Writing Tips (Sometimes): The Drawbacks of An Oversized Imagination

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Me & Blueberry just hanging

Throughout my life, ever since I was a small child, I’ve been accused of having an overactive imagination. I know, “accused” is a strong word, especially since some people said it affectionately, others said it laughingly, and most said it exasperatedly.

And the truth is, I’m not the only one! Most fiction writers have at very least active imaginations, if not overactive. And this active imagination is critical to a writer’s ability to do their job. Fiction writers invent new people, imagine strings of worst-case scenarios, and create entire worlds out of basically nothing.

But while this active imagination is useful to our craft, it can actually hold us back in other areas.

Such as in the process of developing a business around our writing. Or when we’re building a marketing plan. Or trying to make decisions about publishing and distribution.

Just because we can imagine a scenario, good or bad, doesn’t mean that it’s the right scenario to be basing our decisions on. I can imagine a full business structure with hired employees filling all kinds of roles from CEO right down to janitor. I can imagine renting or owning a building to conduct my business from, and rubbing elbows with the famous actors who are going to star in the TV shows based on my books. And I can see all kinds of tasks I could currently perform that would create a solid foundation for said business.

But should I be doing all those tasks? Or should I be writing more books?

One really common area I see this pitfall frequently is in discussions about readership.

Imagine an author who has one, maybe two or three books published. They have 200 followers on Facebook (mostly family and people they knew in high-school), 25 newsletter subscribers, 128 Instagram followers, and 7 BookBub followers (all other authors from an author Facebook group follow-a-thon). In total and assuming no overlap, 360 people who have chosen to engage with their brand for some reason or another, and maybe 15% of them are strangers to the author (or possibly bots).

Then, this author has a new idea for a new book. It’s different from their first, second, and third books. A different tone, a different genre, different themes. And they are terrified that writing and publishing it will “upset readers.”

What readers, might I ask?

There is endless conversation in the writing community about “what readers want.”

What do readers want in your newsletter? What do readers want you to write and publish? What do readers want you to post on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter? What do readers want your brand to look like? What covers do readers want? Will this ending piss off my readers? What if I kill off this character? What if… what if… what if… But what about the readers?

And most of the time, these questions come from authors who have no readers. Or who have very few, at best.

Sometimes it feels like collectively, we have created an imaginary monster that haunts our writing, our branding, our business—the looming colossus, the invisible watching eyes, the sinister and pernicious Dastardly Reader, who has the power to destroy our careers with a sneer and a bad review. They peer over our shoulders and growl at cliffhanger endings, hiss at overused tropes, and spit acid whenever we dare do something (can I even say it aloud?!) out-of-the-box. And if you dare publish a work with anything the Dastardly Reader dislikes, they’ll sweep in and burn everything to the ground with one fiery breath.

Well, I have good news for you.

The Dastardly Reader is naught but a figment of our collective oversized imagination.

This is not to say that we all should completely ignore what our readers feel, think, and want (although, I do think this is still a perfectly valid creative strategy for some authors). Rather, that the key word here is our readers.

Every author has a unique audience; yes, even authors who write to market. You may have some crossover with other authors, sure. But your audience is yours and yours alone. So, what your audience wants may be different than what another author’s audience wants.

For example, if you see a newsletter guru in the author community recommend writing short emails, and then proceed to write excruciatingly long emails for their own audience—this is because they’re giving you general advice, but then applying specific, strategic choices to their own business, based on their own audience.

There are lots of strategies out there for figuring out what your reader wants: sending out surveys, creating reader groups and letting them talk to you, inviting them to email you, reading reviews (proceed with caution!). But I think the most frustrating time for an author is right at the beginning, when you have no readers. No one participates in your reader group. No one responds to your emails. And you can’t even get reviews in the first place.

So how, then, are you supposed to make decisions about what your readers want, if you don’t have any readers to ask?

Beware: this is the exact moment the Dastardly Reader likes to show up and start poking and prodding at you. So make sure you acknowledge it for what it is: imaginary.

My advice would instead be this: do what you want.

Do you want to play around with that overused trope? Do it. Do you want to leave some kind of potentially-obnoxious cliffhanger ending? Do it. Do you want to have a messy and chaotic social media presence? Do it. Do you want to send out really long (or really short) emails? Do it.

The thing that makes your brand unique is you. The thing that makes your audience unique… is also you.

You can always follow someone else’s template for a business model if you want. You can always change your approach. You can always grow, learn, and refine your tactics and methods.

But I honestly believe that there’s no time better than at the beginning to focus on figuring out what you want in your books and your business. When there aren’t any real eyes watching your every move, when you have no obligations to anyone, and when you don’t have an audience to “disappoint.”

Explore, experiment, evaluate—and don’t let that Dastardly Reader get in your head.

Blueberry’s favorite sleeping spot: the stairs. No, it doesn’t look comfortable to me either lol

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Many of my previous books are still available if you're interested in checking them out! And if you don't see something you want to read, email me and I'll see what I can do!

New Book: The Silver Skull (Book 10 of Rove City)

I'm excited to announce the launch of my next book, The Silver Skull! This is the tenth book in the Rove City series and is the continuation of Maybelle's story from The Silver Arm.

This book is a retelling of a lesser known Hungarian fairytale called "The Lover's Ghost." Most fairytale retellings focus on more commonly known fairytales, like "Cinderella" or "Beauty and the Beast," but you might have noticed I keep picking less common tales to continue the Rove City series. This is for a specific reason.

When I started Rove City, it was initially supposed to be a series of standalone stories about different people in the city. There was no planned series arc and I had no intention of writing more stories about each individual character. But as I progressed through the series, the number one request was: "MORE." 

At first, I wasn't sure how to handle it, but then I came up with the idea for a second story for El (from Midnight Wings and Midnight Flight) and had an idea for a series arc, and voila! here we are. 

But the number one challenge has been continuing to do fairytale retellings while simultaneously crafting stories that are true to the original characters and that push forward the series arc. This means, I have to look far and wide for tales that I can work with. It also means taking some liberties with the retellings that I might not otherwise have taken.

I read through a couple dozen fairytales before I found “The Lover's Ghost,” searching for a rough structure I thought I could use for the story I had in mind for Maybelle and Amarok. The key difference of course, is that Amarok is not, in fact, a ghost—but merely ghost-like, in the sense that Maybelle can't find him. 

The ending is also slightly different. But no spoilers!

As a little add-on you'll find that I included a me-written version of the original tale at the beginning of the book, should you wish to read it. You can also read it on my blog. I will likely be doing this moving forward, to make sure my readers are familiar with the tale in question, if they want to be.

The world of fairytales is vast! And there are so many wonderful stories to explore. But culturally, our knowledge of them tends to be restricted by the stories Disney has produced as films. But so many more interesting and quirky fairytales exist than just those few. I'm excited to be able to explore more of them with you!

October Cat News: Buck the Explorer

We recently learned that Buck's previous owner used to let him go outside! Ours is a new house and a new property for him, of course, so we decided to start slow, with ten-minute exploration increments. We've also been leaving the porch door open so he can sit inside the screens and look out at the world beyond. Once we get him a collar, we think he's going to be quite the outdoor explorer.

Wilfred likes Buck's outside time too, because he's allowed out under supervision at the same time. Wilfred will never be an outdoor cat, though—he's too skittish and we live too close to the road.

This will be a fun experiment and hopefully put Buck in a bit of a better mood! He looks handsome and elegant though, surrounded by plants!

Keep scrolling for some more pictures of Buck’s outdoor adventure!

The Lover's Ghost – A Hungarian Fairytale

This next installment in the Rove City series, The Silver Skull, is based on a little-known Hungarian fairy tale called “The Lover’s Ghost.” I’ve written out my own version of the tale below.

As with all the Rove City fairytales, I did not remain entirely true to each beat of the original story, but I pulled quite a few structural and aesthetic parts from the story, and I like how it turned out.

You can read The Silver Skull here.

The Lover’s Ghost

Once upon a time, a young woman named Judith loved the handsomest lad in her village, John. They planned to marry, but before their wedding could take place, war broke out and the bridegroom was drafted. The maid promised to await his return and remain faithful until he returned.

The war raged for two years, and when it finally ended, Judith waited eagerly for her betrothed’s return. She waited for four (!) years, but still he did not return.

Eventually, she went to see her godmother (a witch, of course) and asked for advice. Her godmother told her, “Tomorrow with be the full moon. Go to the cemetery and ask the gravedigger for a human skull. Then bring me the skull. We will put it in a pot and boil it for two hours with some millet. Then we will know whether your lover is alive or dead. And maybe it will entice him to come home.”

Judith went to the cemetery the next day. The gravedigger happily gave her a skull, took it home, and cooked it.

After boiling for a bit, the skull said, “He has started.” After a bit longer, it said, “He is here, outside in the yard.”

The maid ran outside and saw John standing just past the threshold. His horse was snow-white, and his clothes were entirely white as well, including his helmet and boots. As soon as he saw her, he asked, “Will you come to the country where I live?”

She agreed, mounted the horse, and they made out for a while. (I’m serious, that’s in the original tale.) They rode through the countryside until they got to a village where they saw a bunch of men also clad in white who ran past. Then John said, “How beautifully shines the moon, the moon; how beautifully march past the dead. Are you afraid, my little Judith?”

“I’m not afraid with you, John,” she replied.

Hundreds more white-clad men rode past, and again John asked if she was afraid. She was not, when with him.

Finally, they arrived at an old burial ground. John dismounted and led her to an open grave. At the bottom was an open coffin with the lid off.

“Go in, dear,” John said.

“You go first,” Judith replied.

John descended into the grave and laid down in the coffin, but Judith ran away as fast as she could go, and took refuge in a mansion nearby. All of the doors were locked except one, which opened to reveal a long corridor. At the end was a body laid in a coffin. She hid near the fireplace.

As soon as John realized Judith had run away, he jumped out of the grave and raced after her, but he couldn’t catch up. When he reached the door, he said, “Dead man, open the door to a fellow dead man.”

The corpse inside sat up and walked to the door.

“Is my bride here?” John asked when the door had opened.

“Yes. She is hiding by the fireplace,” the corpse told him.

“Come,” said John. “Let us tear her to pieces.”

Just as John and the corpse were about to reach Judith, a rooster crowed. Dawn broke and the sun’s rays fell through the open door and into the room. The two dead man vanished.

At that moment, a richly attired man entered from one of the other rooms in the house. He approached Judith and embraced her gratefully.

“Thank you!” he exclaimed. “The corpse laid here was my brother. I have buried him 365 times, with the greatest pomp and circumstance, but he has returned each time! You have saved me from him. Let us marry and rejoice.”

And so Judith married the wealthy landowner.

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