-to-lovers trope, and as you can see, they largely boil down to the fact that I think the trope tends to highlight particular characteristics of a relationship that I really value seeing and that you can’t always find in other types of relationships (though, again, they’re certainly not always lacking, either!) Do you enjoy the best friends-to-lovers trope? Do you share some of my reasons, or do you have other reasons for enjoying it? Do you have any problems with how the best friends-to-lovers trope is handled? What is your favorite relationship trope? Share your thoughts in the comments!

And stick around this week, because we’ll be covering a lot more! I recommend following the other contributors so you don’t miss when their posts go live (and also because they’re really cool authors you should check out)!

Love Week Schedule

Mon, February 10 – Marriage of convenience – L.E. Morgan

Tue, February 11 – Best friends-to-lovers – R.M. Archer

Wed, February 12 – Childhood sweethearts – M.C. Kennedy

Thu, February 13 – Opposites attract – Grace Johnson

Fri, February 14 – Fake dating – Nicki Chapelway

Sat, February 15 – Forbidden love – Kellyn Roth

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How Should Christians Write About… LGBT Issues

This post topic has been on my “to-write” list for a long time now because, frankly, it’s a scary topic to broach. I expect it will offend people (possibly those from multiple directions), and I don’t prefer to intentionally make people uncomfortable. That said, I believe this is an important topic that Christian authors should be addressing, one that Christian authors have largely ignored and abdicated the conversation around, and since it recently came up again I decided it was time to actually post about it.

As always in this series, this post is meant to be food-for-thought, to lay out the scriptural guidelines for a particular topic and what we do or don’t have the freedom to include in our stories (or how we do or don’t have the freedom to portray it) based on that scripture. I’ll put forth my interpretation, but all of these topics are ultimately between you and God and the intention is not to bind or to violate your conscience.

The Biblical View on Homosexuality

The most important question to ask is (as always): What does the Bible say about homosexuality?

(Verses are in NKJV, and I encourage you to read the broader context as well, on your own.)

While we have a measure of Christian liberty, our consciences and choices should always be subject to the word of God, who designed the world we operate in and to whom we belong. He addresses the matter of homosexuality early on, in His giving of the law:

You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination.

— Leviticus 18:22

If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them.

–Leviticus 20:13

For those of you saying, “Christ did away with the law!” (then you should reread Matt. 5:17-20, but), the matter of homosexuality is addressed in even greater depth in the New Testament.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.”

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.

Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.

And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.

Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things. But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things. And do you think this, O man, you who judge those practicing such things, and doing the same, that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?

— Romans 1:16-2:4

Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.

— 1 Corinthians 6:9-11

There’s a lot to unpack here, but I would sum it up in the following three points:

Homosexuality is a sin, contrary to God’s created order and design, found in company (on a widespread level) with other forms of spiritual rebellion.Those living in unrepentant sin will not inherit the kingdom of God. The Spirit of God given through grace at salvation spurs us to repentance and righteousness; a lack of that fruit reflects a lack of that Spirit. (Rom. 2:1-4, 1 Corinthians 6:11; John 8:10-12, Mark 1:14-15, Acts 2:37-42, Romans 12:1-2, etc.)It is not more difficult for God to redeem a homosexual than any other sinner. There is still hope in Christ for redemption and repentance and eternal life through a living relationship with Him!

We’ll get to what that means for how Christians should approach representation of homosexuality in fiction in a moment.

The Biblical View on Gender/Sex

Transgenderism must be approached the same way: What does the Bible say about gender/sex?

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

— Genesis 1:26-28

“A woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman’s garment, for all who do so are an abomination to the Lord your God.“

— Deuteronomy 22:5

For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb.
I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well.
My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.

— Psalm 139:13-16

But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?”

— Romans 9:20
(Yes, this passage is discussing the spirit and will, but God has formed both our inward and our outward parts as He willed–and the combination thereof.)

To distill this into points, as well:

God created mankind male and female. He created (only) two sexes/genders, equal in value and image-bearing, distinct and complementary in role, both critical to the mission He called mankind to (Gen. 2:18, Eph. 5:22-33, Malachi 2:15, etc.)God formed each individual with intention and purpose, inside and out. When we question this (whether in terms of gender or otherwise) we are failing to act in faith, and trying to change His design for us is rebellious–as well as detrimental to the Church body, when the matter arises in that context (1 Corinthians 12).As with homosexuality, transgenderism is not any more difficult for God to forgive than anything else! There is still hope in Christ for redemption and eternal life through a repentant and living relationship with Him.What This Means for Representation

For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret. But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light.

— Ephesians 5:8-13

A lot of people take verse 12 (“For it is shameful even to speak of those things”) to mean that Christians should never represent certain sinful behaviors–regardless of how they’re portrayed and whether they are glorified or condemned–because we shouldn’t even speak of them. If that’s your interpretation, I’m not here to say that it’s wrong, but I would pose a question: How are we supposed to expose darkness as darkness, per the rest of the passage, if we never address it?

My belief, from how scripture handles sin in its narrative and how we are instructed to respond to sin, is that we should not shy away from portraying sin appropriately. We should not write it in such a way that it seems right to readers, in a way that glorifies it, or in a way that lingers on it longer than is necessary or in more detail than is necessary; we should not be creating stumbling blocks or reveling in sin ourselves. We’re not to have fellowship with darkness! But we also can’t pretend it away or refuse to share the biblical truth on a “shameful” issue.

It is not terribly difficult to find fiction reflecting a worldview that fully accepts homosexual behavior and transgenderism as part of the identity of those practicing them, a worldview that believes you cannot accept and love a person without accepting and loving all of their choices. Those who seek to normalize this behavior make a point to represent it in their fiction, and it is an ever-growing theme in all genres of fiction.

You can also find authors who refuse to touch the subject because they believe any portrayal is a normalization of sinful behavior, they want to pretend those struggling with this sin don’t exist, or it just makes them uncomfortable. (The former can be a valid conscience issue, which I’m not critiquing here; my critique is of those who cannot distinguish between a portrayal of sin that normalizes and glorifies it vs. a portrayal of sin that exposes it as wickedness. The latter option may also, in some cases, be a valid reason not to write about the topic, but we’ll get into the nuances of that a little later.)

This combination–of heavy worldly portrayal and Christian silence in the context of fiction–means that there is very, very little fiction out there that represents the full biblical truth of what homosexuality means in the eyes of God.

If Christians don’t address this issue biblically, then the only viewpoint represented is that which is anti-Scriptural. If we want to represent the truth of God’s design and salvation, we can’t leave the issue to only be addressed by those who think like the world. We don’t need to villainize those stuck in sin–those caught in homosexuality or transgenderism are still image-bearers of God who need His saving grace–but we also don’t need to paint their sinful behavior in a positive light in order to show them grace. In fact, that grace is meaningless without the truth of why it matters. We need fiction that represents the firm biblical truth that homosexuality and transgenderism are sinful rebellions against God’s design, that acknowledges fallen mankind is prone to sin and we cannot save ourselves from it, and that presents the grace and hope of the gospel.

To take it even further, think about how you portray the biblical alternative. How do you portray marriage in your books? How do you portray the roles and gifts of men and women? How do you portray children and parenting? Do you portray these things as blessings, rightly ordered according to their biblical design? Do you focus on their true biblical definitions without adding in cultural stereotypes? Can your readers see that you believe God’s created order is not only right but good for those who follow it? Again, I’m not trying to bind anything here; your characters need not (and should not) always be perfect or fully satisfied, broken families are just as acceptable to portray (as less-than-ideal), and there is nuance and balance in all of this. But do keep in mind that readers are motivated toward things, not merely away from them; “take off” and “put on” is a biblical pattern of instruction, and we should be mindful of what we are portraying as right, good, and normal just as we are mindful of what we are portraying as wrong, sinful, and broken.

As a last note, I do not believe the importance of this issue means that every Christian author is failing if they don’t address it, or that every Christian author should 100% agree on the importance of seeing it addressed in Christian fiction, or (certainly!) that Christians whose consciences forbid it should violate their consciences in order to write about these things. In fact, I believe there are certain contexts in which Christian authors should refrain from representing characters who are practicing homosexuality or transgenderism:

When your conscience forbids it. As I said at the outset, this is ultimately between you and God and my intention is not to incite you to violate your conscience! If you come to a different conviction on this matter, heed the Spirit of God, not me.When you cannot have grace for those stuck in this sin. If you are full of judgment and can’t bring yourself to reflect God’s grace for those tied up in these sins, you are not in a position to represent this theme in a biblical manner (Luke 6:41-42). Showing only one side of the story in either direction is not a faithful reflection of biblical truth and will not edify your readers (or you).When it doesn’t suit the story. Not every story (I would even venture to say not many stories) will be served by including a representation of characters in these situations. In some cases, it will merely distract from the main themes of the story you’ve been given to tell. In others, there just won’t be space to be as biblically grounded in your portrayal as is needed. If your story is not served by the addition—just as with any other story element or character—leave it out.

Let the discourse begin. What do you see as the application of Scripture’s principles on homosexuality and transgenderism? Do you think I left anything out? Feel free to comment below; I only ask that disagreement remain respectful on all sides.

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The post How Should Christians Write About… LGBT Issues appeared first on Scribes & Archers.

Developing Your Own Best Marketing Practices

There is no single “right way” to market your books. As with most things in the writing realm, marketing differs from author to author–and sometimes even from book to book. All the same, there is a lot of advice out there claiming to be “necessary” for your marketing to succeed, and it can be hard to know which tips are actually going to be useful. It’s overwhelming sometimes!

My intention with this post is twofold: First, I want to assure you that you can market the way you want to; marketing doesn’t have to be high-pressure if you don’t want it to be, and it doesn’t have to look a certain way. Secondly, I want to help you figure out the foundations of your marketing “personality,” as it were, so that you can filter marketing advice accordingly–keeping what fits your purposes and ignoring the rest.

Ready? Let’s get into it.

This post contains affiliate links, marked with an asterisk. Purchases made through these links earn me a small commission at no extra cost to you.Determine Your Priorities

The first thing to know is your marketing goal. Are you aiming to make a certain number of sales per month? Just to connect with readers? Do you want to prompt discussion about your book? Different priorities will lead to different practices. If you’re looking for sales, you’ll need to focus on platforms and practices that are likely to drive those sales, and you’ll need to have a heavier emphasis on talking about the books (or services) you’re trying to sell. If you’re seeking connection with readers, you’ll need to focus on platforms that foster community among readers, and your posts will probably need to lean more toward discussion of reading as a hobby and of other people’s books in order to connect with readers who haven’t necessarily read your book yet.

These priorities don’t have to be exclusive, of course! If you want connection first but a secondary emphasis on sales, it’s totally fine to balance content about your own books more evenly with content about others’ books and the reading experience as a whole. But knowing how your priorities stack will enable you to emphasize those purposes appropriately in your marketing.

If you have more than one book out, you may also want to prioritize which projects you talk about most–especially if you have “outlier” books that don’t fit the majority of what you write, or you have series and it makes the most sense to promote the first books more than the sequels. Sometimes, this may be totally irrelevant! Maybe all of your books are connected, or they’re all equally representative of your work; then it may be a better idea to balance them more evenly. In my case, I started out publishing what were essentially experimental fairytale retellings. Do I like them? Yes. Do readers like them? Also yes. Am I happy to sell them to readers who will enjoy them? Absolutely. But they’re not representative of the other things I write, so now that I have books out that are more representative, I’ve put those retellings on a back seat in terms of promotion so that readers don’t come to expect that style of fairytale retellings from me in the future.

If you are one of those readers who enjoys fairytale retellings, Lost Girl is a romance retelling and The Mirror-Hunter Chronicles are in a similar tone to A Series of Unfortunate Events.Determine Your Boundaries

It is perfectly okay to have certain marketing tactics you just won’t use. People tend to advise having a TikTok presence, these days; I personally won’t go near a TikTok account with a ten-foot pole. I also hate false scarcity (putting something on a deadline that has no need to be on a deadline–like a discount that’s not for any particular occasion, or a membership that closes just to force people to join within a certain window instead of due to genuine limitations, etc.) and refuse to use it. Once this baby is born, there will be boundaries around how much I share about him (and future children) on my author pages. Some people share pictures of their spouses; some don’t. Some don’t post about their personal lives at all. These, too, are boundaries to draw (or not) as you see fit.

Boundaries are not an excuse to never leave your comfort zone–marketing will likely push you out of your comfort zone, especially if you’re just plain uncomfortable with selling when you get started (believe it or not, you can grow past that)–but you are allowed to draw lines, and you are allowed to take baby steps out of your comfort zone; you don’t have to leap ten feet past the bubble all in one day. I’m not especially comfortable with video; for a while, I just didn’t do anything video-based, or stuck to slides with voice-over. Over time, I’ve come to do more with video and be more comfortable on camera, even though it’s still not a primary medium for me (more on that in the next section), but I did so through just one video every couple of years. Your comfort zone and your boundaries are allowed to expand slowly–or to never budge, on matters like (for me) false scarcity that are more than just uncomfortable, or boundaries between what is professional and what is personal. Again, boundaries are okay–and, in fact, helpful for enabling you to sift through marketing options.

Know What You Like (and Dislike)

Over the years, I’ve expanded my comfort zone around video. But you know what? I just don’t like it that much. It takes a lot of work to set up, record, and edit, and most of the time I just don’t care about the medium enough to bother. There are some things that video is good for, so I use it when it seems appropriate, but part of learning not to hate marketing is not forcing yourself to market in ways you hate. If you focus on marketing in ways you like, it’s a lot easier to like marketing!

So ask yourself what you like–both from a creative standpoint and when you’re on the receiving end of marketing. Do you really like those content-at-a-glance graphics for books? Do you love graphic design? Are you really into backing up your worldbuilding with historical research? Do you review books all the time? Do you have a loooong list of book recommendations?

On the flip side, think about what you don’t like. Maybe you don’t like editing reels (maybe you don’t even like watching reels). Maybe those content-at-a-glance graphics feel reductive to you and you want to get into more of the nitty-gritty heart of your books. Maybe you find graphic design time-consuming, or just don’t feel like you’re good at it (note: design is a learned skill).

If it helps, make lists of your likes and dislikes, and think about how you can emphasize the things you like and spend less time on the things you don’t like. You won’t always be able to avoid the things you dislike–sometimes what we dislike is what really connects with other readers, and sometimes a given medium or tactic is just most appropriate in a situation even if we don’t like it–but you can heavily tip the scales in your favor. And guess what? You’ll connect most with the readers who have similar interests and resonate with similar things as you!

Make a plan

Once you know your priorities, boundaries, and likes and dislikes, you can start to form a marketing plan that makes sense with your goals, feels meaningful, and might even be fun! As with everything else, the structure of this marketing plan is up to you; you might decide to plan out every week’s content, create general categories of topics to cover within each month, brainstorm a list of content ideas to execute at will, etc. Whatever works.

What platforms you focus on will depend on all of the factors we just talked about. An email list is a good idea (even if you only send emails rarely), because you own the list and your emails won’t get lost in algorithms like your social media posts will; it’s especially suitable if you’re looking to share long-form content, make more sales, build trust with readers, etc. Mailerlite* is the platform I recommend if you don’t have a list yet, as it’s easy to set up and affordable for small (<1,000-subscriber) lists, and has plenty of capability that’s not stuck behind a paywall.

If you like photography and/or graphic design, Instagram is a good place to be. That’s also one of the two social media platforms where I’ve personally had the most success in connecting with readers and fellow authors (the other being TwiX), if that’s one of your priorities as well.

Facebook, I’ve learned, is pretty much only good for groups. You can get some interaction on posts from a page, but not a whole lot, in my experience. If you want to build your own community of readers, this might be a good fit (or you may prefer Discord)–and it may be worthwhile to create an author page with which to interact within that group if you write under a pen name or just want to keep your personal page separate.

If you’re not sure what to post/send, I would recommend looking at the following:

What other, similar authors are posting/sendingWhat you’ve been thinking about lately in relation to writing, reading, life, etc.What you’re already naturally doing (e.g. Are you already interacting in TwiX conversations? Are you already reviewing the books you read? Are you already taking photos for Instagram?)What you think would just be fun to do

From there, you can think about how these things could be used toward your goals. What thoughts could you write up and share with your email list? What TwiX conversations lend themselves well to talking about your book? How could you share your reviews more intentionally with readers? What fun post ideas could you throw in (not all marketing has to be serious)!

Example

Like I said, your marketing approach doesn’t have to (and usually shouldn’t) look like anyone else’s, but sometimes it can be useful to see concrete examples, so here’s a bit of how I’ve approached marketing recently.

First, I paid attention to what platforms I’m using and which are returning on the investment in some way. I have a mailing list, this blog, Facebook, Instagram, and TwiX. Facebook doesn’t do a whole lot for me, but since it’s connected to Instagram and Instagram does do all right for me, I can put minimal effort into Facebook beyond what shares to both and it’s not a big deal.

After that, I determined my purpose for each platform. I teach and talk about reading through my blog and email list; I try to connect with others and raise awareness of what I do through social media.

Once I had purposes in mind, I figured out different types of posts/topics to cycle through on a monthly basis for each month.

I’m aiming for my blog posts to include a teaching post, a seasonal post, a collaborative post, and a post containing an affiliate link or product promo (even if only in passing) each month.My emails focus on lessons I’m learning, product awareness, connection/engagement with readers, and time-sensitive sales or other opportunities.My social media posts (on Facebook and Instagram) will ideally cover some personal point of connection, information about my work, posts about resources available through my list, and posts that promote others each month.

(TwiX is… its own thing; I interact there when I feel like it and post whatever seems relevant. Sometimes that’s a book promo post, sometimes it’s a post about some piece of media, sometimes I don’t post anything but replies, and sometimes I’m posting about kitchen gadgetry. It depends on the day. But the point there is conversation, engagement, and just being human, so it’s filling its role without a plan.)

My monthly post types are not tied to specific weeks of the month (I can post them in any order I want), I’m allowed to add whatever other posts/emails I want, and if I don’t check all the boxes in a given month it’s not the end of the world; but having that framework helps me know what to post/send and helps me easily keep track of which categories are out-of-balance. If I’m selling too much and not posting enough just to connect, I can see that and fix it. Or if I’m not letting people know about my work enough, that’s also visible as I keep track. (For anyone curious, I’m keeping track in a OneNote file with check-boxes set up for each month.)

This is my “everyday” marketing plan, anyway. My marketing plan when I’m releasing a book looks different–what I did for Calligraphy Guild being the model because that worked really well for me (in short: weekly posts sharing more about the book and the heart behind it, a content-at-a-glance graphic, a couple of reels thanks to my then-VA Kristianne (I would not have made those by myself, lol, but they were great!), regularly posted quote graphics, and a pre-order goodie box).

As a final note, keep in mind that marketing is really about connection–even when a given post or email is focused on sales. Readers don’t buy books they don’t feel like they’ll connect with (or services they don’t feel like will suit them)–and they don’t buy from people who are always only selling, either. At the same time, there is a bit of a balancing act involved, because you want for people to connect with you and know that you have books they might like! But connect first, sell second.

If you have questions, please comment below (or send me an email)! I’m happy to answer what I can. Have a favorite marketing technique? Feel free to share that, too! I’d love to know how you’ve made marketing feel doable (and/or fun!) for yourself!

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How to Stick with a Project (Past the First Draft)

While I’ve previously written on the topic of sticking with a project–and the principles from that post do apply beyond the first draft into revisions, edits, etc.–it was recently brought to my attention that I don’t have a post addressing some of the obstacles that can arise specifically after the first draft is complete, so that is what I will be discussing today!

Obstacle #1: Feeling Inadequate

As you shift from the writing process into the process of identifying problems and rewriting to remedy those problems, it’s easy to feel unequal to the task at first–especially if this is your first time stepping into the rewriting stage. It can be daunting. I get it!

It’s important to remember that even as you start rewriting and editing, your project is still allowed to be imperfect–and so is your process. You are allowed to take as long as you need–and as many drafts as you need–to figure out what works for you and your project. It’s a learning process, and not only will each draft you finish make the next a little clearer, each full project you rework will make the next a little bit easier, too.

To address the practical side of this obstacle, the biggest step is to identify what it is about the project that feels intimidating to address. What is it you feel inadequate to do? Are you not sure how to identify the problems with your story? Do you know what the biggest problem is but feel unsure how to move forward with fixing it?

I’ll admit The Masked Captain has been sitting in my computer, first draft fully written, for five and a half years. Why? Because I know the theme isn’t working, which means (in this case) reworking portions of the plot, and that’s been a daunting prospect. I’ve also been considering whether or not it would benefit from an added plotline following the main character’s brother, to balance the theme from another perspective. But, as I’ll share as an example for the next point, just clarifying those big issues makes it a lot easier to break down what actually needed to be done–and makes the obstacles seem less intimidating in and of themselves!

Obstacle #2: “What Next?”

Editing, especially developmental editing, is a big and multi-faceted task, which can make it difficult to know where to start. But having a plan is critical to reaching the finish line with a project, and it can help a great deal with putting insecurities to rest as well. So how do you go about making a plan that works?

If you already know of some major issues in your manuscript, those are often a good place to start. If you know you need to rewrite your ending, for example, it makes sense to do that before trying to adjust anything else since the new ending has the potential to shape the entire story. Something like adding a whole new plotline falls into the same category.

If you don’t already know of big issues like those, my advice is always to start with a critical read-through and take notes as you go. Make a running list of anything you want to change or improve, at any level. (Not feeling confident about pulling out issues effectively? Consider having an alpha reader or two help out, or reference a book like Troubleshooting Your Novel to start with.)

After that, I generally find it helpful to split that list into categories–a list for developmental edits and a list of line edits might be sufficient, if that’s how the list best breaks down, but I often have lists for character edits, worldbuilding edits, and plot edits, and sometimes lists for individual characters/arcs if I’ve noticed a lot of detailed problems.

Lists in hand, you can start with the biggest edits–or one set of the biggest edits–and work your way down from there!

Don’t let decision paralysis get in your way. If you’re not sure which step or revision to start with, just choose one. If taking a full category of edits all at once feels like too much, lower it down to just one or two edits first and move on down the list piecemeal. If you’re not sure which fix will work best for an issue, try one of the solutions; if it doesn’t work, backtrack and try a different one; nothing is permanent until you decide it is.

To look at The Masked Captain as an example again, it’s overwhelming to think about rewriting the current plotline and adding a whole second one. Instead, it might make more sense to rewrite the current plotline on its own, fix the way it ends for thematic purposes, then look at that completed draft and gauge whether or not not needs the additional plotline to strengthen the new theme further. That may still be a lot of work, but it’s much simpler than making two major changes at the same time.

Obstacle #3: Waning Interest

Especially in later drafts, when you’ve already read your project a dozen times (or more), you may find yourself losing interest. There are two possible solutions to this: reminder and rest.

Sometimes, all it takes it a reminder of why you were excited about this project in the first place. What about it seemed important to you at the time? What elements of the story caught your interest? If your project has changed significantly between then and now, you may have to look at the story from a new perspective and find new reasons to love it.

In other cases, this isn’t enough to reignite the affection you once had for a project, in which case my recommendation is rest. Your disinterest is probably a result of burnout, which is only solved by setting the project aside for a while and focusing on something else. If you keep pushing, you’ll only start to dislike your project more, which can totally kill your interest in a project for a long time. A lesson I learned in the process of working on Thunder, which I shared after the draft was finished, is that “Rest is not giving up; it’s an investment in better writing later.” Take a break. Recharge. Come back once you can enjoy the story again and do it justice. Pushing past the burnout point will only result in disservice to your project and to you.

I would also remind you: Not only is rest okay, so is setting a project aside for a later season. Sometimes we hit the end of what we can do with a project at our skill level and we know a project needs more; sometimes we need a long break to get back in the right headspace for a particular project; sometimes we’re just busy and don’t have time to invest in refining a project for a while. None of these scenarios are “giving up,” and you can always return to a project when the time is right again. Often, writing is a craft of patience.

Obstacle #4: Not Making Time

On the flip side, not making time when you could–when other things aren’t taking priority, when you’re just avoiding the hard parts, when you still believe the project is important and a good fit for this season–is an obvious obstacle to seeing a project through. This can be a matter of procrastination and failure to prioritize or it can be a matter of simply not knowing how to make the time and work out a habit that works for you.

If you’re not prioritizing your project, ask yourself why. Is it really important to you? Or should you acknowledge that you have other priorities right now and make a plan to work on this story later? Is there some other concrete obstacle you need to address in order to move forward, like figuring out the next step or learning more about the editing craft to boost your confidence?

If the problem is just a lack of habit and uncertainty as to how to fit this project in, but you want to prioritize it, there are lots of practical tips for solving that obstacle! This post is all about time management tips for authors–which can be applied whether you have lots of time you’re managing poorly or you need to figure out how to fit writing/editing into the margins–and this post specifically addresses how to build and keep an effective writing/editing habit.

Do any of these obstacles sound familiar? Are there any obstacles I missed that you’d like me to address in the comments? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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