Tag Archives: Writing Craft

Literary versus genre

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These two terms and their meanings are something I’ve found myself talking about a fair number of times in interviews, because my writing spans both speculative and literary spaces and has been marketed as both straight SFF and straight literary. Being as I have Opinions, I figured I’d share them with you!

[I shared this post on my Substack a few months ago – to keep up to date with the newest posts, as well as publishing diaries and occasional short fiction, please consider subscribing to my page there]

‘Literary’ is generally used to refer to fiction that prioritises prose style and internal character development over external plot. It also is used (inaccurately) as a marker for books that don’t contain the obvious ‘genre’ ingredients of, say: a detective solving a crime, dragons, a historic setting, romance as the main plot etc.

I say inaccurately, because the writer’s approach to prose, and the contents of the story are clearly two different things. ‘Literary’ is one end of a scale that goes through odd terms like ‘book club’ & ‘accessible’ right the way to ‘commercial’ – which is prose written to focus on the external plot and not the internal.

The contents of the story on the other hand are what determine ‘genre’. Whether that’s mystery or romance, thriller, space opera, family epic or domestic noir – they are all labels that tell you something about the waypoints you’re likely to encounter in the story.

But a book can be both a thriller, and literary. It can be both a historic mystery and commercial. The spectrum of literary-to-commercial exists within each genre. Think Wolf Hall to The Duke And I, or The Fifth Season to The Kaiju Preservation Society. There are some books whose genre is hard to pinpoint – mainly because ‘mid-life crisis’ isn’t an acceptable label apparently so they get lumped into ‘contemporary fiction’ ‘literary fiction’ or ugh ‘women’s fiction’.

We all kinda know this, right? So it annoys me that ‘literary’ is often treated as something separate from (and better than) ‘genre’. When it isn’t (on both counts).

But the truth is that these are all really just marketing terms for booksellers to use to inform & direct readers, which is the main purpose of any genre labels after all. Bookshelves are two dimensional spaces (functionally), and a book has to sit somewhere.

So rather than fight the entire functioning of bookselling, my issue instead is with how the term ‘literary’ is wielded. It comes with a certain stamp of ‘quality’ that generally attracts more trade review inches and award nods. Literary = better, right?

Hmm. But literary also has undertones of older white men writing opaque deconstructions of the agony of being an older white man. It carries associations with ‘The Classics’ and establishment standards of what makes good writing. Which, let’s be honest, is another way of saying literary = western-centric narratives by people who are white, middle/upper class, cis/het/allo, able-bodied and male.

It is a familiar joke among writers that a woman writing about a mid-life crisis is writing ‘women’s fiction’ (ugh) but a man writing about a mid-life crisis is writing ‘literary fiction’. It’s a joke because it’s true. Anyone who doesn’t fit the dominant paradigm sees their stories pigeonholed first by their own identity and only second by the content of the book itself. Which sucks, let’s be honest.

I think perceptions are changing. More non-western voices are appearing on the big literary prize lists, translation prizes are gaining greater profile, and women are consistently more equitably represented on prize lists than they were 20 yrs ago. There’s still progress to be made – we need more global south voices, we need women and other marginalised writers to receive the same respectful language in reviews as men get, but it feels like the default image of a literary author as a narcissistic tweed & cognac toting silver fox is happily on the wane.

Until it’s firmly gone though, establishment preconceptions about what makes a novel literary will continue to act as a form of gatekeeping – sending a message to working class, BIPOC, disabled, queer & women writers that ‘oh honey no, you don’t belong here.’

So when my writing is referred to as literary, a small part of me winces. Because I know some people are put off by the term – it is what ‘that kind of person’ reads (and probably pontificates about). And I’m not gonna lie – the snobbery around the term is alive and kicking in some literary circles, which has been eye opening as I moved from largely SFF events in my first two years as an author to largely literary ones this year.

HOWEVER I think the huge popularity of books that span the literary and genre spaces is helping to erode that elitism bit by bit. Writers like Natasha Pulley, Bridget Collins, Sarah Moss, Martin MacInnes, Sequoia Nagamatsu etc are all challenging the clarity of the dividing lines. I wish some of these authors would embrace their genre audience more, but that’s complicated by SFF conventions not paying authors (and in fact expecting authors to pay to attend, but that’s a whole other post). And also by marketing decisions to set these books in the ‘Fiction’ departments, not the ‘SFF’ ones.

Genre divisions – and reductive marketing labels – aren’t going anywhere. We all know the comfort of picking up a book and knowing exactly what to expect from it – we want the familiarity of a cozy murder mystery or a historic romance sometimes, I definitely do. But I think many of us are also hungry for stories that take us in unexpected directions, that meld genres and challenge our assumptions. That inhabit a familiar world but add a twist of magic.

Likewise many of us love books that are both beautiful to read, and take place in space; or thoughtfully explore grief whilst also solving a murder.

‘Genre-blending’ fiction is on the rise, for good reason, but I think for it to reach its full audience, we need to rid ourselves of the boundary lines between ‘literary’ and ‘genre’. I would pay good money to never again be asked about moving between literary and SFF as if the two were separate islands in a sea of lava!

So in a bid to erase some lines, what’s your fav read that melds genres? Or that leans heavily into literary forms within a genre space? I love Natasha Pulley’s The Kingdoms – a mix of historic suspense and timey wimey alt history. Also can’t go without mentioning the timeless Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. A deeply thoughtful exploration of agency and humanity wrapped up in a terrifying dystopian SF.

The Worst Word In Publishing

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Synopses!

Oh, we hates them, don’t we? They’re undeniably the foulest creation ever, designed to strip all sparkle and joy from your story (and from you).

[This blog was first published on my Substack in November last year. To stay up to date with my latest posts please consider subscribing there, but however you found me, thank you for reading!]

I thought I’d escaped the need for synopses when I signed with my agent but (sobs quietly) turns out there is never an escape. It is doom/synopses all the way down…

…I’ve been writing synopses recently, can you tell?

For those who haven’t encountered this beast, it’s a plot summary of your book that provides all the main events in a pragmatic, spoilery ‘this happens and then this happens…’ breakdown.You need one when you are querying agents (usually around 300-500 words) and sometimes you need one when your agent is submitting your book to editors & foreign rights folks (usually longer, anything up to ~1,500 words).

They are entirely functional things – serving to prove to agents that your plot works, and to give editors and other publishing staff a quick summary of your book so they can talk about it (because lmty foreign rights sub-agents, marketing/publicity staff, they may well not have time to read your book along with the dozens of others they’re representing).

You’d think that being so dry and straightforward they’d be at least easy to write, if not exactly fun. And I’ll admit the longer ones I’ve been writing this week are definitely less challenging to put together than the 300 word ones I used to create when I was querying. But it’s surprisingly hard to pare down your 100,000 word intricately woven plot to its bones whilst still have it both make coherent sense, AND more importantly, sound enticing.

This happened and then this happened is not an inherently juicy way to narrate a story, turns out.

So! Aside from bemoaning their horribleness, what advice do I have for anyone else having to face this particular hurdle? I’m going to recommend two very different approaches – try them (or don’t, if you have any sense!) and let me know how you get on.

Writing up:

This is the method I’ve always used to produce my 300 word query synopses. I think it lends itself well to producing shorter synopses and has the added advantage of producing a short pitch as well, which is super handy for querying writers to have.

Step 1. Write down any words that come to your mind when you think of your book. Could be the themes, the tropes, the main character, the setting, emotions, objects, big events. Anything at all, just a bunch of single words that capture something of your book.

Step 2. Circle around ten of the most important ones in terms of the plot, character & setting of your book.

Step 3. Using those ten(ish) words, write a short paragraph (ideally 3 sentences but don’t kill yourself in the attempt) that tells us:

a)      something enticing about the main character (yes, really do try to stick to one here, even if you’ve multiple Points of View. Sorry) – not just ‘a woman’ but ‘the world’s first female astronaut’. Not just ‘a teenage boy’ but ‘a boy who’s afraid of cats’. Idk, just some small detail that is both relevant to the challenges they’re about to face, but also makes them instantly more than a cardboard cut out.

b)     Perhaps something about the world, particularly if it’s historic fiction or SFF.

c)      What your main character’s aim is in the story – what’s the thing they need to achieve. A successful moonlanding, saving the local cat sanctuary from redevelopment by evil corporations…

d)     What challenges they’ll face – the mysogyny of the crew, engine failures; his own fear and the apathy of locals.

e)     What’s at stake – what is their motivation for battling to overcome these challenges? Fame, getting to not die on a rock in space? Getting to fulfil his gran’s wish or win the attention of the boy/girl/nonbinary of his dreams?

These few sentences will give you a rough draft of a short pitch for your book. It summarises the point of your book, basically, the reason why someone might want to read it. A character we want to get to know and a problem we are intrigued by. Not all books fit neatly into this kind of plot equation but most will, even if it’s kinda painful to be so reductive.

The good news is now you’ve done the hardest bit. You’ve plucked out the beating heart of your book, now you get to give it back a few major arteries, maybe a rib or two.

Step 4. Look at your book and make a note of the major turning points in your plot that demarcate the really significant moments. Note down how your most important secondary characters (or other Point of View characters) shape these major plot points, or have their own significant events that tie into the main plot. Don’t get too sidetracked by subplots, or by sequences of events that can be summarised as ‘tensions escalate’ or ‘a series of mishaps’ or whatever.

Step 5. Now flesh out your 3 sentence pitch, by adding in your plot points from Step 4. AND THE CLIMAX EVENT. Include spoilers. Editors/agents need to know that you’ve stuck the landing, so to speak. So give them the specifics, not just ‘X must solve the mystery before disaster strikes’. That sort of hooky line is for the pitch, not the synopsis.

Ta da! You have yourself a synopsis.

Step 6. Edit it for clarity. Keep sentences on the short side and light on descriptive flourishes. This isn’t the place to demonstrate your lyricism. Clear, concise and well structured are better than super voicey.

exhausted face

Chapter by chapter:

This is the method I’ve been using this time around – to create synopses on the longer side (1.2 & 1.5k words). It’s useful in that there’s a lot less thinking involved lol, and less agonising over what plot points to include. But it does go long, so it’s probably not ideal for those in the querying trenches needing pithier synopses.

Step 1. Go through your book and for every chapter, note down the main events (both external and internal/emotional)

Step 2. Circle the events that are most important. There may be a fair few that aren’t vital in explaining the plot progression – that’s okay, small plot details and quieter chapters are not illegal.

Step 3. Write up a point by point summary of your circled point events. Keep your paragraphs short – one per couple of chapters might work well. Make sure you’re tying the various plot threads together. As this version is longer, more of your subplots and secondary characters are likely to make it onto the page, so make sure you’re threading them in well, rather than just mentioning them once and then forgetting them. (if you only need to mention them once, perhaps avoid doing so at all). Again include spoilers for the ending. Unlike with the shorter synopsis, you’ll have space here to include the resolution after the climax too.

Step 4. Umm, yeah this method is a lot simpler. Ta da! You have yourself a long synopsis.

Hope that helps! Happy writing & may all your synopses be magically written by elves while you are sleeping.

Next time on the blog I’ll be talking about the messy, kinda gatekeepery divide between ‘literary’ and ‘genre’ because as a writer who crosses that divide, hoo boy do I have Opinions!

Adventures in Substack

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Hi folks. Thank you so much for reading my (irregular) blogs on this page, it’s been a joy. I have been toying with ideas about how to connect better with readers though, and have decided to give Substack a go. It feels like a more natural home for the blog, giving me the freedom to add more content whilst also reaching a wider audience.

Join my Substack here

I will be blogging more regularly there – posting fortnightly blogs on writing craft, the publishing industry & inspiration, as well as occasionally sharing short speculative fiction.

Partly to allow me to share slightly more sensitive work, and partly in an attempt to be able to afford chocolate, I have a paid subscriber tier in addition to the above, where I will be providing sneak peeks of unpublished work, and a diary of my books’ journeys through writing to publication & beyond – shedding light on some of the lesser talked about aspects of the publication process.

My paid subscribers will also be able to join me twice yearly for online writing workshops, although I plan (health depending, you know how it is) to run online Q&A sessions open to all at regular intervals as well.

It’s a new venture for me and a little bit daunting, if I’m entirely honest, but I really hope you’ll come join me over there & help me build a wee community of good people.

Thank you,

Lorraine

Join my Substack here

black vanilla orchid

Book Sales Aren’t On You (and lots of statistical nerdery)

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I wrote a version of this blog a while ago, after some discourse about authors needing to promote their books on GoodReads because the ‘Want To Read’ count is apparently used by publishing to Make Decisions. I didn’t post it then, because I needed (ironically) to focus on my latest book release and then the moment kinda passed. But I figured the subject would come around again, as it was only the latest in a constant cycle of ‘Authors Have To Do X Otherwise Their Book Will Fail’.

And lo! This week a fascinating episode of the brave podcast The Publishing Rodeo interviewed a researcher on YA book marketing – Dr Kerry Spencer Pray.

Now, my initial blog was a slightly ranty exposition about author-led marketing. And you’re still getting the bulk of the rant because it was a good one & I’m not wasting it. But first I’d like to explore my reaction to that podcast and Dr Spencer Pray’s research (so far as I understand it from the podcast and these slides) a wee bit.

The thing is, I’m a statistical ecologist by training, and we are way more ridiculous about statistical analyses than pretty much any other field except maybe medicine. We have to be, because ecological systems are MESSY AS HELL so we* have pretty much led the field in statistical modelling that can handle the inherent chaos, correlates, and contamination of ecological systems. (*not me, I just followed along) This means that while I am FASCINATED by Dr Spencer Pray’s research, and think it is deeply important and there should be A TONNE more of it please … I am DOING A NERD and have some caveats that I think need bearing in mind.

I’m not detracting from her work, but I have watched the reaction to the podcast episode with a slightly leery eye because people are reading certainty into a very uncertain dataset and extrapolating outwards in ways that I think are both understandable and perhaps not helpful. It’s that reaction that I’m responding to here, not the work itself which was hampered by an incredibly opaque industry.

If you’re not interested in statistical pedantry, you can skip to the original blog below & the TL:DR is that while I am grateful this study exists, I think folks need to not get too carried away with the results. Fellow pedants, enjoy…

In brief, Dr Spencer Pray’s research was carried out on a random sample of 475 YA books, comparing an estimate of sales (from multiple secondary data sources as actual sales data weren’t available) to 250-300 potential drivers via simple correlations. The factors that appeared to correlate to estimated sales were all kinda related to book marketing rather than the book itself. These then were all amalgamated into one ‘marketing’ variable that showed a strong correlation strength against estimated sales. They used this to produce a scoring system and a minimum marketing viability threshold. Everyone is, understandably, fascinated by this, and depressed and/or validated by the finding that the biggest single correlate to estimated sales was an index of advance size (which was considered a proxy for marketing spend).

So the take home message was that the only real way to ensure your book sells is to get more marketing.

Which fits very well with my original blog post ranty rant (see below). And with other soft and hard data on the subject.

But the ‘marketing’ factors that correlated with estimated sales were: advance size, author ‘fame’, ‘carryover’ (links to other famous things), book cover appeal, author twitter following & starred reviews in key outlets.

And this is where I think some caveats are needed.

See, no data set is perfectly controlled, so all statistical analyses come with bias and uncertainty. The challenge in analysis is to account for sources of bias, and accurately quantify your uncertainty so that you can tell whether a pattern is ‘real’ or a product of chaos/bias/errors… and then not to weep when non-statisticians ignore all your error margins and treat the result as rock-solid and black&white.

So to try to explore the uncertainties in this study, stand by for some intense nerdery…

One issue is about statistical power. If you test almost as many correlates as you have samples, your experimental ‘power’ (reliability of the results you get) is extremely low, because your chance of producing correlations entirely randomly is pretty high. So while these correlations may well be genuine, they may also be pure chance just because so many were tested. Spencer Pray and her colleagues might have accounted for power issues with methods like bootstrapping & model selection processes, in which case this becomes less of an issue, but I can’t see any mention of this being done.

Another complication was the unavailability of accurate advance figures – Spencer Pray had to use the deal categories of ‘nice’, ‘very nice’ etc in Publishers Marketplace announcements instead. This means that the majority of data lay in the lowest bracket – ‘nice’, which is anything from $1-49,999. (Indicatively, Jess V Aragon’s spreadsheet of PM data had ‘nice’ for 55% of deals where size class was given, the other 45% spread over 4 other classes) So there’s a lot of data kinda merged into one category, and the fewer samples in the highest bracket (7% in ‘major’) would have disproportionate influence. This doesn’t negate the findings, but it does mean that the findings might not apply within the advance brackets – i.e. just because a $100K advance improves sales over a $45k one, that doesn’t mean a $45k advance is any better or worse than a $10k one because both those advances were lumped into one group. It might be true, but we don’t know.

Likewise, as Dr Spencer Pray says, some of these correlates are clearly connected to one another (fame and twitter following, fame and advance size, advance size and starred reviews etc). This makes it hard to be sure whether they are genuinely independently influencing with sales, or just kinda shadowing another variable. For example, author fame might show a positive correlation to sales only because it is also correlated with advance size – if you accounted for advance size (& marketing spend), fame might not be enough alone to shift books. It is possible to tease these connected variables apart statistically, but it’s not straightforward and has not yet been done, so far as I can tell. Grouping cross-correlated variables together to create an amalgamated ‘marketing’ variable is then tricksy because you run the risk of a falsely inflated correlation strength – you’re effectively double counting, if you see what I mean. So the end result – and that tantalising minimum marketing threshold produced from it – are less certain than they initially appear.

And lastly, and non-nerdily, this study was exclusively YA, (and largely from the YA world pre-shift to BookTok). People are assuming it’s directly applicable to adult fiction, and to the present day, but I think that’s a stretch. I’d LOVE VERY MUCH to see a study on adult fiction categories, and I predict there’d be the same headline take home message, but the individual correlates … Hmm, I’m not sure because:

  1. The YA community is more firmly online, and more actively on Twitter, than pretty much any other genre. Here’s a brilliant recent article by Nicole Brinkley about exactly that. So it does not follow that because twitter platforms might matter in YA sales, they also will for other genres. And let’s not even get into the Twitter-going-down-in-flames issue, but suffice to say it does not stand as a reliable marketing platform any more.
  2. Aspects like carryover, and (one of the secondary trends) ‘books that inspire yearning’ feel genre-specific to me. The peak crazes for things like post-Twilight vampires happen less markedly outside of YA. Greek myth retellings is probably the strongest contender in adult fic, but although there are definite trends in genre tastes, I’d expect carryover to be a weaker factor in areas like thrillers, epic fantasy, space operas etc.
  3. Author fame … this included things like winning major awards which, well it would be nice to think these lead to greater sales, wouldn’t it? But what about in genres generally neglected by these awards – romance, for example? So, again, it might apply outwith YA fic, but we don’t know.
  4. OTOH I’d guess the importance of book covers applies across ages/genres. Although I’d be interested in whether it’s a weaker influence in genres with tighter cover formulas, like historical romances or murder mysteries.

So essentially, while I think the overall message is probably reliable – that marketing is the only semi-reliable driver of sales, the specifics are much less certain.

Why am I bothering to critique a study that I am genuinely glad exists? It’s not to undermine the work that went into it, in the face of an uncooperative industry. I nearly didn’t post this because I don’t want to pick holes just for the sake of it. And I actually think the study’s headline message is incredibly empowering for authors. But authors feel so much pressure to do everything we possibly can to sell our books, and we are so desperate to know what to do and how to do it, that I worry people will latch onto the specific findings of this study and run with them. If I can hit 3000 Twitter followers then I’ll get another point on the viability index. If I win an award or sell at auction, I’m safe. If I make my book more hopeful & yearny it’ll sell. Etc. I know – I listened to that podcast, looked at my Twitter platform and briefly felt The Sads.

Which brings me back to my original blogpost and my rant about marketing expectations placed on authors.

The rant is not really even about me. I’ve been published to date with two indie publishers and both, within the limits of their reach, have championed my books wonderfully, worked with me on marketing, and been fully supportive of my spoonie limitations. So why am I ranting? Because I care about my friends, and the wider writing community. Because as a tranche of recent reports shows, there are mental health costs to being published. And this systemic lack of support for authors also hits marginalised creatives hardest, thus perpetuating inequalities within publishing. I get annoyed because I’m old enough and cranky enough to draw lines in the sand, but not everyone has that privilege so I’m allowed to be cranky on their behalf.

(Another caveat – this is absolutely NOT about self-publishing, which is an entirely different kettle of fish.)

So why does this messaging of ‘You must do X’ or ‘If only I do Y’ arise all the time?  

  1. It is our attempt to feel some degree of control in the face of these largely-unfathomable vagaries of book sales. We don’t know what will help move the needle so we try everything, and we believe people who holler convincingly about THIS IS THE WAY, whether that’s BookTok or newsletters or whatever. We obviously want our books to do well, so we seek out ways to help them that are within our reach.

That’s understandable, and I think finding enjoyable ways to promote your book is truly valuable. It lets you share your excitement with your social circles, and also means you feel … if not control, then at least that you’ve done your bit.

But the constantly shifting sands of exactly what you ‘need’ to be doing results in authors juggling half a dozen social media platforms, second-guessing trends and obsessing over everything. Which is exhausting, takes away from writing time, and breeds a sense of failure when you inevitably can’t keep up.

AND

  1. Bluntly, it is … comfortable for publishers if authors believe we must do all this work to help our books sell. If we are convinced book sales hinge on us making enough TikTok videos or getting enough Twitter followers, then we’re not asking them ‘Wait, what are you doing to move the needle?’

Now, to be fair, I think most of this pressure actually comes from other authors for the reason above (and bleeds over from the self-pub community, which like I said VERY DIFFERENT FISH). But there is also some upholding of it by the publishing industry, which I wish would stop.

Maybe it will, now that Dr Spencer Pray’s research has provoked so much conversation. Here’s hoping.

I’m not really talking about small publishers here, for whom the balance is a little different. However hard these publishers work (and like I said I’ve been lucky) they have less reach and so an author’s online contribution might have a relatively significant effect.

But for the bigger publishers? Different story.

For example, that GoodReads thing we were told to panic about? The books reaching 30,000+ ‘Want To Read’ adds, particularly for debuts, are almost universally where the publisher has paid for large giveaways of 50-100 books. Every giveaway entry is an automatic ‘add’ which bulks up the numbers enormously, then GoodReads uses this bulked-up number to pick ‘Most Anticipated Books’ lists and the hype machine is safely in motion. All paid for by the publisher.

BookTok? It is mostly a space for reviewers, and mostly for a very particular form of book (and there’s a WHOLE DEBATE to be had about the impact that has had on diversity rep and on acquisitions within publishers). It’s almost entirely not a space for writers trying to hustle for their own books. The best route to getting traction on Booktok is for publishers to send fancy book packages to a lot of popular reviewers and hope for the best. See how that’s absolutely not in our control? Yeah.

I could go on, but the particular instances aren’t really the point because there’s always something new being sung about anyway.

The point is we shouldn’t put the weight of book sales responsibility onto the people with the least power and lowest pay in the entire structure.

Big publishing is a business, and it’s a business that is currently squeezing the lower/medium staff tiers and cutting author pay. So sadly your marketing team, even if they love your book and want to champion it, likely don’t have the time or funds. But publishing is also, largely, full of Good People who don’t want to tell you your book is on Marketing Tier 4. So instead you’ll be told (either directly, or via online messaging) to post more on social media posts, or set up a newsletter, or, or, or. … I worry that this Spencer Pray study will get weaponised into ‘well, if you had more twitter followers’ or ‘you’re just not famous enough, sorry’.

I get it. Publishing houses should staff their publicity & marketing teams better, and pay them more. I’m not blaming anyone on the ground for the way the business is run. But I also hate seeing authors running ourselves ragged trying to guess at marketing strategies we aren’t equipped for, grasping at straws, and feeling responsible for things that are entirely out of our hands. Namely, how many copies of our books sell.

This is one reason I’m so grateful for Dr Spencer Pray’s work. It counters that pressure with hard data. Which many see as bleak, but I actually find incredibly freeing. It’s really not on us, my loves. It’s on them.

So other than ranting, do I have anything useful to say? Well, maybe.

  • I strongly recommend that you, dear fellow exhausted author, take a long look at all the things being touted as THE WAY TO SELL BOOKS, and decide whether it’s something you enjoy doing or can do very, very, very easily. If the answer to either or both those questions is ‘no’ then can I suggest you run the other way?

It is worth doing something – things that help you feel celebrated by your community, and potentially help connect with readers. Posting on Twitter might sell a copy or two or three, just like sending out newsletters might sell a few copies of your second book. And those few sales are great, I’m not dissing them. But think about how many hours you spent making Canva graphics or writing newsletters, and how much you’ll earn from the two copies it might sell, and the tradeoff isn’t very shiny. You need to be writing your next book too, remember, not just flogging this one.

So my advice is to pick the reader engagement methods that you a) like doing and b) don’t swallow up too much time & energy; and you get good at those. Try new stuff, sure, but don’t feel like you have to do anything at all.

  • At time of contract negotiations, talk with your agent about your marketing aspirations & the strategies you think the book needs to succeed. Make marketing part of the initial editor call, as well as the contract back-and-forth (that you’ll be on the margins of anyway). Ask for a marketing plan – they’re hardly set in stone, but it can’t hurt to have a framework.
  • Later on, communicate with your marketing & publicity team(s). Ask them what they’re doing and how you can best fit in with that. It’s good to know, and good to remind them that you’re there. But remember that their answers are shaped by their workloads – and might leave more responsibility with you than is proportionate to your power. If they ask you to do things you don’t feel able to do, talk it through with your agent to see whether it’s worth trying to fit it in, or pushing back. I’m a spoonie, protecting my health is vital because otherwise I break, so I’m pretty clear about that from the outset and I draw lines if I need to.
  • Remember that sales figures are largely unrelated to the quality of your book too. Dr Spencer Pray’s study supports this. (Is this depressing? Who cares – write the best book you can out of spite) Just like prizes, sales figures come down to a room of people deciding which books to support and which not to. Books that get the massive hype machine and sell millions are quite possibly great, but equally great books will sell a tiny fraction of those numbers because they were yeeted into the world with a cover reveal, two blurbs, and the author destroying their sanity on social media.
  • Stick a post-it note up somewhere saying ‘Sales Figures Are Not On You’ and look at it every week. Twice a day around publication.
  • Once more for the ones at the back, only do what you enjoy. If we are going to survive this authoring thing long term we need to hold tight to our love of it. We need to guard our mental wellbeing like mama bears. That means not spreading ourselves too thin. You have to look after yourself. No-one else carries that responsibility, because everyone other than us is running the business that our art is built on. So do what you enjoy and remember whose job it isn’t to sell books.

Rant and empowering mantras over. I hope this has been useful and hasn’t annoyed publishing professionals, or Dr Spencer Pray too much! I hate seeing writers battered by expectations to perform online; and I love seeing data analyses but I also hate our writerly instincts to read too much into absolutely everything. Without tearing the whole edifice down and starting again, publishing is going to continue to be a hard road, but we can make it gentler by being kinder to ourselves. And that starts with guarding our time and remembering to forgive ourselves the things beyond our power.

Mother Sea Island Tour

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In the lead up to Mother Sea’s publication I did a wee countdown series of social media posts visiting various islands that inspired the island in Mother Sea. It was mostly an excuse to post lots of photos and rave about lovely places, and I figure I ought to pull it all together here just in case. (In case of what, I don’t know … the fiery death of Twitter? the need to prove ownership of the photos? validation that all my effort pulling it together was worth it? … Probably that last one tbh)

Anyway, below is a slightly expanded-upon tour of the islands behind the island…

One – Iceland

Not much in common with the tropical island in Mother Sea you say? Well, no. But this place has A Lot to teach the writer about colour palettes, I think. The deceptively monochrome black sand and white glaciers and searingly blue sea are an incredible reminder that less can be more! Also in this country there is no escaping the power of an unquiet land & the persistence of folklore.

Fav folklore – The Jólakötturinn – a giant cat that eats folk who weren’t gifted new clothes at Yule

Fav experience – The northern lights. I have no photos but omg, it was all the things and more.

Two – Tierra del Fuego

Staying in higher latitudes but at the other end of the planet, the beauty of these southern islands blew me away. It’s undeniably antarctic in weather and wildlife but all my preconceived notions of that were undone by flower-strewn islands, by hummingbirds & parrots right alongside penguins & sealions. Also, partcularly relevant to Mother Sea, heartbreaking histories of colonial genocide & the loss of language & culture.

Fav folklore – Teiyin from the Yahgan ppl. A shapeshifter god, protector of children & elderly, enforcer of altruism.

Fav experience – Following in Darwin’s footsteps – I read This Ship of Darkness while I was there for extra cross-temporal-bonding! Also, steamer ducks. So round.

Least fav – my 1st ever sunburn. I did not know it *hurt*! What?

Three – Shetland (and Orkney)

Closer to home, Shetland in particular, but also Orkney, taught me that political borders don’t always mean an awful lot. That dialects and folklore follow their own paths across the sea and old trade routes still shape island identity now, regardless of what the maps say. They also taught me that teeny tiny planes are the best, and I’d probably not survive a Shetland winter.

Fav folklore – The Sea Mither (spot the #MotherSea connection!) who wrestles the dangerous Teran to calm the seas.

Fav experience – Standing in the old broch on Mousa, listening to storm petrels purr in the stones around me. And getting dive-bombed by Bonxies on Orkney mainland!

Four – The Mediterranean

Kinda cheating lumping this whole region (and the Canary Islands) into one, but doing each island individually would turn this into a book, and also there are some common strands despite the distinctive feel of each place. I love the Mediterranean garrigue ecozone. It’s so stark & distinctive & surprising. I have a huge soft-spot for cyprus stands and stone pines, and ancient olive groves. But these islands are also fascinating for studying farming’s adaptations to a hard climate, the way humans have shaped the very land & how fragile that balance is. Especially as tourism threatens rural economics, communities, water resources & conservation.

Fav mythology – The Minoan rock tombs on Crete & Lycian cliff tombs in Turkiye appear in Mother Sea. Caves & bats – what’s not to love?

Fav experience – Cretan orchids. Omg, if you’re remotely into flowers, the orchid species crowding the hillsides will give you heart failure.

Five – Seychelles

The right ocean at last! These are the closest islands to my fictitious one in Mother Sea, so a lot of the flora & fauna are similar. Seychelles taught me a hard lesson on coral reef damage & restoration, but a beautiful one on Creole language & culture. It also taught me to look beyond the glossy curated tropical paradise images for the murkier truth about the impossible value:cost trade-off of tourism on places and communities like these.

Fav folklore – An eejit Brit in 1800’s decided the coco de mer was the original forbidden fruit because it looks like a bum! And therefore that the Seychelles was the lost garden of Eden. I mean, it’s a definite paradise in some ways, but also, lol.

Fav experience – Meeting giant tortoises? Or giant fruit bats squabbling in the tree above us as we ate our dinner in the dark (hint: Mother Sea may contain bats)

Six – Madagascar

Along with France & South Asia, this is the other origin of my community in Mother Sea, so hints of Malagasy culture fed into the book. This country is a biologist’s dream and heartbreak all in one – the most mindblowing evolutionary wonders alongside some of the most heart-rending poverty and worst habitat destruction I’ve ever seen. For Mother Sea though it gave me ‘tsingy’ landscape (limestone karst) & baobab forests, pirogues & feminism & day geckoes.

Fav folklore – I was told once that bats hang upside down to show their arse to god as revenge for an offence. I cannot remember what the offence was but I love this so much.

Fav experience – An aye-aye there-&-gone in the dark, indri singing in the dawn, being unutterably lucky.

Seven – The Outer Hebrides

Finally to the place where Mother Sea began – with the history of St. Kilda & it’s abandonment. That tale of population decline, of grief and a terrible communal turning-inward because of that grief was the seed that everything else in Mother Sea grew around. And the islands of North & South Uist, Benbecula, Eriskay and Barra were also there to teach me so much about island communities, the persistence of faith, carving a living from the liminal shore.

Fav folklore – The Blue Men of the Minch. They’re blue, they shout poetry slam challenges at ship captains, they raise storms. I love them.

Fav experience – Just the startling, stunning bays – white sand and turquoise water and the steep, watchful dunes. The ruined silhouettes of churches and manor houses on lonely islets, the ghosts of brochs haunting the lochans.

Thank you for coming with me around the world! There are a couple of dozen more islands I read about, stalked online, talked to people about and dreamed of, that all fed into Mother Sea in other ways. But these are (some of) the ones I’ve lived in and loved, and left pieces of myself behind in.

Writing The Difficult Stuff

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Mother Sea comes out tomorrow. I am so excited to share this book with you all, and so honoured at the care Fairlight Books have taken with it. I really, really, really hope it resonates with you.

Before it comes out though, I wanted to talk about some of the issues I explore in its pages because if you’ve read my previous blog, you’ll know that when I was writing Mother Sea, I never intended to seek publication. So I went into some places that perhaps I wouldn’t have been brave enough to venture into if I’d been writing with an external audience in the back of my mind.

With hindsight, I am glad that I wrote this book and that others will get to read it. I think it’s important to write the things that scare us as authors, or make us cry as we’re typing, the things that we put off writing for days because we fear them. Writing is, if nothing else, a way to reach out to strangers. It is a way to whisper to someone else, ‘I know how you feel. I feel it too.’ Which is why darker, sadder themes are so powerful, and so pervasive in stories, right? Because that quiet connection, that resonance is both a hand held out in companionship, and also at the same time, a hand held out to guide you through the unfamiliar terrain of someone else’s heart.

So although I think Mother Sea is as much a book about love and resilience as darkness, it does go into some deeply sad places. But my hope is that in doing so it might help someone feel less alone, it might help someone else understand a perspective or an experience in a way they hadn’t before. If it can do that then I will be content.

Aside from the wider themes of climate change and the global injustice of climate impacts, there are two specific events in Mother Sea that were incredibly hard to write. And talking about how I wrote them involves some personal details that are a little scary to put out into the world, so please bear with me. If you want to avoid spoilers please stop reading now, because although I won’t go into plot details, I am going to reference the nature of these two moments.

sepia tinted photo of a ruined chapel and old gravestones behind a low stone wall, taken on North Uist.

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Okay, still with me?

The first, encountered in the opening few chapters, is some profound suicide ideation by Kit, one of the Point of View characters. His depression and the desire for release drive him to the edge of a cliff. Obviously, he walks away, otherwise that would be the shortest PoV plot thread ever. But writing his thoughts leading up to that moment, and writing some of his journey towards healing afterwards, drew on my own experiences more than I’ve ever really admitted to anyone. That was hard. It was so hard that at one point I realised Kit’s thoughts were bleeding into my own, and I had to put the book aside for several months until I felt able to return to it.

I don’t pretend to understand everyone’s experience of depression, but I understand my own. And I wanted to speak to anyone else who’s lived this terrible, lonely thing, but I also wanted to write accessibly enough for people to empathise with even if they’ve never known depression. Have I achieved that? I don’t know. But I’m glad I wrote the walk to the cliff top, and I’m even gladder I wrote the walking away. 

The second event isn’t something I’ve experienced myself. I wrote the death of a baby. Even typing that sentence makes me feel sick. It’s the worst thing I think I will ever write, and I put off doing the actual scene for weeks. I tried to rejig the plot to avoid it happening, I tried to narrate it from further away, I tried to make it something unspoken. But none of those changes were right. None of them did justice to the truth of the islanders’ situation, and the gravity of the death itself. It’s not gratuitous, it’s not even actually described at all. All you hear is the mother’s breathing change. That’s it. But it still left me wrung out and oddly guilty.

I haven’t experienced the loss of a child. But I have experienced multiple miscarriages, and although I’m not equating those two experiences, my own griefs definitely shaped my desire to tell this story. Because this – the neonatal tetanus epidemic – was the seed that started Mother Sea. It comes from real events on the islands of St. Kilda in Scotland, and reading about that was where this all began. I could not get the thought of those women out of my mind. What it would have felt like to be carrying a child knowing its chances of survival were so slim – how did you guard your heart from that? What would you be willing to do to try to change fate?

I couldn’t write the story of a community’s grief and fear, the story of their fight for hope, and not bear witness to the heart of that – a mother carrying her child, and losing it. I hope I’ve done it justice, I know I feel a kinship with anyone who is carrying the ghosts of their lost children in their arms.

The term ‘book of my heart‘ gets thrown around a lot by writers, doesn’t it? But Mother Sea could never be anything else because I wrote it for my own heart. I wrote it out of both my private griefs, and my wide-open, globe-spanning grief in the face of the climate crisis. And yet ‘What is grief, if not love persevering?’ as Vision said. So it’s just as much about love too, in all its forms from the private to the globe-spanning. Although it started as a very private thing, by the time I was editing I had begun to picture readers other than myself. I began to hope that a story about an island that doesn’t exist might perhaps feel true and precious to strangers. I know how you feel, my islanders whisper from the shade beneath the tamarind trees. I feel it too.

Thank you for reading this abnormally personal blog. I wanted to write about these two things by way of content warning and explanation. I also wanted to say to my readers thank you for venturing with me through such difficult terrain, I hope I carried you through safely to a place of hope.

A photo from North Uist looking out across a lochan with an island fort towards St. Kilda.

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The Road To Publication

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Recent online conversations about debut expectations versus the long haul of being an author made me realise that I never wrote my version of this blog. People normally write them on signing with their agent, or when their debut releases, don’t they? Well, how about on publishing their third book & announcing their fourth? Perfect time, right?

Two disadvantages of waiting till now is a) that it’s a looooooong post, and b) I can’t be sure of exact numbers. I’m as accurate as possible, because I know how good it is to see the data rather than just the ‘keep going, you haven’t failed until you stop trying’ sentiment (which I have OPINIONS on btw).

Okay, so a For The Record disclaimer: As you may know I turned to writing when I became too ill to carry on in my job as a research scientist, therefore I have no formal learning or qualifications in creative writing. I ­have done a couple of short, online courses with Jericho Writers and Writing The Other & as many workshops as I could logistically & financially access. ALL my submissions were via the slushpile (and all in the UK fwiw). I started out with no contacts in publishing or writing, and even less understanding of how it all worked, but in my first few years I attended the York Festival of Writing three times. I also managed to access agent 1:1s on two other occasions. Thassit. That’s the extent of my shortcuts and privilege, because yes those things do affect your route to publication and it’s naïve to pretend they don’t.

TL:DR cumulative stats: 13 queries (agents only) over 2 books to 1st agent offer. 81 queries (agents & small presses) over 4 books to 1st book published. 136 queries (agents & small presses) over 5 books to 2nd agent offer.

Full deets, cos it’s a lot more complicated than that sounds … are you sitting comfortably?

photo of a ruined roman amphitheatre in Turkiye

2014            Wrote a fantasy epic, first in a trilogy.

2015                     Because I was a fool and knew nothing, I queried the godawful thing to a handful (~12 agents, to whom – sorry!). I got two personalised rejections, a bunch of forms and perhaps one ghosting. Meanwhile, I wrote the 2nd in the trilogy and simultaneously realised that Book1 was not remotely publishable. I decided to treat Book2 as a test run for applying the skills I’d learned whilst mangling Book1.

2016                     Started writing a whole new book (Book3). A contemporary Scottish witchy fabulist thing that felt like my first ‘real’ book. In that I kinda knew what I was doing this time and the end result was fully my own thing rather than a derivative mess!

2017                     Subbed Book3 to one agent – a very new agent at an established agency who’d been recommended to me at York. She offered, I accepted, it went through minor revisions and went out on sub to around 10 editors. It got some lovely feedback, but no takers. Four months into this, my agent left publishing. Reading between the lines, I think she was not supported at her agency, and so I really felt for her. It was a huge blow though, lmty. I had no idea at that point how common it is for writers to lose agents for any of several reasons so this felt like a moment of utter failure even though it was nothing directly to do with me, or my book.

Whilst on sub, I’d been writing Book4, and my agent had raved about its premise. Book3 was dead – no agent would be interested in a book that had already gone out on sub. So I pulled my big girl pants up, and got Book4 ready for querying…

2018                     I sent Book4 to about 45 agents and 15 small presses over the course of around 18 months. Of those, I had a roughly 50% full request rate from agents, and 30% from small presses. Good huh? Of those full requests, only 1 agent ghosted me (times have changed I believe ☹), most got back within 2 months. The small presses were generally much slower (and much ruder, in a couple of instances!). From all these fulls, I ended up with two offers of publication from small presses. I went with the one whose brand seemed a better fit for the book. They were small, but reputable, award-winning, and strongly recommended by one of those full-requesting agents. That agent believed in them so much he even stepped in to help me negotiate a couple of contract terms. Fab. Yay. I was gonna be a published author! I didn’t mind going small press rather than agent by that point as I just wanted to make that first step on the journey, and I liked the feel of the small press scene.

Yeah, no. After agreeing contract terms, the publishers pulled out.

2019                     By this time I had Book5 finished and waiting,and had started on another one. But I lost heart with the nascent one and very nearly didn’t bother submitting Book5. Book4 had come so close both with agents and then with the publishing deal. After losing my agent, this had felt so hopeful and for it to come to nothing … I just didn’t really see the point in trying again. My skin was not thick enough and my belief in my writing was crushed. The mental cost of the cumulative rejections and knock backs was having an impact on my physical health, and I needed to step away. I decided I would write for private fulfilment not for publication, and started writing a new, deeply personal book, never intending to share it.

BUT Book5 was just sitting there. I figured I’d lose nothing by trying one last time, but this time I was going to be canny. I queried a handful of agents and small presses (excluding the one above!) to test the water.

Of those 6 agents, I got 1 full and 1 R&R; of 4 small presses, I also got 1 full which lead to an R&R.

The R&R from the publisher was a biggie. And to be honest I wasn’t sure I could pull it off, as it meant a complete re-write. But I figured it would be a good test of my skill, if nothing else, and I was kinda curious about whether the editor’s instincts were right.

They were. The edited book was much better. I went back to that publisher with it, but they’d stopped acquiring books. Ugh. Well, I had a stronger manuscript and had promised myself I’d give this book its best shot before calling it a day. So I pulled together a list of indie presses. You’d think I’d have been put off them by now, but all of my communications with agents had taught me that my form of literary-ish genre-blending work can be a difficult sell to agents looking for neatly packageable stories. Plus I still believed (believe) that a lot of the most innovative, diverse storytelling is happening with small presses, so I wanted to trust that there were good, reliable people out there. Somewhere.

2020                     GLOBAL PANINI! In between homeschooling v.1 & general panini chaos, I sent Book5 back out to a small batch of small presses (~8). And got, relatively quickly, 2 fulls and an offer.

That offer was with Luna Press, a very small Scottish indie press with an incredibly global list of authors. After speaking to Francesca I knew immediately that this was a press I wanted to work with. The book was This Is Our Undoing.

I also wrote the first chaotic halves of two books (umm… 7&8). Thank you, pandemic stress cognition decline.

2021                     GLOBAL PANINI! This Is Our Undoing came out with Luna Press. I showed Francesca that near-miss Book4, braced for rejection yet again, but she loved it. I signed a contract for The Way The Light Bends and the bruises left by my prior experience began to fade. With my confidence in myself, my writing, and the publishing industry at least a little rejuvenated, I started thinking about querying that deeply personal Book6. It was a terrifying thought, if I’m honest, and took a while to build up to. In between homeschooling v.2, the debut rollercoaster, dredging up querying courage, and other general mayhem, I finished Book7.

Then I started querying Book6.

This time I sent out larger batches than before. Rough counts were, in two batches, 40 agents and 15 small presses. Of those, I had received ~ 8 fulls when I received an offer of publication from a lovely medium-sized indie press with a very literary, friendly, thoughtful vibe. On chasing outstanding queries I had a couple of lovely chats with agents and another publisher, and an offer of representation from an agent who seemed to genuinely get my writing, my health limitations, and who was demonstrably supporting marginalised authors in his work.

I signed with Robbie Guillory at Underline Literary Agency in late 2021, and signed with Fairlight Books for Mother Sea shortly after. My sad, angry, deeply heartfelt story that I wrote thinking its only readers would be my mum and sister, was going to be published.

2022                     GLOBAL PANINI + BOOK AWARDS. Amazingly, given the small reach associated with a small publisher, Undoing was finalist and winner of several awards. I also won an award for my short fiction. The Way The Light Bends published, Mother Sea was in the works & I had survived an entire year as a published author without coming apart at the seams. Oh yes! Onward! Riding this wave of not being entirely broken, I finished Book8 (Book7 is shelved). And applied for a Creative Scotland grant to fund a return to that nascent book that I abandoned in 2019 mid-despair.

I also wrote a novella.

Book8 went on sub in the Autumn. On the same day that I underwent long-awaited surgery for my endometriosis that ended up being way more complicated than anticipated and from which I am still recovering 7 months on. Note of advice, major health upheavals and being on sub are not a combination conducive to creativity or mental fortitude. Avoid at all costs.

2023                     My 6th written book – 3rd published book – is coming out in less than 3 weeks.

I signed with my beloved Luna Press for my novella, coming out next year.

I was awarded the Creative Scotland grant and have just finished the 1st draft of nascent/abandoned book. So in 10 years that’s: 1 novella & 9 novels – 2 binned, 2 shelved, 3 published, 1 drafted and 1 on sub…

Despite the real-life hellishness going on, there is more good news coming. I’m steadily building my reach and publisher-appeal and this feels whilst not remotely guaranteed, at least a sustainable and hopeful trajectory. I’m not sure what the next few years will hold, but from being on the very brink of giving up 4 years ago, it’s surreal to sit here with a stack of my own books beside me, knowing I will be publishing more. That’s a startling, wonderful thing. The road does not get smoother, but it does perhaps get less steep.

…Lol, I did warn you it was long!! I do want to note that the rates of query full requests, and of ghosting both initials and fulls have changed drastically over the years, so please bear that in mind. Publishing is understaffed and creaking, and that hits writers in the trenches hard. Whoever you are, and however many manuscripts you have yeeted into the querying void, I am cheering you on. It takes a horrible combination of vulnerability and steeliness to weather this game – you’re all epic.

photo of standing columns of a grecian ruin on Cyprus, mountains in the background, the statue of some dude looking resigned and weary.

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Dark Academia – tropes, toffs and tribulations.

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What is it, why do we love it, why do we hate it, why am I even trying? 

It’s a popular genre at the moment, isn’t it? Whether you consider it as born out of Tumblr vibes or Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, Dark Academia is doing WELL. I’ll confess now that I am both writing a DA and absolutely not writing one. I’ll explain that later.

First though, my Schrodinger’s DA project has got me thinking about the genre itself and all the various conversations that I’ve had with other writers & readers about it. These conversations basically fall into four questions, as summed up by my opening sentence, and I’m going to answer each one as best I can. Not out of any great literary scholarship but out of an interest in the reasons why I am so drawn to this genre, and yet why it often (for me) falls short of my expectations.

black and white photo looking through a ruined doorway in an abandoned blackhouse on South Uist.

What is it?

Lol, start with the easy one! I think there are two forms of DA, to be honest. You may disagree – please do, I’m all ears.

If we accept that the label and thus the story-form arose from Tumblr posts first, then Dark Academia is basically any story involving the following ingredients:

  • An elite school/college, preferably isolated and/or very insular.          
  • People being studious.
  • Gothic architecture, libraries, fog.
  • A small close-knit, probably deeply toxic cast.    
  • Dark plottiness of some form*

*There’s not an awful lot of consensus over the default plot of DA when your focus is on the vibes, but it’s usually some form of Dark Things Happen, whether that’s murder, monsters, deadly secrets or just The Grown-ups Are Evil.            

If you take The Secret History as your starting point (this is a divisive one – many people say it is, others say it’s not DA at all), then the ingredients are similar, but also different:

  • An elite school/college, preferably isolated and/or very insular.       
  • The study of something esoteric that mirrors the characters’ psychologies/the book’s themes.   
  • Libraries.
  • A small close-knit, probably deeply toxic cast.   
  • A plot that explores the faultlines at the heart of the institution, and possibly therefore at the heart of society, and cracks those faultlines wide open, usually cracking open a few characters in the process (literally or psychologically).

So my take is that while both forms of DA involve a similar evocative, restricted setting, one strand is much more focussed on the vibes & inter-personal plot, while the other is focussed on dismantling the vibes to find the rotten heart beneath.

A lot of the former books – some of which are recent bestsellers & Booktok hits – touch on the latter deeper themes, but in my opinion fail to do them justice. Which is why I ended up deciding there were two types of DA, so I didn’t get too annoyed with the former for failing to be something they weren’t necessarily set up to succeed at.

(Note: I’m not going to name names as I don’t want to sound unfairly critical. This is all subjective)      

photo of the ruins of a roman-style arena in Turkey

Why do we love it?

Did I mention libraries? And the fog? Honestly though, I think this is an easy one both on the more superficial level and digging deeper. Create a story that revolves around dusty tomes, discussions about those tomes, and wearing cozy jumpers & you’ve basically tapped into most bookworms’ secret aspirational life. Add in some danger, romance, fraught found-family bonds, and some blood, and the lure is irresistible.     

Personally I’m a big YES PLEASE to all of the above, but I also really want a story that links the hunger for knowledge with the characters’ undoing, that peels back the allure of the institution, forcing the characters to face the darkness … and to choose between complicity, rebellion, escape or immolation.

M.L Rio’s If We Were Villains does this beautifully, driving her characters to essential immolation, where-as Naomi Novik’s The Scholomance series involves both rebellion and escape, in a fantastic unravelling of the institution and its secrets.

I want to feel like I’ve been seduced by the institution, and then betrayed by it – which means that all the best DAs plot a descent from the glittering spires into the darkness, and some of the best DAs do not emerge again.

Photo of the upper storeys of a very pink scottish castle. It's all wee turrets and small windows and pink.

Why do we hate it?

Aside from getting annoyed with books that I expected to do all the deep thematic stuff but instead just gave me vibes & character-plot, there are a few aspects of DA that pose a challenge to some readers. These are really interesting to me because they often reflect the weaknesses with the All Vibes form of DA, and suggest that those readers would still love the ‘Deep Themes’ form.

First off though, let’s talk about elitism & the British obsession with class structure.

DAs being set in colleges that are old, grand, highly selective and often wealthy just ooooozes Oxbridge rich boy insular ivory towers type worlds, financed by inherited wealth and privilege (which is in turn financed by the oppression of others). Although the character list almost always contains one or more Outsider – with no connections, no wealth, inadequate training etc – the Institution and most of the people in it are straight from the societal 1%. Which is … a turn off to a lot of people. I don’t like tories & toffs, why would I want to read about them?

See where the distinction between the two types of DA comes in here? I’ve read a few recently where I really didn’t like any of the characters, I didn’t like what the institution stood for, and although plots happened and enemies were overcome, there was no real, true reckoning of the structural cruelties and lies that the institution and the characters stood upon. I no like. Despite the library and cozy jumpers.

What else don’t we (I) like about DA? The deification of Knowledge. This is a funny one. I love nerdy books that demonstrate the author’s deep love and understanding of A Thing, whether that’s Shakespeare or philosophy or maths. I even more love books where real world knowledge is bedded into a speculative other within the world. BUT it’s quite easy for this nerdiness to swing too far in one or both of two directions –

  • Arm-waving, as my old PhD advisor used to call it. Lots of talk that doesn’t actually stand up to scrutiny.
  • Showboating – going into lots of expositionary detail to impress us the readers with your amazing cleverness.

Neither of these is that appealing really, are they?

On the other hand, some books that are labelled DA are really not seeking to center a field of study in this way, the story just happens to be set at a University or boarding school, and I think it’s okay for those books to just merrily do their thing without being called DA.

Lastly, and this is perhaps a little niche … if you’ve spent any time in academia, you will read these books and slightly despair. Where is all the paperwork? Where are the endless faculty meetings and grant deadlines and HR emails asking for updated budgets? Where is the goddamn bureaucracy and tired, overworked post-docs who just want half a day to themselves to get their bloody paper written?? Lol, sigh. I do not miss it, ngl.

And now, because I promised you I’d explain…

Shot from the beach looking towards St. Andrews. There's a bloke with a horse on the beach & one of the university towers on the skyline, snow on the hill behind and wintery light.

Why am I even trying?

I’m writing a Schrodinger’s DA/not-DA at the moment. I am hedging around calling it DA because I’m not sure the studying stuff is esoteric enough. Instead of philosophy or literature, it’s machine parts and old radio bulletins, maps and songs and doing hard maths by hand For Reasons. It’s also not got the Ancient Tradition vibes as the college was only established twelve years ago (after A Thing happened).

It does, however, have a very tired researcher failing to get her paper written and drinking too much coffee while her students offload their crises onto her & she’s constantly due in a meeting. It also has an exploration of the rotten heart beneath the haunted, isolated, book-filled floating fortress that is my college. And my poor main character is forced to confront her own complicity in this rottenness, with all the necessary blood, found-family trauma, secrets and mayhem.

Honestly, I don’t know how it’ll get labelled once it’s a whole thing. I tend to leave that in the hands of the professionals (my agent and publisher). But why am I even skirting around the edges of this strange, popular, tricksy genre?

Because there’s a cool library full of semi-sentient books in it. That’s why.

And I suspect that’s also why Dark Academia is not losing its shine anytime soon.

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Photo looking out towards St Kilda from North Uist, in the foreground there's a loch with a wee ruined tower on an old broch island.

Submission, Silence & Survival

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So I’m ‘on submission’ at the moment. The joy! In case that phrase is unfamiliar (and perhaps faintly nsfw-sounding), it is when an agent has sent their client’s book out to editors and they are waiting to hear back. It is, traditionally, a time of silence and secrecy. We aren’t supposed to talk about being ‘on sub’ too much, and we aren’t supposed to talk about (or to) the editors we’re waiting on. This is so we avoid sounding defeatist & potentially undermining our book’s chances, and also so we aren’t breaching confidentiality. Which is all very logical and businesslike.

BUT. It also means that being on sub is a cold and lonely place.

Publishing is renowned for moving glacially 95% of the time and at the speed of light the other 5%, but over the last couple of years a combination of pandemic, staffing instability and workload increases have seen the submission process move from glacial to tectonic. Some books still sell super fast, and that is awesome. Most are selling much more slowly, which means us authors (and agents) are lingering in the submission abyssal plain for months, in some cases years.

Which is not exactly oodles of fun, let’s be honest. So I figured it might be useful to those of you approaching this stage to have someone talk about the process and how to survive it. I’m also currently far enough in to Have Opinions, but still near enough to the start that I’m a) mostly sane, and b) more or less optimistic.

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So…

The Process. This will vary between genres, agents and the particulars of your relationship with your agent. But in general, once your book is ready your agent will pull together a list of editors at different publishing houses/imprints who are a good fit for your book. Hopefully your agent will pre-pitch the book to a good few of these editors, testing the water and seeding interest informally so that when your submission lands, it catches their eye. Once pitch is perfect & the emails are gone, the waiting begins. *doom laden drumbeat* Your agent will likely nudge editors at intervals – some do this more often than others. In the current climate I think the pre-pitching and the nudging skills are probably becoming more and more significant in getting timely reads, but *shrug* who knows? Your agent will likely also have a second batch of editors in mind if the first batch do not work out.

The Responses. These can take multiple forms. Ideally, obviously, you’ll get an almost immediate pre-empt or bunch of offers that trigger an auction, drama, excitement and cake. More likely, you will get some of these: 1. The rejection – which usually contains a little bit of feedback about reasons, but these are as subjective as any feedback so be prepared for contradictory comments and the ensuing frustration. 2. The initial maybe – this is where that individual editor liked it but needs to take it to others in their team, or to a full acquisition meeting with marketing & publicity before offering. 3. The offer – hurrah. Which your agent will then use to chase other editors & hopefully cue multiple offers, excitement and cake.

The Survival Toolkit. Okay so how do we endure the waiting without spiralling into a catatonic loop of refreshing your inbox, self-doubt, and really really not getting any actual writing done godammit? Here are some things to try out…

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  • Structure your communications. Some people like to set a day of the week for their agent to email them an update, so they can forget about their inbox for the rest of the time. Some of us (hi) would rather just get those random emails at any time. Some people need a monthly live chat with their agent to ask all the questions & get some perspective. Some are happy with emails. Talk it through with your agent if you want to try structuring communications in a way that fits your brain. They won’t know what suits you unless you tell them, and they will want you to stay sane, so do tell them if something they are doing isn’t working.
  • Give your agent information. Spoke to an editor at a convention last year? Got shortlisted for an award? Been awarded a residency? Tell your agent, it can be useful both when drafting the pitch letter and in making those ‘nudge’ emails a little more eye-catching.
  • Form a secret cabal. Honestly, this is probably THE MOST IMPORTANT SURVIVAL TIP. Find a writer friend or two who is also on sub or there abouts and designate them your safe wailing space. Keep it private, you’re a professional. But have those wails, you’re also human. These people will stop you chewing your own arm off, or at least be someone to compare chewed stumps with. Okay that metaphor got icky, sorry.
  • Ask questions. Whether this is of your agent, your secret cabal or other writers. This is a big unfamiliar territory of horrible unknowns – it’s absolutely okay to want information, and honestly, that’s what your agent is there for (aside from, you know, actual agenting stuff). You’re also allowed to have opinions – if you want to try X editor over Y, or not sub to a particular place For Reasons, talk it through.
  • Try to be realistic. I know it’s tempting to think you’re the exception, because someone gets to be the exception so why not you? But the chances are you aren’t going to hear anything for weeks, more likely months right now. This is a long haul at the moment, so structure your expectations appropriately. Force yourself to focus on something else, whether that’s drafting or editing another book, short stories, blogs (lol, it me), or learning to skydive. When (yes, when – we have faith) you get an offer, you might get developmental edits thrown at you fast, so it would be useful to be progressing other projects before then. But that said…
  • Be kind to yourself. The constant background hum of being on sub is taxing on the brain and body, especially if like me your body is rather fried to start with. So while it’s important to keep moving writing-wise (and physically, get up and stretch. Have a boogie) (who says boogie anymore, Raine, ffs. I am An Old), it’s also important to be flexible and realistic about your targets so you don’t stress yourself out unnecessarily.
  • Try not to stalk the editors on Twitter. But also, stalk them on Twitter. Keep an eye out for their MSWL posts, new job announcements etc, & let your agent know if it seems like it might be relevant to your sub (Twitter is a mess & your agent is busy, they might not see it). But don’t expect eds to tweet about this amazing sub they’re reading & omg it’s just like yours, they don’t do that. Which is probably best for all of us really.
  • Drink tea.
  • Eat chocolate.
  • Scream at the sea occasionally.

A final note of honesty. Some books (a lot more than we like to admit) ‘die on sub’. They do not sell. And this categorically sucks. But it is not the end of you the writer, it’s not even necessarily the end of that book – it might sell to a small press, or work as a follow-up book in a multi-book deal. The fear of dying on sub is real though, and the powerlessness is worse. But the only thing you can do to improve your chances is keep writing. Keep writing. You’ve got this.

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Novellas – Writing Up Instead Of Down

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I wrote my first novella a couple of months ago, and am editing it now (not right now – now I’m procrastinating & it’s set in Iceland, so you’re getting random Icelandic photos. Sorry, I don’t make the rules). This being my first novella experience I did some reading around to see what people’s advice was about structuring them. Almost everything I found boiled down to ‘It’s like a novel, but shorter’. Which is … not entirely helpful. Especially when my starting point was a short story.

So, having written the thing I am now clearly an expert, and wanted to share my thoughts on the art of novella writing when you’re coming at the thing from a small idea rather than a big one.

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[FYI in case you weren’t sure, a novella is usually considered to be between 20-60,000 words, novels between 80-120k and short stories get defined pretty much any way that takes your fancy so long as it’s less than 20k (but usually lie in the 2–8,000 range).]

The advice ‘like a novel but shorter’ means this: It relies on similar narrative arcs, but those arcs are simpler, the plot is simpler, the character lists and worldbuilding are streamlined. It’s basically a novel-type idea but where the plot didn’t need 80,000 words to unfold. That makes sense, right?

But my starting point wasn’t a novel-type idea, it was a 2,500 word short story that felt unresolved and … squished. So if you’re like me & have short stories that want to grow, how do you reframe them to turn them into a functional novella?

I don’t know.

But I’m going to tell you anyway…

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First, how do you know what’s a novella-worthy idea?

  1. Check whether your 2,500 word story really just wants to be a 5,000 word story. Was the plot or worldbuilding just a bit rushed & needs a wee bit more space to breath? Was there one more scene or one more bit of backstory that would really pull the whole thing together? If so, maybe just let it be 5,000 words.
  2. Or, did your plot feel like it was fundamentally lacking depth for the things it was trying to do? My short story was trying to explore PTSD and grief, and to map a descent into dissociation and a big moral choice. Add in ghost stories, family secrets, and a slightly cinematic setting and there’s really no way you can do justice to those things in 5,000 words, let alone 2,500. It wasn’t just that the story as it stood needed a bit more room, it was that the story itself needed huge structural changes to serve its function. Sound familiar? You’ve got yourself a potential novella.

Yay, so now, what’s the difference between your short story idea and your novella? What needs to happen to mutate the former into the latter?

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A short story:

  1. Can (although often doesn’t) pivot around an external plot alone – can be about an event rather than a character’s internal change.
  2. Can be slice of life – e.g. there’s no plot per se, no conflict or change, just … an exploration of a character’s mind, world or moment.
  3. Requires very little world building, or more importantly, can afford little worldbuilding. Which, especially if this is SFF, requires a very focussed setting so that the story’s world feels sufficiently explained within that limited word count.
  4. Generally has a single strand plotline following one question, theme or objective. The longer the wordcount, the more strands to the plot you can fit in & the more involved that plot can be, but for my purposes, a 2-3k short can only really carry one central plot convincingly. (That’s not to say it can’t be intricate or thoughtful or multi-layered thematically, but the external plot & the internal narrative? Fairly streamlined.)
  5. Both 3 & 4 above lead to – a very limited cast. There are only so many people we can meet and care about in 3,000 words. Honestly, there aren’t many more we can truly care about at 10,000.
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To expand that into a novella, we need to think about:

  • The internal character arc of your main character(s). What is the theme of your story and how does your character’s journey reflect that? How does their psychological landscape change from beginning to end and why does it change in that way (what events drive it externally and what motivations are driving it internally)?
  • Bring your secondary characters to life more – you may have more characters to play with, but a smaller cast will still serve you well so don’t go looking for more than you need. Those characters you have though cannot get away with just being a foil for the MC, or passive or 2-dimensional. They will need to have their own development, their own motivations and psychological landscape. Their arcs are likely to be less pronounced compared to the MC but they need to have something going on that’s independent of the MC.
  • Where a short story often has a very limited setting, or a narrow focus within a wider setting, you now need to think about developing your setting more. Whether that’s allowing your characters to move around, explaining more of the world’s context, or simply bringing the setting to more vibrant, interactive, dynamic life. I’m a big fan of the power of setting, and focussing that urge down for short fiction is always a bit of a struggle, so it was nice to be able to really lean into that particular area again.
  • Plot structure (deep breath) …
    1. Now, in our short story, this was streamlined down to the bare minimum number of strands and a fairly simple progression. At novella length we are looking more at the kinds of plot structures we talk about for novels, which I guess is the point all that advice I found was making. 3-Act Structure, but fewer turning points, Save The Cat, but cut down the B-plots or Road Apples or whathaveyou. Writing up from a short, I needed instead to think about adding complexity – where can I make this revelation or decision harder, how about more misunderstandings, or another foreshadowing motif, or adding in a failure or two? Plus, as mentioned above, how do I develop my secondary characters’ own arcs?
    2. One of the things I love about short fiction is that you can more easily be experimental with form and voice than you can at novel length, but I think there’s still a lot of scope for playing around outside the ‘norms’ at novella length too. I took the well known kishōtenketsu 4-Act Structure as my guide here because I wanted to focus on the internal change rather than a ‘conflict’ as such. I don’t think this approach, for this story, would have maintained its power over a longer wordcount, but at 28,000 it felt really powerful and right.
    3. You need to find the sweet spot between developing the story more, but making sure that all your development gets fulfilled. If you’ve added more characters, make them engaging and important; if you’ve added a sub-plot, make sure you give it closure; if you’ve introduced wider worldbuilding, make sure it is definitely contributing to the story. Your novella can be pacey and full of action or it can be subtle and dreamy and intricate, but it still has to answer its own questions.

My 2,500 word short story is now a 28,000 novella. Because it was trying to do too much in the first place, I didn’t need to add more characters or sub-plots really, I just needed to actually do justice to all the ideas I was trying to address. So my work was mostly on plot development, backstory, secondary character arcs and setting. Your approach will depend on your starting point, and on the themes and voice you are working with.

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I find that novellas can sometimes disappoint if you come to them wanting the complexities of a novel (I read on kindle, so I often don’t realise something is a novella until I’ve started). But where they blow me away is when although the plot might actually be simpler, it doesn’t feel it, because the atmosphere of the story is so unique and strong that the emotional depth is somehow more concentrated. There’s something incredibly powerful about paring a theme back to its absolute heart and then giving that heart richness, depth and nuance. Like a gin & tonic, versus a damson gin liqueur, if you will.

Hopefully this particular gin liqueur will be out in the world at some point, full of Icelandic ghosts, trippy midnight wanderings, the sea and the terrible lure of bargaining for things we have lost. Now I’ve totally and utterly mastered the art form though, I may well return for more…

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