The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast

The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 87 – Fantasy tropes: Good ones and some BAD ones

Is there such a thing as good and bad tropes, or are tropes just tropes?

Join Autumn and Jesper as they dive into the land of clichés, but also stumbles over some fantasy gems.

Episode 87 of the Am Writing Fantasy podcast will walk you through some of the common tropes in the fantasy genre, and explore if they are viable to use in your own writing?

Link to our online writing course, the Ultimate Fantasy Writers Guide: http://ultimatefantasywritersguide.co...

Link to Plot Development: https://books2read.com/Plot-Development 
 
Link to the Plotting Workbook: https://books2read.com/PlottingWorkbook 
 
Link to Story Ideas: https://books2read.com/StoryIdeas 

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Read the full transcript below. 
(Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion).

Narrator (2s):
You're listening to the Am Writing Fantasy podcast. In today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need an literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing. Join two best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them now onto the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt, and Jesper Schmidt.

Jesper (30s):
Hello, I am Jesper, and I'm Autumn. This is episode 87 of the am writing fantasy podcast. And we are looking at some of the common tropes in fantasy today. And we'll have a discussion as to whether they are good or bad. And I think this could turn out quite interesting. Well, it'll be a, yeah. I could see some questions and some fun things that we've got to discuss to clarify what we're even talking about.

Autumn (1m 2s):
Well, tropes is always interesting. So, but we will come back to that in, in a few minutes. Yes. How are things over in your lovely little country? Well, I'm basically like slowly boiling in my office. It is so warm. It's insane. Like you were complaining just like an episode ago. I think you had not had summer at all in Denmark this year. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I, I just told my wife and I can't remember if I said this on the past episode as well, but I told her, you know, I bet you once our summer holidays over the weather will turn really warm and nice.

Jesper (1m 40s):
And there you go. Now we have a 30 degrees Celsius, actually 33 yesterday. That's why. So we spent a day at the beach yesterday. Quite nice though. That would be lovely. And what are the peaches? I mean, do you have sand beaches? Are they pebble beaches? What are they like over there? No sand beach. Nice. Yeah. Yeah, but it's just the same that it isn't vacation time anymore. You know, I'd sneak away on the weekend. At least you don't have major COVID restriction. You got to go to the beach.

Jesper (2m 12s):
Yeah. Well, yeah, it's not feel bad here over here. I was just emailing earlier today with a, with a reader on the email as well. And you know, trying to show my sympathy for you guys in the U S it's just really bad, but, and especially compared to how it is, you, you know, we're in a very much, much, much better place than you guys. Ah, yes. I think only New Zealand is doing better than you wouldn't you. They're awesome. Yeah. Yeah. It's quite dire over here.

Jesper (2m 41s):
Still only getting worse, but this fall will be fun. Yeah, we'll see. Well, we tried to stay away from politics quickly shifting topics here before we getting into politics things also finally moving forward with our sale that Has been like an ongoing, Ongoing, ongoing

2 (3m 6s):
A long time now. But thanks

Jesper (3m 8s):
Finally, moving forward. That's so exciting. Yeah. So it's not final yet in that sense, but it's getting there now. So we have somebody who put in an offer and we have also agreed on the price. Oh my goodness. And we have also agreed on when they are going to take over that.

Autumn (3m 28s):
Wow. So clock sorta ticking.

Jesper (3m 33s):
Yeah. The only condition in the whole deal here is that they need to sell their apartment first. And if they can't sell the apartment, then of course the whole thing is just gonna take a long, long time. But it is an apartment in a very, like pretty expensive though, but very popular area of Copenhagen that they live in today. And they said to the real estate agent this morning that there was two people who came and what's the apartment over the weekend.

Jesper (4m 6s):
And both of them said that they want to buy it.

Autumn (4m 8s):
Oh, that would be really good. Yeah.

Jesper (4m 11s):
So that is really good. I mean, it could be that if all goes, well, I would say before we get to the end of August, like in a couple of weeks from now, then we could have sold the house and be planning to move.

Autumn (4m 25s):
Oh my goodness. That would be fantastic and exciting. And I think that's going to put you behind on the timeline we have mapped out, but that's okay. We'll figure that out, I guess. Probably. Yeah.

Jesper (4m 38s):
Yeah. We'll see. We'll see. It depends also because the thing is that we would like to build a new house and there is no lots at this point in time in the city where we one move to that has any lots for sale. So that means that we have to find something to rent temporarily for a while so we can stay there. And that's sort of the joker in the whole thing right now that we don't know, is it going to be easy to find something to rent or not? We'll see, we'll see that the part we don't know at this point

Autumn (5m 9s):
Going to be living like me, like a gypsy things still in boxes, just being really, really be really good at labeling what's inside your boxes. That's about all I can say. Yeah.

Jesper (5m 22s):
The most important thing is that I have my laptop across the internet router and mostly,

Autumn (5m 29s):
And that is the catch of being a writer. As long as you have those things, it's the lifestyle, a huge amount of equipment. You'll need your microphone and a few other things, but you'll be on microphone as well. Yes, that's right. Excellent. How's you've been, Oh, it's been, you know, pretty good. I guess if you hear any traffic noise, I apologize. I knock off at literally the last minute yesterday, my husband was doing a trip up to his parents who live in Maine where we live for 18. And so it's sort of like what you said it's summer.

Autumn (6m 1s):
The last trip is going to do for the summer and Maine and the coast and lobsters and the ocean of sailboats is, or something like, you know, my list of my favorite things. So I literally, he was sitting in the car and I'm like, but can you wait an hour through some stuff in a bag? My laptop and my microphone obviously as well and ran off up to Maine with him. And so we had some lobster last night on the beach, on the Wharf, right. At a lobster pound. That's nice right off the boat.

Autumn (6m 33s):
And we're going to go to our favorite pizzeria, I think tonight, which is different. And so, yes, it sounds strange because COVID is horrible in the United States. And so many States are locked down, but we came up from Vermont, which is about the only state in the entire United States. That's still green. So we're wow. Our state is doing fine and Maine is pretty much, it's one of the least populated States as well. So it's doing okay as well, but we'll definitely be cautious because I don't want to get sick because I'm writing the last chapter of my current work in progress, which is the first book of a new faith.

Autumn (7m 9s):
Post-apocalyptic kind of urban fantasy trilogy. So I'm so excited. It's been over a year since I was finishing, writing something because things have just been so crazy busy with everything we got going on in life. So it just, it always feels momentous to stand there and being, looking, looking down the word count of like 2300 words and I'm done with over 90,000 words of writing. And even though I'm not publishing until I finished the next two, I just feel kind of that warm hummings feeling and it feels good.

Autumn (7m 42s):
Very good.

Jesper (7m 42s):
Yeah. And you're also working on the world building course, so you don't have any time to be sick.

Autumn (7m 47s):
I do not between that. And so I'm cussed at some commissions on my other side of my writing, you know, coaching life, writing coach and graphic design life. I am so busy this month. It's not even funny. I've got to hire my husband, I think, to help.

Jesper (8m 6s):
Yeah. Maybe that's a solution. I think we got the internet writing fantasy podcast. Okay. A few things to cover here, but I wanted first and foremost to give a huge shout out to Iris because she increased her pledge on patron.

Autumn (8m 27s):
Thank you so much. I mean, you've been with us for a little while now, but do you know that you believe in us enough and that you appreciate us enough that we appreciate you, that you actually upped your pledge. So thank you so much.

Jesper (8m 42s):
Yeah. Thank you. That really means a lot to us. And I should say as well, if your deal listener, haven't checked out and writing fantasy and all the awesome reports that we offer to our supporters over on patron now is the time to do so. The link is in the show notes, but I can even say that within the next few months, we are actually planning to give all patrons subscribers, great gift, but I'll leave it that creativity and keep it as a surprise what this gift is all about.

Jesper (9m 14s):
But you might want to go and check it out now.

Autumn (9m 16s):
Yes, we have it figured out and planned, but we're just doing one chunk at a time and we have other plans for August, but it'll be exciting.

Jesper (9m 26s):
Yeah, absolutely. I could also mention that in a few weeks from now, we are going to record a podcast episode about how it has been like to launch our three nonfiction books. So the books on how to get story ideas are applauding guide and the associated workbook. And we released those wide here in 2020. So are going to record a podcast episode about how that went. But I can't say that they all became bestsellers upon release and people are, have been emailing us quite a lot saying how much they got out of those book.

Jesper (10m 4s):
Isn't that right?

Autumn (10m 4s):
No, you have been, I just, I love the comments and it's a goal of mine to try to find time this week to make some share images of, of some of the comments because they just are so wonderful.

Jesper (10m 16s):
Absolutely. Yeah. So if you haven't picked up any of those books yet we've included links in the show notes for those as well. And Hey, there's also a link inside the plodding book from where you can get the book on story ideas for free. So that's going to be our little,

Autumn (10m 33s):
I was going to say that's a secret. You just shared it with the world.

Jesper (10m 39s):
Well, yeah,

Autumn (10m 42s):
That's fair enough. And I do. I thought it was funny. I don't know if you saw the comment. I know you re we recently left, launched the podcast episode where you interviewed mere Lafferty who has written for star Wars. I don't know if you saw the comment in the M writing fantasy Facebook group, but Andre said, wow, score one for am writing fantasy respect. So I know you did that interview. So I wanted to make sure you saw that one. It was just such a fun comment. And you know, I thought Joanna Penn, when we hit, you had joined a panel on am writing fantasy podcasts.

Autumn (11m 16s):
That was big, but apparently we're, Laverty got a higher rating from Andre on that one too. So that's fantastic.

Jesper (11m 24s):
But it writing for Star Wars. That is pretty cool.

Autumn (11m 27s):
Oh my goodness. I know that's just good.

Jesper (11m 29s):
And she's like a multi award winning author as well.

Autumn (11m 32s):
The Hugo. Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah,

Jesper (11m 37s):
But finally, I also wanted to say that our online writing course, the ultimate fantasy writers guide will next week open for the first time in six months. So that'll be on the 31st of August. And I don't know, but perhaps you can say few words about the course autumn.

Autumn (11m 55s):
Oh, I still just, every time I think of it, I just remember why I created it and that was, I wanted this one stop shop that really, I mean, at the time there was no information out there now there's so much information out there you don't know which is true anymore. So this is the one stop where you can just buy this one course and you can learn how to write, get through all the plotting, the character, building the world, building all these details that you can still easily get hung up on as well as learn how to actually publish and format and covers and Oh, how to edit.

Autumn (12m 26s):
I still remember the first time I edited and getting advice on like how you tackle content and it's very Perth reading and the order of things. So all of that is in the course, and it is our one thing and even ends with how to build an author career. So I'm kind of proud of it as our first course. And of course we always bite off more than we can chew to start. It's the best way to learn. Isn't it. And so then I guess the best way to teach.

Jesper (12m 53s):
Yeah. And again, also here, we've included the link in the show notes, so you can go and check it out. But I should mention though that the cost will not stay open for very long. So come early September, we're going to close it again for another six months. So if you want in now is the time to do so. As soon as you listen to this episode, go and check it out. At least early September will be the latest point for you that you need to check it out. But we have reduced the price though of the cost by a hundred dollars.

Autumn (13m 26s):
That is, And then the announcement, I mean, with everything going on in the world and we just felt we needed to do something. So this is an amazing opportunity. We, I don't know if many big ticket courses that are doing a reduction like we just did.

Jesper (13m 40s):
Yeah, I don't know. But, but yeah, as you said with COVID-19 and a lot of people are finding themselves struggling with finances at the moment, right? So at least that might be a bit helpful to knock off a hundred dollars. So we'll see. But anyway, click that link in the show notes and there will be all the details on that page about what exactly what the course includes. And there is money back guarantees for 30 days, no questions to ask and all that good stuff. So you can safely check it out.

Autumn (14m 13s):
No, I think that really, those are some big announcements, so I want to get into Tropes.

Jesper (14m 22s):
Okay. So maybe I could just start by mentioning what are true.

Autumn (14m 27s):
I was going to say that we need to define what a trope are and compare it to maybe what a stereotype, you know, what are the other things that people could fuse a trope with?

Jesper (14m 38s):
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I have basically made a note for myself and trying to define a saying like it's a repeated familiar symbols themes, characters, and so on, you know, so it's basically what we expect to find when we read a fantasy novel or I could also be, if we're watching a fantasy movie, there's no real difference there, but it's basically kind of the things that we expect from this young era. Would that be a fair way of defining it?

Autumn (15m 5s):
I think so. It's, it's definitely, it's what you expect almost. It's not the genre. Sometimes it's even the type of story like, Oh, I always the easiest one to think of as the farm boy who becomes King. So that is a trope.

Jesper (15m 19s):
Yeah. But go ahead. Go ahead. Well, I was just about to say before we get way into these tropes, I think I wanted to mention as well that if we ask a hundred people, what are the most common fences you tropes? We would probably get a lot of different answers. So this is just my way of saying that what we are about to say is it's just our view on things, right? It doesn't mean that, that this is the only truth out there and we fully understand as much, you know, but the French word for Shanghai actually means kind of so very good.

Jesper (15m 58s):
I think that gives us a bit of leeway there. Yeah,

Autumn (16m 0s):
I think so, too. And so what I was going to mention is that a lot of people can fuse a trope with like a stereotype. Like it is something that they has been seen over and over. And I think the biggest thing with stereotypes is it's a, it's a cliche. It is something that is kind of Pat. And it's quick to explain, like the mother-in-law, who's a wicked witch or something. That's, that's a stereotype, but something when you're describing a whole trope, which becomes, it's a whole story boiled down into a sentence or two.

Autumn (16m 34s):
And so they're not exactly the same things. There's a lot more tied up into a trope and a lot more expectations where a stereotype is, is kind of a little bit boring and seeing too much. Oh, we can discuss if we think tropes have been seen too much, or if there's any tropes that have been over done. Yeah. We'll I think actually,

Jesper (16m 58s):
If we, you know, if we have a conversation here about the common tropes, as least as we see them, but maybe we could also point out which one we both hate the most, but also wins which one we liked the most. That makes sense.

Autumn (17m 13s):
It sounds good. I'll have to think about actually which one I like the most I'll have to probably think which ones have I used because that's easy. I came to me instantly. I have a pet peeve trope. Isn't that sad?

Jesper (17m 29s):
No, I, it was the same for me. You know, I was thinking about it earlier today and I was like, Oh, it would be fun if we, if we put out like the one we hate and the one we love and I was like, well, Hey, that's easy. It took me like half a second to figure out what that was.

Autumn (17m 44s):
Yes. You warned me. You were going to ask that. And it took me about half a second to like, Oh yeah. If I ever read another story like this, I will burn it. So that's horrible. All right. So which is, let's go yours then it was since we started with the ones least liked, what is your worst trope that you hate reading about? You want to stop there if you don't, if you want to end there, we can do either way, but this will be fun to hear.

Jesper (18m 11s):
Yeah. It will be fun. I was thinking maybe we could just sort of start out by covering some of the different trucks that we see and then we could, once we've done that, then we could, maybe we should start with the one we hate the most and then do the one we liked the most, because then we were ending on a positive rabbit

Autumn (18m 28s):
And that'll give me some more time to think about, which is my favorite. Cause I'll have heard them all at that point,

Jesper (18m 32s):
Right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I made an, I was thinking about this a bit like high level kind of, you know, high level tropes, but, and I'm sure you have some good pointers that you can sort of fling in here as well into the mix. But of course, one of the most common tropes I would say in fantasy is basically that fantasy stories has magic.

Autumn (18m 55s):
Oh yes, that's true. And that is, that is probably almost the basis of fantasy I would say.

Jesper (19m 2s):
Yeah. Isn't it. I mean, can you come up or can you think of any like stories that you would define as fantasy, but has no magic in it at all? I mean, some of them don't have a lot of magic, but can you think of some that doesn't have any at all?

Autumn (19m 17s):
No. I mean, I know when I first read game of Thrones until those dragons, I was gonna say until those dragons were born, it was lacking a lot of magic. I like a little bit more magic than that, but it eventually peaked in there. So there's some, and there's magical realism, which is, you know, very much minimal magic at times, but it's still there. I think I can't, I can't think of anything. I would classify as fantasy that doesn't have at least some magical creature or magic magic.

Autumn (19m 52s):
I can't think of any,

Jesper (19m 54s):
No. Do you know, I just thought of this because we talked about Malachi before. Right. But have you heard the whole debate about what Shanghai star Wars is?

Autumn (20m 5s):
Yes. I have a hard time. I mean, to me it's science fiction, but it's kind of science fiction fantasy.

Jesper (20m 12s):
Yeah. It's just, I know I'm going to probably going to piss off. A lot of people, people have, especially when it comes to star Wars, people have very, very, they're very, very opinionated,

Autumn (20m 23s):
Passion, passion. Oh shit. That was the wrong word I use.

Jesper (20m 29s):
But because I can sort of follow the logic when people say in star Wars that the force power is magic because, and then at some point they threw windows. What is like Mikel, Lori and wa how do you pronounce that stuff? Don't

Autumn (20m 48s):
Ask me, I'm horrible with English words.

Jesper (20m 50s):
I can't remember what, whatever it was called, but those things that you have in your body that you can measure. And then the more I have it, you have the more force power you have and stuff like that. And of course, and it can Skywalker was off the scale and whatnot. But I think that was sort of like, at least to me, it felt like an afterthought that they plucked in later on in the, I don't know if it was always the intention, but I also know a lot of people complaining that they felt like the force got to explained at that point. Whereas magic is often not that explained, but at least in my view, you know, I'm yet to read a fantasy book where a star ship, all of a sudden flies by.

Jesper (21m 29s):
So I would still say Star Wars is Sci-fi, but

Autumn (21m 33s):
I think that's that genre mashup of scifi fantasy or science fantasy. And that is a genre of itself. And that's kind of a fun one. I mean, I think dr who fits into science fantasy because I always complain that this stupid screwdriver, what, he just, he has this thing that it's supposed to just do one thing and he uses it like a magic wand and can fix anything with it. And I just get pissed off whenever it happens. Cause I want rules with it and it just doesn't exist.

Jesper (22m 4s):
No, Actually in the coming weeks here, I'm going to interview Chris Fox for our podcast here. So he's going to come on in the coming weeks. But, and I know Chris is actually writing dragons in space.

Autumn (22m 16s):
Oh, that's cool. That's pretty cool as well. I think that might be breaking a lot of tropes, so good for him.

Jesper (22m 24s):
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. So what's the more we wanted to say about Metro?

Autumn (22m 29s):
No, I think that is definitely, I think the foundational fantasy trope, I would say after that one is a, like the fantasy creatures, almost a fit. It would say a fantasy world, but sometimes, I mean, urban fantasy is becoming very popular and that usually takes place on earth or something. That's very much like a parallel earth, but is still got the fantasy creatures of the werewolves and the vampires. And so that's, I can't imagine a fantasy story that has no magic or none of those fantastical creatures at all, because I don't think that would be fantasy at that point.

Jesper (23m 9s):
No, I agree. And of course this does not have to be UL and auction and whatnot. I mean, sometimes it could also be like unique species. The author actually created themselves, so it can be a lot of things, but yeah. Fantasy needs to have some fantastical species. Do I need to say dragons?

Autumn (23m 26s):
I think they kind of get the implication. You already said dragons in space, so that's pretty cool. Oh yeah, that's true.

Jesper (23m 35s):
But at least some sort of fantastical species are usually part of the mix. And I would also say, you said a bit about the setting there because I really feel like at least most of the time the setting is a secondary world. Of course, in urban fantasy, like you said, you know, can be our world, but a lot of the time it will still be like, there is this sort of shadow world within the world that people don't know that there is werewolves.

Jesper (24m 6s):
Maybe, you know, the general public doesn't know, or maybe it's like a hidden fantasy world within the existing world or something like that. Otherwise I think if you don't have it like that, and I know I'm generalizing a lot in, and I'm sure listeners are screaming at the headphones right now saying with a ton of examples of the opposite. But, but my point is just that you quickly transcend over into something sort of huge superhero kind of thing. If it's all, everybody knows about it, everybody knows about fantastical heroes and creatures and that kind of thing.

Jesper (24m 43s):
Or what don't you feel like then it becomes very Marvel kind of way very quickly.

Autumn (24m 47s):
So I think it does. I think that does move more towards the Sierra superhero, which I would still say under, if you would be fantasy, a massive umbrella, I would actually put superhero under there, but you know, way to the edge it has that it has magic. And I don't know, I was please don't put it on this fence,

Jesper (25m 6s):
Like superhero thing. So please don't put it into the fence. She's young. I want to keep it up.

Autumn (25m 10s):
Oh, I read X men and stuff. When I was a teenager in the sand, I mean, Sandman comics, that was still, it wasn't really superhero, but it was written very much superhero like Neil Gaiman. He's fantasy. Sorry.

Jesper (25m 23s):
Now, well, I guess to be fair, I mean the original superhero stuff I think is probably absolutely fine, but it's just like within the last, probably five to 10 years, I feel like the big Hollywood studios, Marvel and whatnot, they they've destroyed the superheroes young or by just retelling the same stories 200 times in a row. And I don't know, it's just destroyed it for me. I have no pleasure in those movies anymore. Now it's just time a new one comes out. It's the same one as the last one.

Autumn (25m 53s):
I agree with that on so many levels because it does seem like every, like they wanted to do a new princess bride and there was such a huge outcry of don't ruin perfection that I think they kind of decided not to do that because they would have pissed up too many people in our age bracket. Maybe, maybe we would probably torch the theater, but yeah, let's move on to, there's so many amazing writers in the writers who were coming up with these amazing stories, choose something new, but that was exactly what I was just saying.

Jesper (26m 29s):
Thinking that just as you said, it, because I must assume that Writers in those writing rooms are very, very talented. So I just like it, maybe it's because the studio sort of put them constraints on them and say, well, we want something like this and that, because we know we can earn a hundred million at the box office about, you know, maybe something like that. But I just cannot imagine that the writers in those rooms can not come up with something new and exciting. Like my laugh at you talked about when she wrote for star Wars, right? She also said that she was under very, very strict constraints about what she could say and what she couldn't, but still she worked really hard as a writer to try to find ways in which she could talk about the character and the background, you know, all the smaller things that she could inject to make the story more original instead of it's just the same old, same old.

Jesper (27m 20s):
Right. Exactly. Yeah. I don't know. I just don't remember that,

Autumn (27m 26s):
But again, I think those, I totally agree. I actually prefer not to watch Hollywood and I love that that so many shows like Netflix and stuff we're actually filming in Canada in Vancouver. And I think it's just to get a little bit of fresh air, bring it in. Right. But yeah, so there's so many things, but those things do, whether you're looking at the superhero is a trope, but the underlying structure there are tropes their own. What is, it's fine to have the trope, but it's what you lay on top of it that makes it different and unique and fresh and new, unless you're using the exact same story and characters over and over and over again until the grooves are so deep that people are like, really again, Wolverine,

Jesper (28m 13s):
Yes.

Autumn (28m 13s):
We need something fresh and exciting and new. And I do think indie authors have that so well, and there are other authors and there's some great shows out there that are really fantastic. We just finished up watching. Oh shoot. So I'm trying to remember what is warrior nuns. That was fun.

Jesper (28m 35s):
What's it?

Autumn (28m 36s):
That's the ending totally changed the entire perspective of the entire season up until that point. And you're like, damn, that's awesome.

Jesper (28m 46s):
Wow. Okay. So it came up on my fetus weld warrior nuns, and then I heard some, I listened to these a couple of podcasts where they basically review new series. I talk about, and they were just dissing that series so hard. It's like, this is the worst thing, you know, kind of teenage kind of. And I was like, okay, after I listened to them, I was just, okay, I'm not going to watch it. It just felt or sounded way too hard.

Autumn (29m 16s):
So now I'm conflicted. I think I've looked at it from a storytelling. There were times there was narration from the main character that I got thought you could really do without. There was some times it took her to build up to building up until the actual true threads of the story. When they started coming together was a little slow, but I'm very patient. And when it got to that point where the, where the things came together and then the last episode really flipped entire perspective of what was going on. I was like, damn, that that is good writing.

Autumn (29m 45s):
That is such good writing. I appreciate anyone who can, who can take a story and flip it on its head and change your whole perspective. But believe me, up until that point, I'm leaking, we're talking about the Catholic phase phase and they're warrior nuns. They can't even become priest and you're giving them swords. This doesn't add up in my head, but they had some believers who are main characters and that, that makes it tolerable.

Jesper (30m 11s):
Okay. Well, I think there was also a bit in this setting there that I didn't like, but okay. We're getting off topic.

Autumn (30m 18s):
They don't care about our move. Our show we'll have to do a recommended show episode later. Maybe we should. So what's the next trope we want to think is pretty general. We're still not doing our worst favorite. Cause we settled still. Haven't gotten to the one that I can not stand yet. No, well maybe

Jesper (30m 36s):
You have more, you can inject it because the two I have left is the one I hate. And the one I like. So if you have some more, you want to inject and maybe you can do that.

Autumn (30m 45s):
Alright, well, I'm going to skip the one that is my least favorite. So I know one of the ones that is very often often use, that's not the news as much recently, but it's like the secret air. So it's the person who was born noble and doesn't know it. Okay. This is almost like sleeping beauty, I guess. I mean, she's the princess she sent off to, you know, grow up in the forest so that no one will come and you know, the curse will not happen. So that actually is a trope. That's been used. A lot of these fairy tale types of stories have these tropes.

Autumn (31m 17s):
So the older, older stories we have and they've been passed down for generations. And so they're still being used today. I mean, you think about it, Romeo and Juliet, the star crossed lovers. That's a trip to usually in romance, but I've seen it as a pretty strong sub genre sub plot to some fantasy ones as well. Right. And you did mention star Wars. So the evil empire, the evil overlord, believe it or not, that is not my worst Groaner, but that is definitely one that I've gotten tired of seeing where you start off a story and it's, you just have evil and they're evil.

Autumn (31m 58s):
And I mean, unless you're writing about Lucifer or the devil, or I don't wanna pick another cosmology that has, you know, a BA a good and a bad side, and they're just evil from the side of evil. That is another one. That's unless you're adding some gray tones and some explanation why they're evil. I definitely think that one's kind of been over done

Jesper (32m 20s):
Interesting because some of the stuff you're saying, I'm going to come back to

Autumn (32m 23s):
Totally be fine. Some of the other ones I've seen and you made me have to open up like my book of my filing cabinet, we were joking on Patreo and Irish and I, and that I, my, my organizational system in my brain is actually a massive cabinet, huge bureaucracy, immensely boring, but so well organized. So

Jesper (32m 47s):
Wants to get access to certain areas.

Autumn (32m 49s):
Times you asked definitely 10 different copies. Some of them are in blood. You got to watch out for those, but the, the reluctant hero. And again, I think it's another one where you, it's not as very, I mean, normally we have people, most of the heroes I think written about today are more go getters. They're very few are going, but I don't want to go have to go fight the dragon, but that is definitely something that's there.

Jesper (33m 18s):
Yeah, I agree. But, but don't, I would almost argue that that can, that can be in almost any stronger in thrillers or whatever. You can also have the reluctant hero who doesn't really want to take on the task ahead of them. I am not sure. That's a fantasy trope as such. It's just a storytelling trope, I guess.

Autumn (33m 37s):
Yes. But it's one that definitely crosses into it. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not sure. I guess, I don't know if you'd call it a fantasy trumpet, like the mentor trope, where you always have the kid who gets helped by the mentor or even you could have the one where it's like a young boy basically redeems the older hero who has done something in his past. And so that's another one that if it's done well, can be amazingly powerful and redemptive, but if it's not done well, you kind of feel like I've seen this before.

Autumn (34m 11s):
Yeah. But I guess you could say that with everything you have to layer on characters that are very three dimensional, you have to layer in a world that feels real, and it's all gonna become together to be its own driver. And without that, any of these can really feel like they just have been seen and done before.

Jesper (34m 29s):
Yeah, absolutely. I agree with that.

Autumn (34m 32s):
All right. I think that's all the ones I can come to mind. I'm sure. I'll probably think of more. Oh, I know the powerful article, like the F the quest for the magic sword Excalibur. I don't do our Dorian tails anymore. I love them as a teenager, but I, if I read one more thing about the lady of the Lake and Excalibur, I'm just going to, just to

Jesper (34m 56s):
It's another one that came up on my Netflix feed here recently was w I cursed, I think it was called . It was also a new one, but that was also some sort of a King Arthur kind of thing, whatever. I was just like, Oh my God. No, thank you.

Autumn (35m 16s):
Yes, I would. It would take me a while to go back to them. I see. He gave it out to be an amazingly good character as do, make me want to sit through one of those again. Yeah.

Jesper (35m 26s):
Okay. So should I do the trope that I hate the most?

Autumn (35m 29s):
Yes. And then I'll do my trip that I hate the most.

Jesper (35m 32s):
Okay. And this is going to be a bit interesting because you touched a bit on,

Autumn (35m 36s):
Okay. So the

Jesper (35m 38s):
One I hate the most is the one I call the one. Oh, so this is exactly what you said before. So this is the farm boy who discovers that he is the one and the only person who can save the world or the young servant girl who discovers that she's actually rightful heir of the troll and you know, those sorts of things. And my God, I just feel like this trope has been beaten to death. I wish those kinds of prophecies, or it was kind of meant to be a, I don't know.

Jesper (36m 11s):
I, I just hate those kinds of stories and I wish they wouldn't be written anywhere.

Autumn (36m 16s):
Well, I know something kind of funny. Yeah. That's my least favorite ones too. The chosen one. I will, I hate it. I do too. I mean, the Shannara tales, those, you know, those came out a couple of years ago, the remakes again, of the elf stones of Shannara books. And it's just like, there's no purpose. You have the right blood. You are the chosen one. You're going to get out there and do it. And there's no earning your place. It's just, everyone's like bowing down to them.

Autumn (36m 47s):
Oh, you were the chosen one. You were the golden child. And I'm just like, Oh, gag me. I want to see them suffer and earn it and become, come something greater because it is their journey. Not because they were chosen to be this person. And I definitely know.

Jesper (37m 4s):
Yeah. And even, I mean, I know now again, I, you know, I'm good at offending people here. Why not? Why stop now when I already started, but I know a lot of people love. Yeah. I know a lot of people love the wheel of time by Robert Jordan. I don't like it. And I guess as well, I, it would not be fair to say that rant L toward a main character in that, he's just the one. And because he's just the one, I mean, he has to work for it.

Jesper (37m 34s):
So it's not entirely fair. But on the other hand, it is still, at least in my view, and this is only my view and people can shout at me and disagree. That's okay. But just in my view, it is still the, it's one of those, the one stories, because rant is the one who's supposed to defeat evil and, and all that. And it's just like, it feels to ordain. What should we call? Yeah. Or more like artificial story, construction kind of thing, rather than it just being, here's your average, Joe.

Jesper (38m 7s):
And he builds over time. And one day he then turns out to be able to defeat evil if that's what you want to do. But instead of it just being, well, it was also always written in the stars that you were going to defeat the evil overlord or what it's like, what seriously.

Autumn (38m 25s):
I agree. And I actually poke fun at this trope and my first fantasy trilogy, where there is one who's like, Oh, there's a prophecy of this elemental. And he will go on to do something. And it's you and no, it's not, it's not him. You know, it was basically, they're like, they're reinterpreting it. There's like a few just minor. It's a very minor subplot. But every once in a while someone mentions it. And even the main character is like, Oh my God, if you had mentioned this one more time, you all don't even know what you're talking about. I'm just going to go over here and take care of business.

Autumn (38m 57s):
Okay.

Jesper (38m 57s):
Right. That's good.

Autumn (38m 59s):
Yeah. I just, I got to poke fun at these things. Occasionally it's just in my nature, but yes. So we have, I guess it's a unanimous vote that the chosen one is it's was a very common theme. I think when we both were growing up reading fantasy, the seventies and eighties, it was just like, that is your main carers. They were chosen. They're going to go do this and they're going to win. And you just follow it along. And the stories of this decade is so much more nuanced. Good is not a hundred percent good.

Autumn (39m 30s):
They're kind of gray and evil. The evil characters have their kind of animals or something that, you know, there's something else about them. And those are the stories that really stick and grow, and everyone's got to earn their downfall or their nobility. And that is a much more interesting. And I guess maybe I'm saying that's what my favorite trope is now is simply the one that maybe flips a lot of the old tropes on their heads, even settings. I like, I like something unique. I like unique races.

Autumn (40m 1s):
I hacked my first story was I stayed away from the whole medieval setting and did sailing instead of horseback riding because I wanted something different. So I love it. When someone comes up with a story that flips something on its head and gives me something new. I mean, when Shrek came out, Oh, I was just in love with the movie because I was laughing my ass off at all. All of the, all the funny things that it flipped on its head and made it all new and fresh again.

Autumn (40m 31s):
I love that.

Jesper (40m 32s):
Yeah. Yeah. And actually that's a good point, you know, if anybody has not watched Shrek yet, then if you want to get a feeling of fantasy tropes, what's that movie, All of them. So you'll have one movie, you will have a very good taste and you'll see that even though you can have them all listed, you can do something completely different with them. And it's wonderful. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. I think the one that I liked the most it's sort of placed off the one I hate the most.

Jesper (41m 3s):
That that sounded weird.

Autumn (41m 5s):
Yeah. So how does this work together then? Well, it's like

Jesper (41m 11s):
The one I hate the most is the one who saves the world. Right? Yeah. But at the same time, the ones that, the trip that I liked the most is the one where the world is in the balance. I like stories where the stake is the entire world, but I guess that's why right. Epic fantasy.

Autumn (41m 31s):
That's a good reason. I think

Jesper (41m 34s):
So. But the thing is, I just don't want it to be the chosen one who does all the saving there instead. It's I actually like when stories about saving the world comes as such a great cost that you can almost, once you sort of read the last chapter, you can almost start wondering, was it really worth it? What's the price really worth paying for what was saved? Hopefully you will say yes for saving the world, but you know, just that there is something in the back of your mind saying that was almost too great of a price to pay.

Jesper (42m 14s):
I like that.

Autumn (42m 15s):
That's a very good one. And I must say that that definitely is impactful and would make people think so. That's fantastic. I could get behind that, which is good because we'll be writing books together very soon. Yes, yes, I do like that, but it's definitely, I definitely think that yeah, pulling the other one, the chosen one on its head, like I said, even with the stories I've been writing, there's three or four or five potential people to save the world and oddly enough, the cost of what it's going to take. And I won't even say that the world is saved.

Autumn (42m 46s):
It's altered forever. When I get to the left third book, even though I'm only writing the end of the first one. So I guess I kind of agree with you because the way the story goes, it's a painful, painful cost. And the world isn't really saved. It's just not completely destroyed, but that's good. That is. So I guess I have to, again, as usual, even though we did not plan this folks, I swear to your listeners, we do not conspire.

Autumn (43m 18s):
We just happened to get along, which is a good thing. It meets the business. Isn't very solid hands.

Jesper (43m 25s):
Yeah, it is. Yeah. It's amazing. Well, we always tend to agree on things, even though we haven't coordinated any of our responses.

Autumn (43m 33s):
Yeah. Alright. Well, that's very good. I guess that's a good way of saying, you know, these tropes to wrap up they're important and they're underlying a lot of stories. And again, it's not necessarily, you should look around and see which ones people are complaining about. And if you're bold and brave, maybe you can do something to remake something that everyone else is seen way too many times. If you can make the chosen one into something new, fresh and exciting. Oh, that would be really kind of interesting.

Jesper (44m 5s):
Yeah. And I think exactly, that's also my conclusion on this because I do honestly believe that any trope can be done well, even the one I hate, but at the same time, any trope can also be done poorly. Even the one I like. Yeah. So it is a matter of how the trope is utilized in your storytelling and in your world building. And of course that's a million times easier said than done, but that's why we are doing the podcast and you're doing the writing very true.

Jesper (44m 36s):
Okay. So next Monday it's if all goes, well, I should have a very accomplished author on for an interview for you, but I'll keep it as a surprise for now.

Narrator (44m 50s):
If you like, what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support the am writing fantasy podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join Autumn and Jesper on patreon.com/amwritingfantasy for as little as a dollar a month. You'll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going, stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 86 – Should You Give Away Your Book for Free?

In episode 44 of the Am Writing Fantasy podcast, Jesper and Autumn shared the results of a survey which asked readers about permafree books.

They are now back with an update on the survey results as many more responses has come on since episode 44, and in addition, Autumn have taken her book 1, Born of Water, off permafree. 

What has happened to Autumn's book sales now that Born of Water is no longer available for free?

Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday. 

SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST!

Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review.

Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy. For as little as a dollar a month, you’ll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going.

Read the full transcript below.

(Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion).

Narrator (1s):
You're listening to the Am Writing fantasy podcast in today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need an literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing. Join two best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them now onto the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt, and Jesper Schmidt. Hello, I'm Jesper.

Narrator (32s):
And I'm, Autumn. This is episode 86.

Jesper (36s):
of the Am writing fantasy podcast. And as promised this episode will cover the results after taking a book off Permafree like Autumn have done with her book. Born of water. Yes. I love running my life as an experiment to help other people as I seem to be doing constantly. Yeah. Yeah. But it's been actually quite a long while since we recorded, even though, of course, for, for the listener. Well, we released an episode last week and we are releasing one this week, but, but we have, we have prerecorded some episodes because of summer holidays.

Jesper (1m 13s):
So we actually haven't done this for a while, or I know it's been three weeks, so yeah. To everyone else it's been seamless, but for us it's been three weeks. So I'm so glad to have you back as I've hinted in the student Q and a that we just had before this that, you know, even though you did all your homework before you left and we prerecorded everything, I was still alone in charge of this ship. And there's always more in charge of a ship than you realize when you're like, Oh, I tried, I tried so hard not to bug you too much, even though I know you were on a staycation instead of a real vacation, but yeah, no, no, nobody is great being back.

Jesper (1m 55s):
It feels nice to get into it again. And even, even discovering out of our conversations before the recording, that there was a few things that I was supposed to do that I couldn't quite remember the context of anymore. It was a good vacation. So, I mean, how was it in Denmark? I mean, I know the couple of times that we emailed that you said it wasn't exactly summer weather over there. No, it feels the whole thing feels a bit odd, to be honest.

Jesper (2m 25s):
I mean, I guess I could say it's been fairly a fairly good vacation, but we didn't do any traveling of course, due to COVID-19 like the rest of the world. So we visited some friends, we had some family over and we did some day trips here and there with the kids to just go and do some stuff, that sort of thing, you know, but yeah, as you said, unfortunately, the weather has not been the best. So yeah, my wife said the other day that it doesn't feel like a vacation. It more feels like a very, very long weekend and that's actually a bit how I feel about it too.

Jesper (2m 59s):
And I'm actually sure that, you know, because we were also working from home home in this pandemic isolation and in the months leading up to the vacation, I think that hasn't helped on this feeling because it's all just sort of blurred together in one big mess there. So I don't know all in all it was okay. But I've had better vacations to be honest.

Autumn (3m 21s):
Well then I'm sure you didn't get to go any word too interesting, but at least, you know, the family's safe and you did get some time off and got to spend some time with your kids. So I, and the wife always nice. Yeah.

Jesper (3m 32s):
Yeah. That's good. I dunno. The last couple of days it's starting to get warmer like that. I said this yesterday to my wife as well. I'll bet you, once we get into the end of August, once we are fully back to work, then it will start getting really nice and really warm and wonderful. Right. In the last couple of days, it has actually started heating up a pit just as we return to work. And I don't know if that's, yeah, I don't know if that's why, but both the day before yesterday and yesterday I had really troubling sleeping.

Jesper (4m 6s):
What can a dozen of times it also last night? So I don't know if it's because it's getting warmer or something, but it's just really annoying. I fall right back to sleep. So that's, that's fine, but it's still interrupts the sleep rhythm. So I, yeah, I feel a bit tired because of it. And then I guess two days, 14 hours of work hasn't helped. I guess

Autumn (4m 33s):
You just put it this like marathon day, it's like welcome back by the way. You're an hour 14 of being awake and getting work done. So thanks for holding in there. And now you're recording a podcast. So talk about needing a vacation now.

Jesper (4m 50s):
And when we returned from vacation, that the first thing you need is a vacation. Absolutely. I think that's typical though. So, but how has things been on your end over the last three weeks or

Autumn (5m 2s):
It's working myself to the bone on him writing fantasy. It's been good. I mean, we had our own, well I'll share my two big successes. And one is that I mentioned my Adam, my husband, Adam has been working on 105 year old wood and canvas coup. And we, he finally got it to the point where we put it in the water and it floated. So

Jesper (5m 27s):
Yeah, I saw, I saw you posted a picture of a, you say

Autumn (5m 31s):
Yes. Yeah. So I even got to take it out myself. So again, I think that was just so you could see pictures of it from, from the shore, but it was a very successful venture and it's wonderful to see this thing that came to us in really horrible condition. I mean, the canvas was rotted and falling off and, and it didn't even, he's not a huge woodworker. He's become a massively good woodworker in the last couple of months, learning how to shape Cedar into a canoe. And it is beautiful and it was paddles really well.

Autumn (6m 4s):
So that was a wonderful success. And then the other thing is, it was funny, cause we've just been talking about this with some of the students I've started. I usually wrote in the evening and I'd try to give him like 500 words while I recently said, screw checking the news and checking email. I'm going to sit down first, as soon as I get my cup of tea and I'm going to try to write for like 45 minutes. And I have top some days if I get a chance already to get in the evening, you know, for maybe a half an hour. And so I've been hitting like 2000 words a day by doing this.

Autumn (6m 35s):
So a story that in March was over a year old and completely stalled. If I got a hundred words in, I was felt like I was pulling teeth and really lucky. I'm five chapters away from finishing book one. So I feel I'm in the middle of the climax and it's very exciting. And I have lots of scenes already developed in the plot, pretty much developed for books, twos, and threes. The rate I'm going, I should finish before December, which means an early, late winter, early spring release for a trilogy next year.

Autumn (7m 6s):
Plus the books we're going to be writing plus some nonfiction. I'm thinking if everything pans out the way it's supposed to, I'm going to hit 30 books in 2021. I'm feeling pretty good about that. I'm just feeling really good to feel, to be writing again and be hitting my word count. So then for us, the summer weather is beautiful. The tomatoes are ripening and we're eating zucchini. Like it is the only available food source on the planets. It's become a bit of a joke whenever my husband goes out and comes back with zucchini, but Oh, you know, you can turn them into scones.

Autumn (7m 41s):
So I've been experimenting with zucchini quite a lot. It's been a good summer. I'll take it. I'm hoping August is also equally enjoyable and it was a little bit less stressed because I'm not the only one in charge of M writing fantasy.

Narrator (7m 56s):
Oh, a week on the internet with the am writing fantasy podcast.

Jesper (8m 1s):
So first things first, we want to give a huge shout out and warm, welcome to Janine and Eric who joined us on patron. Yes, I, it was a while you were away and we weren't recording. So it's one of those is at least a little belated, but thank you. And welcome. We're so happy for your supports. Yeah. So thank you so much to both of you without Patrion. And those of you who chime in with just a dollar a month, you know, I can't say for sure that we would keep these recordings going, but because of you, then we will, for sure.

Jesper (8m 39s):
So thank you a lot for that. And I said, I guess I should also say if, if you dear listener, haven't considered supporting the writing fences, you podcast on Petron yet we would love it. If you could click the link in the show notes and check out the awesome rewards that you Can get your hands on by joining us over there.

Autumn (8m 60s):
Yes. Please come join us. There's lots of great posts and tips and some really good perks, like the Q and a sessions we have. So come home, come over and see what we have.

Jesper (9m 11s):
Yeah. And I also wanted to mention something else a ahead of you might having something to add autumn. I don't know, but I wanted to mention that we received an email from our podcast host and they told us that we have now passed 10,000 downloads at the end writing fantasy.

Autumn (9m 29s):
So that's amazing. That's another big celebration. We have so much to just celebrate today. I mean, we're, we're recording this. We're actually on release day for three books. So this is just, just been a fantastic summer, 10,000 downloads. We're got books coming out new courses. This is just no wonder. We're both like what's what is this task that we're supposed to be doing about which, which of our many projects? Yes.

Jesper (9m 56s):
Yes. So for sure, a huge thank you to everyone who listens to the new episodes that we release every single Monday here without you. There wouldn't be much point in sitting here in front of the microphone in the first place. So thank you a lot. And thank you for getting us to 10,000 downloads. And of course we hope that there will be much more to come.

Autumn (10m 19s):
Absolutely. I mean, we were already in deep discussion about our secret, what we're going to do on our hundredth episode. So that is coming up this fall. So that'll be really exciting to announce.

Jesper (10m 34s):
Yeah. Yeah. Anything else we need to cover?

Autumn (10m 37s):
Oh, nothing. I just, I know I've been giving a big shout out to our type of slayers for you guys. You know, this is the only one we're releasing this on a week or two. So this is not too far in the past, but as I said, it's release day for our books and just the feedback from the type of slayers, normally their help, but some of those early reviews and also just the personal notes that they put in when they sent in some of the little typos that they did spot for us, we're really touching and encouraging.

Autumn (11m 8s):
And we're exactly the reasons why we're releasing these books to know that, you know, these people signed up just to help us fix up the books right before publication. And they came out of it saying that, you know, words like that helped them tremendously help them find their passion again, for a story they were working on and solve all these problems. And it was just like, just, just, wow. It blew me on the way to know how much we are helping writers. And I'm just, thank you.

Autumn (11m 38s):
Thank you for sending in those notes as well as for your help for hitting today and being actually able to release the books.

Jesper (11m 46s):
Absolutely. Yeah. And of course, if the listener here has not checked out those books, then just go to wherever you normally book, if that's Amazon or Kobo or wherever and searched for one of our names and you will find the plotting books and the workbooks and the story idea book, all three of them just released today as we're recording this on the 3rd of August. So go and check that out. Okay.

Jesper (12m 16s):
So as we set up top, we're going to talk a bit about how it has gone since you took one off Permafree autumn. And, but I guess maybe we should just start out by defining Permafree. What does that mean?

Autumn (12m 32s):
Sure. Well, and I can also give you a time as long as a week, cause it's a good discussion of when a book is PERMA free, which means permanently free. So on Amazon, or actually to do this, you have to be wide, you have to be on Kobo and Barnes and Nobles. You have to be on all those platforms. And the book has got to be free, no signing up for an email list or anything. This is literally you just go to Amazon and it is listed as a free book permanently, not on a five day Kindle countdown, just free all the time, every day, 24 hours seven.

Autumn (13m 5s):
And my book board of water, I don't know how many readers actually or listeners actually know this, but for a while I was actually with a publisher. And it was when I got my books back in may of 2015 that I put a born of water, which had been initially published in February, 2012. I finally put it on permanently free on, in May, 2015, and it's been free ever since widely distributed any platform.

Autumn (13m 36s):
And so this was a big change to say something that has been free for five years, I'm going to put a price tag on it. And that's what I did this end of may. I made it 99 cents. Huge deal.

Jesper (13m 53s):
Yeah. And maybe also for context, we talked about whether or not Permafree books is like a viable sales strategy. We talked about that back in episode 44. So which was released on the 28th of October, 2019. So if, if you need some more context than I would say, go back and listen to episode 44 and then come back here and, and continue listening to this because there we explain a lot about the behind line thinking and strategy about why we don't think that Permafree books is a good strategy anymore, but we're not going to dive into all of those details here once again.

Jesper (14m 38s):
So if you want that, didn't go back to episode 44, but otherwise we're just going to focus on what was the results then from pulling a book away from Permafree and all of a sudden asking people to pay for it. But that is a great,

Autumn (14m 54s):
You know, groundwork for why. I mean, there's a lot of reasons why I would choose to do this. One is, you know, at five years into Permafree, the downloads were dwindling. It was harder to give away even a free book because it's been free for so long. There's no excitement about picking up a book. That's going to be free next month, when it's already been free last year, how many new readers was I really reaching? And we also had the survey and that was a pretty big eyeopener. And you have the results, some updated results from the survey.

Autumn (15m 25s):
And that kind of also got me thinking of really, should this book still be free? I mean, should a permit free be permanently free or should it be something maybe every couple years you rotate through as you open up a new series?

Jesper (15m 40s):
Yeah. So maybe we could start that and then you can get into the results of it. Maybe we can start with the survey because as a preparation for episode 44, back then in October, 2019, we, we had a thinking that, you know, the Permafree strategy is a, it's a, well, I was about to say old strategy, but in publishing terms, oldest just means a couple of years, a lot of things happened a couple of years, but it's a couple of years old strategy. And our thinking was that I think that the Permafree strategies losing some of its allure and some of its effectiveness.

Jesper (16m 18s):
So we created a survey where we basically, instead of us being author speculating about it, we decided, well, why not ask the readers? So we did. And back then in episode 44, we shared the results of all the responses we got for that survey. And of course now we are in August, 2020. So we have gotten some more responses since then. And I can just go through them one by one here, just to bring everybody up to speed.

Jesper (16m 48s):
And then you can talk about your experiences and results afterwards. Yeah. So I w I would say first off before we get into the actual questions and answers that none of what we set in episode 44 has really changed. It's still the same. We've just got more volume on the responses, but the conclusions are still the same as I also expected when we recorded episode 44, I also said that I doubted that it would change, even though we got more responses, but we do now we have 575 responses.

Jesper (17m 25s):
So that's quite quite a good, let's say mock for, including upon. I would prefer, as I also said back in episode 44 to get a thousand, but well, we have 575, so yeah. Do with what you want, but I can just go over it one by one here, tell you the questions and then the answers, I think there was five. So the first question, yeah, the first question was, are you more likely to take a chance on a new author?

Jesper (17m 55s):
If the book is free and here 32.5% says, yes, I prefer to only pay for books written by authors. I already know while 67.5% says, I don't mind purchasing a book from an author I'm not familiar with if the book otherwise sounds and looks interesting. So that was already a bit, a bit interesting to see. Okay. So people actually don't mind giving a new author chance, even if they have to pay for the book. So at least for people selling their books, then that's, that's a good indicator to start with.

Jesper (18m 31s):
Absolutely. So we then funneled all of those who said that they prefer to only pay for books written by authors, that they already know. We didn't ask only that top of the respondees, a separate question, and we didn't ask them what if the same book from that same author you've never heard of had great reviews. Could that make you want to purchase the book, even though you normally only pay for books written by authors, you know, and then 66.3%.

Jesper (19m 5s):
Yes. That would make me change my mind, providing the book otherwise sounds and looks interesting to me while only 33.7% said, no, I simply don't want to pay for a novel, unless I already know that the author already know the author and question writes the kind of stories that I like to read. So yeah. Great reviews really matters as we can see from that questions. And of course we can come back to that, but born on water has a ton of reviews.

Jesper (19m 35s):
So that's,

Autumn (19m 36s):
Yeah, I'll be mentioning that it helps, but it also actually caused a small problem, but we'll come back to that. I'll leave the tension right there. Now I'm curious as well. So then we asked

Jesper (19m 51s):
If you bought a book, is it the next book you'll start reading and here 40.3% says, yes. I usually start reading it as soon as I'm able, while 59.7% says, no, I often add it to my, to be read list and we'll come back to it as some later date. And then we asked the exact same question, but now we asked what if it's a free book? So we asked if you were downloaded a free book. Is it the next book you will start reading. And now we have 29.9% saying, yes.

Jesper (20m 25s):
I usually start reading it as soon as I'm able, while all of a sudden the 59.7% who before said that they added to the, to be read list. Now John jumps from 59.7% to 70.1% who says, no, I, I just add it to my, to be read list. So you're basically losing like a bit more than 10% of people there because it's a free book. They are much more, 10% modern, 10% more inclined. I know you can't say that, but 10% are more inclined to add it to a TUPE read list rather than starting reading it while as while they, and it makes sense.

Jesper (21m 4s):
Right? So if they pay for the book, they are more inclined to start reading it right away.

Autumn (21m 9s):
Absolutely. It makes sense. Definitely.

Jesper (21m 12s):
Yeah. So if we then assuming that people are adding stuff to dare to be reckless, we wouldn't curious how long is this to be readily then? So we ask people how many unread books do you have on your E reader? That being the Kindle, the phone, the nook, or whatever it is that they read books on. And we have 8.2% saying that they don't have any, they always finish their current read before they buy or add a new book. So that was only 8.2%.

Jesper (21m 43s):
I believe that 19 and 17.7% says that they have between five and 10, 19% says that they have less than five, but then the whopping 56% of all the people says that they have more than 10 books in there to be read list. Wow. And this was exactly what we were concerned about when it comes to Permafree that people just download free books, stuff, them on their Kindle. And usually they just forget about it. They never get back to more than 10 books.

Jesper (22m 13s):
That's a lot just sitting there. You can't even remember that you had them after a while

Autumn (22m 18s):
Right now. Yeah. You open it up and you're like, Oh yeah, I don't even remember what that's about. Yeah. Because when you see the cover on your e-reader, you don't see the blurb, you don't, you don't know why you got it. You literally are just going off of a cover and a memory of whether or not it's the next book you read. Yeah.

Jesper (22m 38s):
And the question is just more than 10. So it could mean that they have even 20 or 30 books sitting around Kendall. Right. And they never kind of get to it. So that was the whole problem with the, and, and again, going back, maybe three, four, five years, the Permafree strategy worked really, really well because it was brand new. It was difficult to find Permafree books. So people just loved it and they wrapped the free books. They read them and they moved on to buy the rest of the series, which is the whole point of the Permafree strategy. Right. But the problem is nowadays a lot of people off of free books, I do it myself.

Jesper (23m 12s):
I have not pulled my book off Permafree, but that's more because of all the tasks related to do it. So I have too much else to do, but I really should be doing it. I'm preaching here on the podcast and also in episode 44 that you should be doing it, but I haven't done it myself. So shame on me. But yeah, I think this is the object of the property or the core of the problem, right? There's just too many free books out there. And then to wrap the survey up, we asked in your view, free books, more likely to be of poor quality than the you pay for.

Jesper (23m 46s):
And the reason we asked that was basically because at least within author circles, there's been different conversations, you know, on Facebook groups for authors and stuff like that, where authors have been speculating that, well, usually readers will equate the free books with poor quality. So we said, okay, fine. Let's just ask the readers if that's the case or not, and get it out of the way for once and fall. And actually 80.3% said, no free books can be just as good as those you, I pay for that leaves only 19.7% who says yes, in my experience, free books often suffer from issues with editing plot, characterization and so on.

Jesper (24m 30s):
So I think that sort of put that point to rest rate in general readers do not believe that free books should be of poor quality or is of poor quality,

Autumn (24m 40s):
Which I think is definitely a big wind for indie authors that we've come from that initial stigma when independent publishing was first out, that, you know, it just wasn't as good as the others, you know, the traditional publishers. I think we've overcome that. And we are indie publishers and authors are shining examples of how good writing can be. I agree. So, yep.

Jesper (25m 5s):
What's that update, as I said, the conclusions are exactly the same as what I shared in episode 44, we just have a bit of more bit more volume on the responses, but yeah,

Autumn (25m 16s):
Well, it's just awesome. So we had the survey that said, you know, permit we've from what we are seeing ourselves, we knew Permafree, weren't working as well. We knew readers were willing to pay for a book. I mean, it helps to maybe have the first book as a reduced price as kind of an intro offer. But you know, there's also this huge discussion out there of if you're only giving away free books, are you just teaching the people who are reading your books, that they should always be free? I mean, I know, I think every author who offers a free book has gotten at least a few people asking questions and saying, can I have the next book for free?

Autumn (25m 49s):
You're already giving one away. Why not give away the rest? And most of us hopefully stick to our guns saying, you know, that took two years of my life. And I was like, at least 9 cents.

Jesper (26m 0s):
Yeah. The only reason I can keep writing books is because some people pay for them. Right.

Autumn (26m 6s):
Oh. And so there was all these ideas going on in my head. We had this survey that was hard facts. I also happened to have joined. I want to give a huge shout out to Brian Cohen. He runs these amazing AMS as author challenges, which run for five days. And so just on a whim, I joined one because I used to run a lot of AMS ads, but when you're running a Permafree, it's really hard to offer that on Amazon. And I'm like, I hadn't been doing it recently. So I thought I joined it to actually work on AMS ads for my bundles and ended up talking to him quite lot about how do you run this for a Permafree?

Autumn (26m 45s):
And he gave me some tips. So I started running born of water as a Permafree and, and just a really, it's an incredibly low bid. Right. And so you're just kind of showing up at the tail end when everyone else is running out of money, you might show up at the end and you start getting noticed a little bit more and get some organic growth. And it was good. So it was something in addition to my normal normal marketing that I'd send out to advertisers like Freebooksy and all those places where you could, you know, send out your free book. And, but even those, I mean, those were really, I remember when you could get like 10,000 downloads by getting a Freebooksy offer.

Autumn (27m 20s):
And now it's like, if you get 1200, you're doing really well, giving away a free book is really hard, especially a book that has been free for five years. And then on top of all of that, I picked up a book, read through calculator. So I have a series born of water as the first of a trilogy, but then there's a second trilogy that starts six months after the last book in the first trilogy. So it's really six books. Plus I even have a companion and a compilation of short stories. So I'm talking about, I usually don't count those when I look at things like read through, right?

Autumn (27m 54s):
But technically I have an eight book series going on and jokingly with a few readers recently who found out, I had been thinking of a, another trilogy they're kind of prodding me along. So it might be even more. And I took all of my stats from 2019. So whole year's worth of stats of downloads and read through rates. And that's what I use that to calculate my readthrough rates. And I found that I was so happy. I had this book one and the read-through rate.

Autumn (28m 26s):
I could give away thousands and thousands and thousands of books, but my readthrough rate to book two, because it was a freebie is incredibly low. But after that, once I read book two, it was over a hundred percent, which made me laugh, who had read book three and then to go to the next trilogy, go ahead.

Jesper (28m 47s):
Now I was just to add, because that, that actually links up very nicely with what we were just looking at with the survey results, right? Because a lot of those book ones just ended up on to be read list. And that's why you have a poor read-through rate. Not because the book is poor, but because they never read it. So they never go on to book two.

Autumn (29m 6s):
Yeah. 4% was my readthrough. Larry, I think it was, it was incredibly small, but then book two, two book three, you know, it was a hundred percent. And then I would lose 60% to go to the second trilogy, which could be me. And it wrapped up very well. So maybe they they're done. They want to go to the other books. Quite normal. 60% is actually not bad. But then again, it jumped back to a hundred percent to finish off that trilogy. So we're talking about a really strong read through rate. When you add that up, considering how many times I had to give away born of water, giving away book earned me 41 cents for every giveaway.

Autumn (29m 46s):
And I had to give away thousands of books. So, I mean, we're talking about 41 cents for each giveaway, but if my readthrough wait between book one, born of water and it's book two, if that happened to be close to the second series where it was like 60%, I could actually earn $7 and 21 cents after off of every sale of book one, which also means I would have to sell a lot less of them to earn a lot more money, to be earning $7 and 21 cents off of every reader instead of only 41 cents off of every reader.

Autumn (30m 22s):
So there's a lot of stuff that I'm like, okay, wait, I'm playing with AMS ads. They're actually working. I'm selling more books. I have this book that has at, at this time, it was just under 300 reviews. It's now over 300 reviews. It's got a solid track record. I'm gonna, I'm gonna go ahead and try this. And I did. I let readers know that may was the last ditch effort. Last time you're going to be able to see this for free, unless you sign up to get it through like my newsletter.

Autumn (30m 53s):
I do have it still as a signup or that's one way to get it for free, but otherwise on all the platforms, it's a whole whopping 99 cents. But it's edited was may, was fantastic for book sales and for giving it away. It was like going back to the old days where people were picking it up left and right, because I was really shaking the tree and letting people know this is it. This is, this is it. This is the end of the run. It is time. This book is no longer free. So yeah, may was really fun.

Autumn (31m 24s):
And I was running just so people know all the steps for this. I was not just sitting there letting people know it was coming off a Permafree. I was running my AMS ads at this low amount to get those targets. I was starting to already gather those keywords, getting those books, getting everything ready. So that on June 1st, when I had, Oh, you know, you know how Amazon goes, I actually did it a few days before. So June one comes up and I can switch all those AMS ads over to a higher bid rate. I had everything set up and going, you know, over a hundred, I think ads already made.

Autumn (31m 55s):
And boom, I hit the ground running June 1st with a book that was 99 cents. And how do you think that, how do you think all of June went and for me, which, you know, it was probably a big hint that I asked that we record this in August instead of July.

Jesper (32m 10s):
Yeah. Well I can of course guests there, but it did not go as planned. No, no, but, but the, the thing is also with those AMS ads that you need time to build up the momentum do and, and, and just switching the apps on often doesn't do much short term. And also it also takes time before you have the apps running for a while so that you can add that. Or you can collect the data and conclude based on the data where to focus your next set of ads.

Jesper (32m 43s):
So, so it's more like I see AMS as very much like a continual optimization kind of effort, where, where you start out with a starting point with what you think might work as keywords and such. And then you run those. Once you get enough impressions on them, you will start seeing, okay, decent, these steps works. So then you can start building towards that direction. And over time you get there and you get some really, really well performing ads, but it takes time. And I think that that might be a bit of a misconception in general that some people believe, yeah, you just Chuck in a set of keywords and then you bid something and then you'll get sales, but that's not how it works.

Autumn (33m 24s):
No, and I, what I was expecting was something that was going to happen, like my bundle, the rise of horror there. So where you can get all, you get four books for in the bundle. And for that one, you know, it's a typical, you struggle basically to get Amazon, to spend your $5, your trying to get readers. It's a slow burn process. And I would definitely say anyone who wants to try this, you are in this for the long haul and expect the first months to be painful. You're learning, it's a huge steep mountain that you're learning and you're climbing up.

Autumn (33m 55s):
And if I have to admit having a free book and just like once a month slapping to free Booksy or these other places say, Hey, you know, promote my book. That is so easy. If you like easy street, stay with easy. This is hard. This requires time that you've got to make every single week and you've got to not be intimidated. And you've got to be able to either ask questions of other people or kind of be good at marketing and not easy to give up and solve the problems. So, yeah, for June, I, I had the opposite problem that anyone told me was going to happen.

Autumn (34m 31s):
I actually had to slow down the ads because they were spending like, like I was a millionaire and I could spend money like crazy, but they weren't all ending up in sales. Oh my gosh,

Jesper (34m 43s):
Where you're getting very high IO.

Autumn (34m 45s):
I was bidding at what Brian Cohen and his AMS ads challenge was telling me is a good bidding rate for a book in a series. So we're talking in the 30 cent range, not really high. This is pretty much standard first in a series. This is about what you should start at. And it was crazy cause people were clicking on it left and right, because it had 300 reviews. It has a very solid cover, but not, not that many people were buying. So you and I worked together and I tweaked the blurb a little bit, which helped, but it was still outpacing.

Autumn (35m 19s):
I mean, my happily, my total amount of book sales covered what I paid for Amazon ads for June. But there was a moment of Holy crap. I don't like seeing negative ROI is on a series that was my money maker up to this point. And my biggest conclusion is, yeah, pupils see a book for 99 cents. 300 reviews. Cover is decent. They click on it. You don't read much else. It doesn't matter what else, what my hook could say, they're just going to click on it.

Jesper (35m 52s):
Indeed. And that's of course the difference between the click through rate versus the conversion rate, right? So the click through rate is basically being determined by the number of reviews and the cover because that's the people, that's what people see when they see the ad. So they might see if you want to you, of course, it's possible to put in a bit of custom text in the app if people want to do that on the AMS app, but in general, it's the cover. And it's the number of reviews that will make people click. So that's the clicks. So you can have a very high click through rate, which will then indicate that your cover is good and your number of reviews is working in your favor.

Jesper (36m 31s):
But then once they arrive on the sales page, if we can call it that or a product page, when meaning the actual page on Amazon that shows the book and you have the book description and you have the biolink and all that, then there is two things affecting the conversion rate on that page. And that of course is the book description that factors in a lot to whether or not people. So they might've clicked on, Oh, that cover looks interesting. So they click on the ad, they come to the book page and then they read the blurb and it's like, what? No, this is not me. And then gone.

Jesper (37m 1s):
They are right. So that really needs to hook them, or it can also be the look inside. So if people check the sample writing and they scroll through the first couple of pages on the login side, on Amazon, and then they, if it doesn't engage them enough there, then that might stop the conversion as well. So they don't buy it. They don't click the buy button. Right. But yeah, it was just to give a bit of context for Lou in terms of things to look for.

Autumn (37m 27s):
And these are the things you have to be aware of. And there's also the fact that I am trying this on at, you know, targeted ads with targeted keywords that I've only been trying for two months and to get keywords that are really gonna fit in my book and reach the correct audience. It's going to take a lot longer than two months to really gather that data. So I'm basically spending a whole bunch of money to get keywords, and it's just getting confusing. I'm basically, you know, going to Facebook and say, Hey, you like books.

Autumn (37m 57s):
Here's my book. And it's too much. It was, I needed to slow it down. And that was basically what I learned is I needed to basically just keep reducing my bid point every week until I got to the point where I got a positive ROI, which I did. Yay. I'm so excited. So I finally had my first month where, or my first week where I had a positive ROI. And of course this is difficult because I'm talking about readthrough rates. So I'm not looking at just the ROI on book one, I'm looking at how things are going for the entire series.

Autumn (38m 30s):
Are people reading through? Cause I am, that is going to determine my overall amount I can bid I've finally achieved what I was looking for, where I feel comfortable now trying to look for new keywords. So I'm still really at the beginning stages, but that was my biggest to me. It was my biggest hurdle is I just don't have the financial wherewithal to keep spending every ounce of money I'm getting from my books just to cover AMS ads. I kinda, you know, like eat and, you know, I'm a full time author. This is really kind of, you know, bread and butter for me.

Autumn (39m 1s):
So there were definitely those first month cringing pain of why the heck did I do this? This was so easy before, but now that I'm finally seeing income, again, I can start generating more ads looking for more keywords, starting to pull out the ones that are gonna work in the longterm. And I think that initial shock of being able to actually spend everything that Amazon, you know, that I want to throw at Amazon is going to be a good thing.

Autumn (39m 33s):
When I finally hit the right target. I mean, I might still work on the blurb a little bit. It's going to be a matter of checking out keywords, but once I have all the pieces in place, this could be really, really good. I just know it's going to be six months to longer, eight months, nine months a year from now, where will I be with this? I think it'll be in a really good place. And I'm, as I mentioned earlier, in this episode, I'm going to be having another series. I'm going to be trying all this again with fresh, with a series that has never been Permafree as well, but it's definitely been a learning curve.

Autumn (40m 10s):
And I think the biggest thing is just not having those moments of panic when, especially when you see income going out faster than, you know, you really had planned, I was expecting, you know, few sales, slow burn, trying to accumulate keywords like I was doing with the bundle. And instead I had, you know, the acetylene torch set on high. I was not prepared for that. You know, if I had hit all the right keywords the first time out and it had just zoomed off the rocket, that would have been fantastic, but that's not really realistic.

Autumn (40m 46s):
It wouldn't be a good learning session to be able to share with all of our listings. So what happens when you take your book off a permit for you? There has to be some pain involved, not just like there's one seller. Oh yeah. I had to do it this way, but I think, you know, I will definitely have to maybe put in our schedule or if listeners would like a check in, you know, let us know in the comments and we can check in again in six months or so and see how the process is going. Cause at this point now I am just trying to get, I had some ads that were not doing anything.

Autumn (41m 19s):
So I'm trying to wake those ads up and I'm just trying to keep that positive ROI going. But again, it's a series, it's a readthrough. So I have book I'm selling and there's going to be this lag before people get all the way through the series and I'll see the income it. So this is going to be a very slow stepping stone process. I mean, unless I win the sweepstakes or something and I have a million dollars, I can throw it a run, everything, you know, once to see it all get figured out.

Autumn (41m 50s):
And just a couple of months, I don't see that happening. I think this is going to take me a lot of time because I don't, I just simply physically can't dump a thousand dollars a month or more onto just AMS ads just to see what happens. Be really, if anyone is a multimillion out there and they don't know what to do with it, and they would like to help me run this experiment, I will have to spend your money when it's my money and my family, you know, I'm trying to take it a little bit slower.

Autumn (42m 22s):
That's fair enough. Yes. But I will say the conversion rate is up

Jesper (42m 28s):
Excellent. Next week we will look at the well known trips and fantasy and also evaluate if they are quote unquote, good or bad.

Narrator (42m 37s):
If you like what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support the am writing fantasy podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join Autumn and Jesper on patreon.com/amwritingfantasy for as little as a dollar a month. You'll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going, stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

 

The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 85 – Should You Create an Online Course?

Having multiple streams of income is important as an author, so maybe you have considered leveraging your expertise to create an online course. Should you? How does it work?

 

In this episode, Autumn and Jesper talk about course creation from how the Ultimate Fantasy Writer's Guide came to be to the steps you should take when looking to create your first course.

 

As we announced in the show, our premium one-stop-shot writer's course, the Ultimate Fantasy Writer's Guide is about to open for the first time in six months. If you want to learn to write, edit, format, and publish a book to raving fans, come check it out at https://ultimatefantasywritersguide.com/main/!

 

Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday. 

 

SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST!

 

Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. 

 

Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy. For as little as a dollar a month, you’ll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going. 

Read the full transcript below. (Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion).

Narrator (2s):
You're listening to the am. Writing fantasy podcast in today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need an literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing. Join two best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them now onto the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt, and Jesper Schmidt.

Jesper (30s):
Hello, I'm Jesper.

Autumn (31s):
And I am Autumn.

Jesper (33s):
This is episode 85 of the am writing fantasy podcast. At the end of last week's episode, we announced that we would be talking about taking a book book off Permafree like autumn did with her book born of water recently, but we decided to delay the topic for next week because we are prerecording a bunch of episodes. She had to carry us through the summer. So waiting one more week for you as a listener, actually gives us several weeks on our end.

Jesper (1m 4s):
And well, that sounded a bit complicated, but the point is that this delay will allow us to collect a bit more data on taking a book off Permafree. So I think that's the way we're going to go right on them. I think so I think it's good data, but at the moment, I think it's more challenges and problems, and I want to give you some encouragement and inspiration. So I think just a few more weeks of tweaking and being ready and complete, you know, compiling the stats and seeing how this is going will make every it'll make much more sense.

Jesper (1m 34s):
It'll be so much more interesting. So I admit I'm the one who said, Hey, can we switch these? So it's all on me. That's absolutely fine. So instead we are going to discuss creating a course as another stream of income for your author business. Is it actually worth the effort? And if so, what can you expect if you go into course creation? So that'll be the topic for today. And it's a, it'll be a fun one too. I look forward to sharing some of the journey we've taken to get to where we're at.

Jesper (2m 9s):
Yeah, absolutely. Before then. So how are things on your side of the Atlantic? No, it's good. I'll be heading off for three weeks of some of occasion this coming Friday, but as you are listening to this, of course, the vacation has already passed. I'm trying to, I guess we're just back to work. That's not fair. Yeah, no that's but I mean, at the end of the day, I would just like to see the weather understanding that is actually summertime.

Jesper (2m 40s):
Now I saw that we just had a student Q and a, and you were wearing a long sleeve shirt. Yeah. It's like, it's almost, it's like the weather thinks that it's early spring now and it's not, I mean, at the point of recording this, we at the beginning of July, so it should be really nice. And it's been raining half the day today and it's pretty damn boring. And actually speaking of rain last week, my youngest son attended a soccer college and it was also raining there, but it was hosted by the national soccer association and he was actually awarded player of the week in his age bracket.

Jesper (3m 21s):
So that was pretty damn cool.

Autumn (3m 23s):
So amazing. Congratulations. Fantastic.

Jesper (3m 26s):
Yeah. Very proud of him really well done. And because there was also a talent scout from the national soccer association there and they were taking potential names for the future youth national team. So given, I mean, they were not, they, they, they were not going to say which names they took that was apparently secret. But given that he was a water player of the week, I w as I said to him, you know, it would be really strange if your name is not on the list that you are, what play of the weekend and not put you on the list, that doesn't make any sense.

Jesper (3m 59s):
So we were told that if they do get on the list, we would probably get a call within the next year or so. And then they would be called in for some testing and extra training to see if they are good enough to get onto the youth national team. So that would be pretty cool if that happened.

Autumn (4m 18s):
I just feel like the buzzing of excitement that he's gotta have, ah, fingers crossed.

Jesper (4m 24s):
Yeah. I mean, it's his biggest dream is to become a professional soccer player. Right. So this is a pretty big deal. I mean, obviously getting into those chest trainings and all that stuff. I mean, there's no guarantees for anything. Right. But just getting the opportunity, at least it shows that he has some, he has the right mental attitude towards it and they recognize that. So that's pretty good

Autumn (4m 47s):
Then obviously some talent as well as the right mental attitude. So that's fantastic. Yeah.

Jesper (4m 52s):
I mean, he's okay at it, but he's not like top challenge, you know, best of the bunch in, in doing tripling so shootings or whatever. I mean, he's not, he's not the best of them for that, but, but what they usually say when, when I, I talked to some of the pro trainers and they actually say that the guys who make it to the pig scene, I mean, if we're not talking like the world-class best players in the world, they also have a huge amount of talent. Right. But right. But the ones who just makes it to a high, pretty high degree of professional level, they usually not the ones with the biggest talents, they are more the ones with the right mindset and understanding that this is a work and you need to take it seriously.

Jesper (5m 35s):
And because a lot of times what happens is as fast, what they tell me is that the ones with the big talent, they think that they don't have to work for it because it's do it. They're the best. Right. And they are the best, but as they progress through the teenage years, they are usually overtaking by the ones who work hard. And that makes me, cause then tell this not enough anymore. Right.

Autumn (5m 56s):
And they're not practicing and they're not, they could be geniuses and one really master it. But instead they're relying on latent talent and not really developing it. Yeah. So, yeah, that's what I've been doing over the past week. That sounds really exciting. Yeah. It's very good. How about you? Oh, Oh, it's been good. I actually had a little bit of cabin to myself. As my husband went up to Maine to get a few last things for this 105 year old canoe, he's been restoring he's in the final legs.

Autumn (6m 32s):
So he came back. So I had some extra work time and that was all good. And I've been making such good progress. The world building slides, I've been hitting easy, hitting easy, a thousand words a day, which considering I'm cramming it in the first thing in the morning. And right before I make dinner, I feel really good to see my story growing. I'm halfway through my first book of a trilogy. And then as I always told you earlier today, everything was going so sailing really smooth on Sunday that something had happened. And that is my Mac computer hit the hard drive deadline and just, Oh my God, it ran out of memory so badly.

Autumn (7m 9s):
I had two gigs left. I couldn't even open Firefox. It was really touch and go. Just trying to find up enough room to save things and move things around when you don't need happening. Right. Yeah. I've got, I would love to talk to Apple why they think that having things saved on it, something really bad happened yesterday. I had stuff I had saved in the cloud must have downloaded accidentally, and it was just horrid, but I managed to fill up free up 26 gig and I'm going to keep working through that. So I think I'll be fine. I managed to get my writing in today while I was downloading files and shuffling stuff.

Autumn (7m 42s):
So life's good. I'm pretty good. And the weather unlike there is gorgeous, the humidity drops. It's a perfect, it's a number 10.5 day as far as weather goes. So sorry. Wow. I could borrow a bit of that from you. I will blow some your way. Thanks.

Narrator (8m 3s):
Oh. A week on the internet with the am writing fantasy podcast.

Autumn (8m 9s):
So actually I was thinking for a start here that there was one thing I wanted to ask our listeners, if that's cool. Yeah. Go for it. Yeah, because basically just like with book reviews, you know, a podcast discoverability is really affected by how many ratings and reviews it has. And quite honestly, we don't have that many. So I was thinking to say to the deal listeners here, if a, if you like this podcast and you don't mind spending just like 30 seconds, can I ask you to leave a rating and review in your podcast app where you are listening to us, please?

Autumn (8m 44s):
You know, each podcast app is different. So I cannot really tell you exactly where to click, but it should be fairly intuitive if you go to your, into your app and find our

Jesper (8m 56s):
Show and look around a bit. I think it should be quite easy to find out how to leave a rating and review. So it really would mean a lot to us if you wouldn't mind doing that.

Autumn (9m 8s):
Yeah. That'd be so wonderful. I mean, 85 episodes were we're not new anymore. So it would be fantastic to have some ratings to go with 85.

Jesper (9m 18s):
Yes, yes. And actually speaking of a things that means a lot to us, I also wanted to, we also wanted to give a huge, thank you to Mary who joined us on Petro.

Autumn (9m 29s):
That's welcome, Mary. It's one wonderful talking to you. We were talking to you before. Cause you've been around for a little while, but Oh, it's so wonderful to have you on Patreon as well. Absolutely.

Jesper (9m 40s):
We try to offer many different bonuses to our patron supporters and not to mention weekly tips on publishing, writing and marketing. So I should think that there's something for everyone on patron that you would find interesting. So for instance, as well, on the $5 tier, you get access to the exclusive monthly Q and a where you can ask us questions directly. And basically we just came off one just before we recorded this one. So that was a lot of,

Autumn (10m 8s):
Oh, it's always so much fun. It's great for the students and great for us. And it's wonderful to be able to give specific feedback just when folks need it in their writing. And we do it every single month and part of it's through Patrion

Jesper (10m 21s):
Indeed. So if you want to help the am writing fantasy podcast going here, you can do so for just a dollar a month and at least go and check out all the rewards that we offer there and see if it's something for you. You can use the link to patron in the show notes. So anything else we need to cover autumn?

Autumn (10m 43s):
No, I would say just still another big shout out already, when, again, time jumping, we would, we're recording this. We're still getting some edits back from the type of Slayer team, but when you're listening to this, the books, the plotting plot development and the workbook and the story idea book I've already been launched, but it's fantastic. They be getting their comments back. Cause you know, what might the one consistent thing, I think almost every single commenter has said. And that has been that they have really enjoyed reading them and really learned a lot.

Autumn (11m 18s):
And like, yes, this is exactly it. It's funny. Almost all of them apologize. I was like, well, I was doing this for the edits and you know, to help you out with the typos, but I really learned a lot and you know, they're almost apologizing. I'm like, no, this is why we wrote this. This is fantastic. This is the whole point. So it is wonderful to see because here we are prelaunch recording this to know that they're really helping writers and I cannot wait to see them released to the world partially because I'll also be done with the formatting. So.

Autumn (11m 48s):
Okay.

Jesper (11m 49s):
Absolutely. Yeah. And I guess we could also just mention that the, all the time jumping here and us not being very timely with what's happening, meaning that we are prerecording a lot. That's basically just because of the summer holiday. So this is actually the last episode that we are prerecording that much ahead of time. So basically we now have enough in the bank to carry us through the weeks of vacation ahead. And then once we start recording again, then we can be a bit more timely with what we mentioning on the, on these podcast episodes, because then we don't have to bang up a lot of episodes at a time anymore.

Jesper (12m 29s):
I think so. Forgive us for vacations. At least I hope so. I am not apologetics for a vacation. Everyone needs some time off

3 (12m 38s):
And onto today's topic.

Jesper (12m 40s):
So on this podcast here, we have often talked about multiple streams of income and we even have two and a pen on episode 66 to talk about this very topic. And one such extra stream of income is to create an online course. And since this is something that we do, we thought it might be worth recording an episode to share a bit about our experiences and give you some further insights as to whether or not recording a course or publishing course, creating a course, whatever you want to call, it could be something for you to aim for us will be it now, or maybe later on in your career.

Jesper (13m 22s):
Absolutely. It was, it's definitely an interesting experience. You should. There's a lot to go through and a lot to ask yourself, like, if this is something that you want to try and there's everything from the technology technological aspects to, you know, are you comfortable teaching and what do you have to teach and do you know enough to teach it? Those are all questions. I'm sure they're going to be going through your mind of how do you even get started? It sounds great from the outset, but when you get into the nitty gritty, there's a lot to unpack.

Jesper (13m 54s):
Yeah. Yeah. And diva, I think there's a lot of different topic areas here that we can cover upon. I have a few different ones marked out in my list of things that we can talk about. But, but I think actually before going there, there was one thing I really wanted to mention before we got to find to the weeds here. Okay. What does that, because, well, basically I feel like we should mention how you have insights and you have something worth to share.

Jesper (14m 25s):
And we all do, even when we don't think that we do, and I'm saying this upfront, because many will often think like, well, who am I to consider teaching anything? I'm not the world's most foremost expert on this subject. And while that might be true, remember that we've all acquired some skills that someone else haven't. So you might think that something is easy and perhaps you would even be thinking, well, everybody knows this, but the fact is that not everyone does.

Jesper (14m 57s):
So I'm just saying it because don't let your decision on whether or not to create the course be influenced by whether or not you feel like you are enough of an expert. So I'm not trying to say that anything is a subject for costs. And I'm also not saying that anybody can teach any kind of subject, but I'm just addressing the mindset of you putting yourself down here. Because if that's the only reason you're ignoring this potential extra revenue stream, then please stop doing that part at least.

Autumn (15m 27s):
Yes. Do you have something, something you do is more knowledgeable to some, you could help someone else, whether it's a course or whether it's you're mentoring somebody online or just answering a question, you have some skill that is worth considering as you know, could you do something else with it, use it as an income stream or, you know, if you're just really generous, helping other people out.

Jesper (15m 50s):
Yeah. So I have, let me see here. I have a number of different areas, but they no particular order so we can dive in wherever we want, but I don't know if there's any, is there any place you prefer to start or do you just want to me to go down the list here?

Autumn (16m 6s):
I think because if I were going to start, I would probably go towards the technology cause that's what I have set up, but I could definitely say just with everything else. I don't know if you have on your list, how you learn to do online courses, if that's what you're going to do, because that was definitely something I went out and got help on and spend quite a lot of money learning how to do these suckers. So if that is one of your areas of topics, if not, I definitely want to add it in that way.

Jesper (16m 36s):
So maybe you can just start with that one.

Autumn (16m 39s):
Sure. So I will say that I, when I first considered online courses, it has been after I had taken actually Nick Stevenson's course, your first 10 K readers. So he had taught me a lot about book marketing, but I realized I'd already been blogging and helping other authors. And I think that's sort of the light bulb moment when you realize, Hey, I'm already doing this. Can I, can I get paid to do this too? I have a really unique viewpoint on how to do something. And I thought about it, but even, you know, I know technology, I had a blog, I do websites, but I know how to do a course.

Autumn (17m 15s):
So I've actually taken not one but two courses on how to build online courses. And if you want to know what those are, if you have any, you want suggestions, you know, just drop a line in the comments and I can let you know some good options that are out there for learning to build a course, but definitely it is a whole new ball game. So even if you think, you know what goes into it, there's some great ways of getting stepped around to learn how to build online courses and not get too lost in the weeds.

Jesper (17m 48s):
Yeah, I think that's fair, but maybe you could also add a bit, a bit about more the technical side of things. You know, what kind of things do you need to set up from a technical perspective in order to actually release a course and having people login through a portal where they've paid to get access to and then they can watch the what's each of the modules online and all that stuff. Maybe you can say a bit more.

Autumn (18m 12s):
Yes. So that's definitely part of it. I, there are two types of courses. So you can do sort of a live online one like through zoom. There's a lot of people right now on zoom doing live courses, or you can do these prerecorded courses. And most people end up doing, you know, a small combination of, of both doing a live one. I've run both. And I definitely prefer the less stress of having a prerecorded course. And to do that though. So you're going to need a website with a URL.

Autumn (18m 43s):
It's gotta be something different from your current blog or your current website, or at least it's gotta be a sub domain because course material needs a specific theme. It's all these videos. It's a lot of stuff. And you don't want that on a website, like say where you're selling your books or you're selling, you know, something else or just blogging because Oh, the one can slow down the other. And it's just a nightmare. You don't want to do that because these things need to be fast. And you're going to need a plugin of some sort that protects your data.

Autumn (19m 13s):
This is something you don't want to skimp on. You don't want people to be able to hack it. And you don't want people to access stuff that they haven't paid for. And you want it to be friendly so that when they haven't paid for it, it directs them, you know, to where you go and buy the course, instead of saying, Hey, bad, bad, bad you. So those are important things. And while you're doing that, so you're going to need you. Can't just host your videos on YouTube because as I'm sure you've noticed YouTube likes to insert other things like paid advertising. Could you imagine taking a course, you just paid like a couple hundred dollars for, and there's advertising for something on it.

Autumn (19m 49s):
Oh my goodness. It'd be so embarrassing to me. I was creating this course. So you're going to need something like Vimeo someplace that hosts your videos that you know, they're not going to stick on advertising a lot. If you're not hearing this, there's a lot of stuff I mentioned that said paid setting up a course is not cheap. You are investing hundreds of dollars, not only in equipment to do the recording, you're going to be doing, you know, you want a good microphone. You want a good sound quality, but you also want to pay for a good URL, good software, a good theme for the course, there are our websites.

Autumn (20m 26s):
Like I think, think, terrific. There's a few other ones that will host your course for you and take away some of this pain, but then they're getting some of your money as well and you have to fit their requirements. So there's a lot of pluses and minuses, but the very least, unlike writing a book where you need a way of writing and to pay an editor and a cover artist, you're going to be looking at some startup fees. So when you're thinking about going into this, you know, schedule a thousand $5,000, this is what it's going to take just before you even make any money.

Autumn (21m 0s):
This is going to be something you're going to have to put some money in the time and investment into.

Jesper (21m 5s):
Yeah, it's, it's an investment indeed. Right? It's something. But of course, once you've set it up, then you can keep adding more cost stuff onto the platform that you have and so forth. So it becomes easier over time. Right. But I think it's similar to when we were talking about editing in a past episode where we said that when you're first starting out quite a chronically, you need the developmental editor then. And that's the most expensive one. And then later on in your career, you don't maybe don't really need it. And then that's when you have the money for it, but you don't need it anymore.

Jesper (21m 37s):
So that's the irony of the whole thing.

Autumn (21m 39s):
It really is. This is a one of those ones where you're going to be hurting a little bit up front, but once you get it going and I will both fully admit, it's not like you're going to relaunch one chorus and make tons of money. A lot of it comes down to just for like writing books, marketing, and growing your audience. All those steps are going to apply to doing a course as well. And so the investment just like with your books, it might not come on the first course, it might come on the third, the 10th, or at least, you know, not this year, next year.

Autumn (22m 10s):
So those are some things you need to weigh as well as the time commitment. I mean, I think to me as a writer, that was my biggest gasp I was writing. I was, I released four books in one year and then I think I was writing another one and I decided to do this online course. I built the ultimate fantasy writers guide. It took months. And that was before you and I teamed up. I still, I tell you stories about time. I was hold up working on this thing by myself.

Autumn (22m 40s):
And this is why you find a partner. I highly advise finding a partner to do this.

Jesper (22m 46s):
No, but that's actually also one of the categories I had listed here is the effort. Because even even bigger, even when you told me before we started doing our joint courses and recording those, you told me in advance that this is a lot of work. And even though you set, so it still took me by surprise how much work goes into it. It's incredible. The amount of work you need to put in. So I'm not saying that to scare anybody off. I'm just saying it because I think, well, I cannot underline it enough that it requires more effort than you think you might think that I can put this cost together in two months.

Jesper (23m 22s):
Well, yeah. Most likely you can. It's not until you get into, well, you need to create all the, all the slides. For example, if you're doing a screen sharing thing, you create all the slides. You need to record the whole thing. You need to know what you want to say. So usually you need to put a script together upfront at at least to know what you're going to say on every single slide so that it's coherent and it makes sense. And then once you're with all the recording, then you have to start editing the whole thing, which takes probably, I would say twice to three times, as long as it takes to record it.

Jesper (23m 55s):
And then yeah, then you need to upload it. You need to put all the technical pieces together to put it in a, in a, in a nice order on so that the students who then log into the platform can actually click on module one, for example. And then this year old re relevant video stair and so on. So it's, it's just, it's a lot of work. That's more than you think

Autumn (24m 15s):
It really is. I, I think it's sort of like, you know, building a house or something. They say it's going to take one and a half to two times as long as you think, and probably be at least one and a half to two times as expenses of you as you think. So it is definitely. I know when I, like I said, when I hit it, I think my writing crashed. I just, if I touched something fun to write the entire time of making that course and getting ready to go, I would be shocked. I really definitely stalled.

Autumn (24m 45s):
Yeah.

Jesper (24m 46s):
For me or the last couple of months. Right? I mean, I've been recording our free self publishing course. So for the last couple of months and I have not done any writing it, that's the only thing I do while you're editing our nonfiction books. That's all the things I've been doing. Nothing else. It takes forever. And that's true. I mean, we like doing it, so it's not a complaint whatsoever. It's just, I'm just stating the truth here. So the people go into this with open eyes, you know, understanding that it's not something you can easily sort of do with your left hand over there while your hand right hand is writing something.

Jesper (25m 17s):
It's not like that.

Autumn (25m 18s):
No. I mean, if you're going to try to keep your, you know, if you're a fantasy author and you're trying to keep your books going while developing a chorus on something, have, I don't know, maybe we're gonna teach some people reading or something like that, but something about fantasy or whatever you want to teach, it could be something that we have speed reading, maybe not even related to books. You're gonna have to be really good at budgeting your time to be able to keep both projects going, because the course building can become overwhelming because there are so many little, it's a network of things you need to do and create and put together.

Autumn (25m 54s):
And if you're not technologically savvy, you're going to be learning. You know, you're either going to want to hire someone to do it, or you're going to be learning some stuff that might not come fast to you. And so it's a huge hurdle and there's going to be something that's going to stall you and you're going to have to stop and scratch your head and maybe get some help. And definitely take that as a, as a warning. I think, I mean, when I was first started, I had a full time job. I was writing, I was doing this was that as Mary and I was just like, you just wanted to throw everything up in the air and run away and say, what did I do?

Autumn (26m 26s):
But you know what, three, four years later, I'm like, this is awesome. We came up with our character building chorus. I mean, we did that in less than a month. We created a course, but that's because we had three years of experience doing this. So it was not like it came out of left field and it was a short course. So gosh. Yeah.

Jesper (26m 44s):
Yeah. So maybe while we're talking about courses or so, and all that stuff, maybe a good thing to just talk a bit about this as well. How do you figure out what you could be teaching about in your course? So, as I said before, you know, it's not like you don't have to have a PhD in the topic that you want to teach. I think it's much more a matter of trying to find things where your skills and life experiences serve your will and then maybe build a list of things that you could potentially teach.

Jesper (27m 17s):
But the underlying thing here, and that's coming out of everything, we just mentioned about how much work it is that you have to be passionate about the topic that you want to teach. If you don't have passion driving you you're, you're, you're probably not going to finish the course and making it available for students because you're going to die somewhere in the middle of the process there, because it's so much work, right. It has to be because you love it and you want to teach it. And that's why, what you're going for. Yeah.

Autumn (27m 48s):
Yeah. If you thought writing a book was hard, build a course. So that's a real, if you really want to challenge yourself, build a course, but again, it do it because sort of like with writing, not because you think you're going to be a New York times bestseller, but because it is something you are passionate about and you do want to share, and you really think you can help people a unique view on how to do something that you don't see being taught out there as a great reason to write a course, just it can like really Aspro saying is you don't have to be the world's best expert.

Autumn (28m 20s):
You have to have a way that's understandable that you can break it down and teach it to someone. And if you have people come up to you saying, you know, could you teach me how to do this? Or, you know, so, and so said that you taught them how to do this. And they really, you know, are understanding it really well. And could you share that with me? Look at those things. Those are wonderful gifts that not everyone has. And if you can share that with someone that is fantastic, you can change someone's life either a small way or a big way. That's

Jesper (28m 50s):
Wonderful. Yeah. And I would also say a bit of a business advice here is that once you have a topic in mind of what you would like to teach, try and go on search a bit on the internet to see if there's already something similar out there. And the logic sort of words works the other way around here than what you might think. Meaning that if you find some stuff out there, some other causes that are already teaching this similar topic, that's actually a good thing because it's a sign that there is a market for it.

Jesper (29m 22s):
If you're the only one in the world with a course on this particular puppet, a topic here, you can probably, well, maybe not, but that might be a chance that you are so unique that there is not really a goal, a good goldmine for you to open here. It's, it's more like a, a case of, there's not enough interest out there for this particular topic. So try to see does something exist already? And if it does then yeah, that's a good sign and you're good to go. Yeah.

Autumn (29m 51s):
And it actually gives you a wonderful opportunity. They say to look for what's called pain points. So to look for in blogs and comments reviews, look for where people are saying, I wish they'd covered this, or I have this problem. And I just wish someone would help me solve it. Those pain points, those are so valuable. Those are give you going to give you ideas, deeper ideas on you're already having selected this topic. You can start making a list of those saying, Oh, these are what people want answered.

Autumn (30m 23s):
And that will help you develop a course.

Jesper (30m 26s):
Yeah, that's true. And I think there's important point there as well in the sense that you need to be crystal clear in what the key learnings are for the students who takes the course, because in an online environment, like we're talking here selling courses online, you know, people are clicking around. That's S you know, we, you and I do that as well. You know, when you're searching for something, you click around on different websites. If it's not from the landing page that I arrive at, if it's not crystal clear within a couple of seconds that this one is speaking to me, it's telling me that I'm getting exactly what I want.

Jesper (31m 5s):
I'm gone as quickly as are right there. Right. Just clicking. This is not the one move on. And that's the way that the online environment works. Right? So you need to, you need to keep that in mind and what I would also say, and maybe we can tie this into another point that I wanted to make about audience, but I would say that in our experience, it's actually mostly the people who we get onto the email list in the earliest stages of the process that ends up buying the cost later on.

Jesper (31m 41s):
So for example, we do offer some free videos to people so that they can see our teaching style and they can get a feel for cost material and sort of understand the style of our teaching. And then if they think that it's helpful before we even ask them to buy something, like, for example, the ultimate fantasy writer's guide, which is our premium course for writers. So, and I'm saying that because like with writing or building an author career online courses are not a get rich, quick scheme at all.

Jesper (32m 20s):
You know, it takes work and it takes time to build an audience in whatever niche that you have chosen to do some teaching in. And that alone is an incredibly amount of effort. And I can see as well. I mean, we've had quite some sex success with running ads and basically getting loads of people onto our email list. That way, you know, when we opened the ultimate fantasy writers guide, we only do that twice per year.

Jesper (32m 51s):
And then we have run some Facebook ads leading up to those opening times and directing people onto our email list where we then give them some of those free videos that I mentioned there too, to get so that they can get a feel for our teaching style and, and, and the quality of the course. But what we do see is that most of the time they won't buy the course. At that point, they will actually just stay on the list and then they might stay there for a year, sometimes, maybe a year and a half, and then they will buy the course, like two cycles later when they've gotten a lot of emails from us in the meantime, over the year, maybe we've given them lots of valuable stuff on the email list.

Jesper (33m 34s):
Like we always do. And that's totally cool. You know, there's nothing wrong with people signing up to the list and then they decide not to want to buy it. That's absolutely fine. But I'm more saying it from the perspective of the course creator that you need to have in mind that while you can advertise your course and you should, it does not mean that people will buy it straight away. Anyway, it might take time.

Autumn (33m 56s):
Absolutely. It can take, I think that this is one of those things where having that in mind, like you cannot get frustrated and then go delete your entire email list or something. It's a, you know, as long as people are opening emails and you're providing them interesting and informative material, that's what you need. It's going to take time to get them around, to trust with courses, especially with this is not a two 99 or a four 99 novel. This is something that's going to cost you no money, be it $20 or $2,000.

Autumn (34m 28s):
It's going to cost someone money. And the higher it is, the more they're going to have to trust you that you're really going to deliver on what you're asking, you know, what it's going to cost them. And so you gotta, you know, what, whatever you're selling has got to be worth the amount of money to this person to put it in, and that trust not come. You know, maybe you've got something fantastic and they'll willing to open up their wallet the first week, but most likely, especially in today's current pandemic, recessive world, you're going to have to ask people to really trust you.

Autumn (35m 4s):
And you're gonna got to deliver some really good information so that they will be happy with what they're getting. And that's probably gonna take a lot of getting to know you time. So expect to be putting yourself and your information out there in such a way that you can be building that trust and letting people know whatever it is that you're good at and what you can teach them. You really can deliver on that.

Jesper (35m 29s):
Yeah. And you touched a bit on pricing there, so maybe that's where we could go next. So to talk a bit about how do you know what, how to price your cost basically. And I think that, again, we talked about market research a moment ago, right? Check out. What if there's other people teaching the same thing out there, and that will give you an idea about what do people normally charge for a similar kind of course, but again, probably the opposite of what you might think here, put yourself at the top of that price range, because, and I don't know why does this, maybe you do, and maybe you can elaborate a bit more often, but for some weird reason, the people who buy products that are cheap are also the ones who complains the most.

Jesper (36m 22s):
And I don't know why that is, but it is just so that if they get a very cheap cost, that then they'll start complaining about the one thing that they don't like instead of the 99 things that was great. And they, they learned it's just the premium premium students who are willing to pay the premium price for courses are also the ones who are much more serious about it. And as well, and that is probably the most important aspect of this whole thing about pricing is that because they pay more for it, there is also a very much higher likelihood that they will actually go through all your cost material and they will do the learning and only then will then they start, they will start talking to other people about this cost that they took.

Jesper (37m 6s):
Whereas the ones who buy a course for $29, for example, they will probably not take it. Maybe they will skim through one module and start complaining about something in that one module without having seen the whole thing or whatever. I don't know, but pricing matters not only in determining how much you're going to earn, but also what type of audience you are building.

Autumn (37m 28s):
Absolutely. I mean, goodness knows I have a couple of graphic design courses and even I think a marketing course and something else, and I pick them all up for probably less than $20. I always pick them up on when they're on sale and stuff. And you know, I don't think I finished, I finished one of them, I think, but those courses, I paid 500, 601 case over a thousand dollars for, I finished those. I did the homework so,

Jesper (37m 55s):
Well, at least you're not the ones who complain.

Autumn (37m 57s):
No, I was never the one who was complaining. I'm just one of the ones that just kind of never get around to finishing it. It's sort of like this whole symptom we talk about with free books. If you're giving away a free book, you probably it's just going to be sitting on someone's e-reader and they never get around to it. So you have to watch out for that. So, you know, check out the competition, see what they're doing with their pricing. And you're going to see a range you're going to see, especially like the master classes that are out now. I think it's Neil Gaiman teaches writing for $99 as well for the amount of time and effort and work you're going to put in this.

Autumn (38m 32s):
You're probably going to charge more than nine, $9 and you might, Oh, I can not compete with, I know Jane Patterson has one. I can not compete with that as an author, you're going to be teaching something different and you're probably are going to put, you're putting a different price tag on it, and that's fine because you want to be on the higher end, but you're because you're not Neil Gaiman or James Patterson, you're going to have to build up that trust with your audience. And once you do, they will be there. It won't matter what, what the price point. Well, no matter a little bit, you don't want to be on the like three times the highest other one you want to be within the upper end of the range you find.

Jesper (39m 9s):
Yeah. And I, and of course, I mean, all of this goes without saying that we, of course assuming that the course you're building is of high quality, not only in the stuff that you're teaching, but of course also in the way that your entire course, all the modules are structured in a logical fashion, sort of people can follow through and they understand what you're teaching. I mean, we assuming all of that, but maybe I have to say that out loud as well, that it's not a matter of putting some

Autumn (39m 36s):
Half-assed and then charged $500 for it. You know, that's not gonna work, that's not gonna work. And again, if you have, if you haven't taken a lot of online courses and again, they're expensive. So it's kind of hard. They take a lot of time, but if you haven't taken a lot than taking at least one course on how to build these courses, there's a whole methodology, there's a psychology to it. And there's a technical aspect of how to do it. So it's organized. And so that students will be learning from it. And that they'll be most likely to get to the end because of course, that's the goal.

Autumn (40m 6s):
You will, you're doing this, not you, hopefully, you know, yes, that's a revenue stream, but hopefully because you want people to actually finish it and go on and do something great with it. So you want to make sure you know, how to actually teach. And if you're not a teacher by nature and you don't know how to organize, to teach to students, definitely look into how to do that before you try to put something together because it's not throwing paint at the wall and seeing what sticks, it doesn't work that way.

Jesper (40m 35s):
No. And I as well, when it comes to marketing your course and building that audience, I think one of the things that we have actually found very helpful is to use affiliate marketers. Isn't it?

Autumn (40m 45s):
Yes, they are wonderful. When you can get a peer to buy into what you're doing and selling and to put their name on and say, yes, this is good. And send it out to their audience. Ah, it's an exponential increase in your reach and your trust people, you know, they're saying they have an audience that who trusts them. And they're saying that you're good guy. Oh, that's wonderful.

Jesper (41m 11s):
Yeah. I mean, I've heard some of the experts say that affiliate sales should only be considered like the icing on the cake and it should not be the main driver. And I mean, it's not the main driver for us. And of course I can only speak for our experience. Maybe, maybe we're the odd bunch in the flock. I don't know. But at least for us affiliate sales are making quite a number of, of the sales and not, not the majority, but it does make a difference. It does. It's not, it's, it's more than just icing on the cake for sure.

Jesper (41m 42s):
But of course, I guess it also depends on which affiliate marketers that you're getting. And also of course, how big an audience do those people have and how well do their audience trust them? When they're saying this is a good thing you should consider buying this stuff, you know, do they trust that person enough to say, okay, I'll give it a try. Because again, as we talked about, these are premium courses, so then they're not cheap. I mean, we're talking probably like four or five, $600 for access to a cost, right?

Jesper (42m 12s):
So it's usually not something you buy off of somebody, you have no clue who they are. Right. It takes time. You, you, you built the audience. And then at some point, as I said before, with our email list, right? I mean, they've been on our emails list maybe for a year. And then they feel like, okay, you know, we've been giving enough good quality content here that we feel comfortable that, that we can buy the course. And, but of course, I mean, as we also do with our courses, we do give a 30, 30 day money back guarantee. No questions asked to anybody.

Jesper (42m 43s):
So if they do sign up for the course and they don't like it, just let us know and we will refund the money and no questions asked. That's absolutely fine. Yeah.

Autumn (42m 51s):
So then I mean that money back guarantee is a huge way of building trust with people. When you're asking them to put out that much money is to know, you know, this is something that I can try out and enough, I realize it's not going to fit. That's fine. And yeah, it's something that you do.

Jesper (43m 8s):
Yeah, indeed. So I don't know, what's there more topic areas or should we sort of get into, well, actually we, at the point of this module on, well now I'm in complete a cost methodology here. I'm talking about modules instead of podcasts throughout this podcast episode. That was what I was trying to say. We mentioned our premium costs, the ultimate fences writer's guide a couple of times.

Jesper (43m 40s):
And actually it just happened. So as well that we will soon here on the 31st of August, open the doors for another batch of students for the first time in six months. Yeah.

Autumn (43m 51s):
Hey, I always love this time of year.

Jesper (43m 54s):
Yeah. So indeed we only opening a twice a year as we've explained. Right. So we wanted to mention it here since it is very much on topic of what we've been talking about throughout this. I was just about to say module there again. I meant episode,

Autumn (44m 10s):
We've both been doing slides on courses. So no wonder we have module and sessions and lessons in our heads, but yes, it is wonderful that the guide will be coming out again. So this is our premium course that steps you through from idea development, to how to write a novel character's, world-building how to grow an audience, how to edit format, the book and how to design an author platform. Or we tried to make this a OneStop if you're going to do a course on how to write in the market books, this is the course.

Autumn (44m 46s):
And that's what we did.

Jesper (44m 47s):
And we have students who have said, yes, this really does work. Yep, indeed. And we have included a link in the show notes. So from there you can sign up if you're interested. And as we just said, there was a 30 month, but I'm trying again, 30 day money back guarantee. No questions asked. That was what I wanted to say. I guess I'm getting tired now,

Autumn (45m 10s):
Which is it's late for you. So that's only fair, but I was laughing cause I was the one who couldn't speak before we started recording.

Jesper (45m 16s):
Yeah. But I actually have a testimonial signed sound, clip queued up. And that also prevents me so that I don't have to talk anymore. So I put the, I think I'll just going to play that for us as a lead out here.

Autumn (45m 42s):
Hi everyone. I'm Katherine. I'm currently working my way through the ultimate fantasy writers guide and I've been finding it very helpful. One of my main problems has been plotting. I had a very hard time getting my plot to go through and have continuity after going through the workshops for the plotting section I have now got a full plot and have begun writing. It has been very helpful for me and I'm sure you will find it very helpful too. Thank you.

Jesper (46m 14s):
Hi, I'm Jan, do you read fantasy author? And I just watched autumn bread's a launch day module. It was a really informative, had a lot of great information. She had ideas I hadn't ever thought of before. Really excited to implement her ideas and launching my own book. Thank you, autumn.

Autumn (46m 39s):
I highly recommend the ultimate fantasy writers guide because it's one of the best programs I've ever seen. It not only covers pretty much everything about writing from start to finish, including fan bases and staying confident and everything. It also has things like languages and naming your characters based on that. And it has Matt making it. It's just so excellent.

Jesper (47m 7s):
So that was a few words from former students. And again, there was a link in the show notes, if you are interested so you can go and check it out and all the details will be listed on the page that you arrive at, where you can see everything you want to know X,

Autumn (47m 25s):
And we hope to see you there. And if you happen to be listening to this after course has gone and launched, we do do this every six months. So there are ways just you send us a comment. There are ways of getting on our email lists, like the starter kit that you can watch and get to know us and get on our mailing list. And that way you won't miss the next time we launched the course. Okay. So next Monday we will be back on track and talk about what we intended to talk about today as well.

Narrator (48m 1s):
If you like what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support the am writing fantasy podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join Ottoman Yesper on patrion.com/and writing fantasy for as little as a dollar a month. You'll get awesome rewards and keep the M writing fantasy podcast going, stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 84 – People's Attitude Toward the Fantasy Genre

Have you ever had someone ask you what you did and lose all interest when you say you write fantasy? What is with that? A strange prejudice lingers around fantasy writing and writers.

In this episode, Autumn and Jesper discuss why there is a perception fantasy writers aren't "real" writers, some facts and stats on fantasy stories and writers, why the perception might be changing, and what to do if you encounter it!

As we mention in the show, TODAY is release day for our three new books on developing story ideas, and plotting. Pick them up at:

Plot Development: A Method for Outlining Fiction - https://books2read.com/Plot-Development 

Plot Development Step by Step: Exercises for Planning Your Book - https://books2read.com/PlottingWorkbook

Story Idea: A Method to Develop a Book Idea - https://books2read.com/StoryIdeas

Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday.

SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST! Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review.

Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy. For as little as a dollar a month, you’ll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going.

 

Read the full transcript below. (Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion).

 

Narrator (2s):
You're listening to the am. Writing fantasy podcast in today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need an literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing. Join two best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them now onto the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt, and Jesper Schmidt.

Jesper (30s):
Hello, I am Jesper

Autumn (31s):
and I'm Autumn.

Jesper (34s):
This is episode 84 of the am writing fantasy podcast. And today's episode was actually inspired by something that you came across on the internet. Autumn. It was, this was another debate that I hear a lot. And actually just, just last week, ended up with this kind of impression from somebody. And it's like, Oh, you're a writer. What are your right? Oh, you write fantasy.

Autumn (1m 1s):
It is, you know, that condescending tone. And, and I've been dealing with it my whole life, because I've always, since I was like three, I wanted to be an artist. Since I found out that there was such a thing as people who draw for a living, that's what I wanted to do. And in, I don't know about the rest of the world, but there's a term in the U S that people, especially in the eighties, just to go like, Oh, artsy, fartsy, like it's less, it's a less of a career. Like somehow Leonardo DaVinci was a hack.

Autumn (1m 34s):
I told him no Rembrandt shouldn't have been born. I don't know it's and I've had it my whole life. And it's gotten under my skin. I will admit it. This is one of my pet peeves. And so I'm so excited about this episode, because if someone has ever said this to you and whether, you know, Oh, you're a fantasy writer. And then of course my favorite comeback, I have relatives and friends who have said, well, if you want to write a really good story, I've got a great one for you. If anyone has ever said that to you, dear listener, this episode has the answers for you.

Jesper (2m 11s):
Yeah. And I actually wrote down what the, you know, you sent me a screenshot of what this stuff do from Randy's actually wrote it down just to remember it. So I can just quote it here, what it was. So it was this college professor who had sat at a writing class quote, welcome to creative writing. And by the way, you will not write fantasy ghost stories, paranormal or science fiction in this class as this is a creative writing class and quote.

Autumn (2m 41s):
So I don't know what in the world this professor has to do, but in today's episode, we'll explore why some looked down upon defense is stronger. And maybe we can talk a bit about why instead you should be proud about writing. In fact, in the fantasy show. Absolutely. I cannot wait, but before we get there, it's been a week. So how have you been? And I do want to give everyone a quick warning. We are finally getting rain in Vermont. It is wonderful. And of course it's coming in the form of thunderstorms. So any extra auditory effects are not intended, but just enjoy the ambience please.

Jesper (3m 19s):
Yeah. Well, at least right now, I can't hear anything of that sort. Let's see. Okay. Maybe we'll get a loud thunder. All of them

Autumn (3m 28s):
We'll switch to a horror genre or a thriller or something. But anyway,

Jesper (3m 32s):
Yeah. So that's a certain mood.

Autumn (3m 35s):
It does. So how are things in Denmark?

Jesper (3m 38s):
No, it's good. It's good. Actually, my wife is not even here. She's in Finland these days because she had to, she had to go and deal with some builders who are currently renovating an apartment that we own up there. So she, she left a couple of days ago and she's gonna come back on Wednesday, but it's, it's really not healthy when she's not around in this house. You know, the boys that I we've already had pizza, ice cream cookies, popcorn and candy.

Jesper (4m 11s):
You should think that she's been away for a week, but it's just like three days.

Autumn (4m 16s):
What kind of example are you setting? This is horrible, but it's so funny. It's so typical. Come on.

Jesper (4m 23s):
Yeah. I don't know where it is. It's like they miss their mom. Right. And then it's like, okay, what can we do to make the time feel a bit better? And they will. They will. Because normally as well, when I do my grocery shopping, normally they of course home with my wife. I usually do the grocery shopping in our family. But because she was traveling, I had to bring them, you know, the, Oh, they're not young kids as such, but they're not old enough to stay home by themselves. The oldest can, but he's not, he's not old enough to take care of he's younger.

Jesper (4m 54s):
So I had to bring at least a younger, younger boy to the grocery shop, but then they both came. And then when we were there, of course they are looking at, into all the different things. And they were like, Hey, there's a vegan pizza here. We've never really, I've never noticed that there was one in the shop. And I was like, really? And they were like, yeah, yeah, we want to taste this stuff. And then, okay, well then we bought that. And then we, all of a sudden we had pizza, but then we also have to have some yeah. To search. So we've got ice cream and before you know, it, we come home with all kinds of unhealthy stuff.

Jesper (5m 26s):
So I think it's good that she's returning the day after tomorrow because this is not going to sustain.

Autumn (5m 34s):
It sounded, I always wanted to do like a college level study that if the reason women live longer than, than men is partially because what meant eat before they end up getting married, that span when they're in college and on their own. And they're drinking beer for breakfast and stale pizza for lunch. That is my theory of why, you know, most men have a shorter life span. So you're not this idea.

Jesper (5m 60s):
No, I'm not doing a very good job on behalf of all men in the world. I'm also teaching the kids how to do when the wife is not there. That's okay.

Autumn (6m 9s):
Either. Probably not. But you know, it's going to be fantastic memories. And you know, maybe you'll have some day when maybe they have kids you'll with regeneration, PE male only pizza party or something. And I think it's,

Jesper (6m 25s):
At least they are saying in the evenings like, Oh, this has been a really nice day. So at least that's good because especially, especially the older one, he tends to miss his mom a lot. So at least it's good that he, you know, some of the candy keeps his mind preoccupied elsewhere.

Autumn (6m 43s):
Yes. It's working like a charm

Jesper (6m 48s):
Dude. But how about you?

Autumn (6m 50s):
Oh, it's been a good busy week. I had some it's so funny. Cause we're going to be time traveling so much today. I've been doing some formatting for the books that we're releasing today. And that made no sense. No, isn't it. It's so strange. But we're recording this almost. We're almost at the car on the cusp of July. So we're almost a month ahead because summer vacations, these things happen. And so yes, it was a good achievement week of getting a whole bunch of long prep.

Autumn (7m 23s):
All those, all these months, we have said, Hey, we're writing this book, we're putting this together. We're going to release this. We actually have them. I mean, they're on preorder. The formats are done where they're out to the typo Slayer team. We're getting feedback. It's so close. And it's just a weird juxtaposition that we're so close. We're almost releasing it. And in all honesty with your listening on this, the day it's released, no books are out there available. This is so exciting. So I, it is, yeah.

Jesper (7m 56s):
Is the wonders of a prerecording, a lot of episodes because we want to have some time off during vacation. But, but yeah, if you go to Amazon or any online store where you normally buy your books, then you should be able to find them the, both the plotting book, the workbook associated to the plotting book and the how to do get story ideas and how to build a story premises. So if you just searched for either my name or Autumn's name on those stores, you should pretty much be able to find them quite easily.

Jesper (8m 29s):
I guess the one thing that we don't know yet is some of the online stores are really weird when it comes to the fact that you are mentioning, for example, Amazon in the back of the book or something. If you write that anywhere, then some stores are really weird about it. For example, Apple is don't like that. So, well, because we're prerecording here. I can't say for sure if some of the stores will end up rejecting the book, but I have, I have a principle that I do not change the content of a book just because Apple don't like it.

Jesper (9m 3s):
So if they don't like it, it will not be on Apple. You'll have to go somewhere else to find it. But for sure, Amazon it'll be on Amazon for sure. Kobo, it'll be there as well. Google books, it will be there. And then for the rest, I guess we'll have to wait and see how many of them, except the book files at least two or three places.

Autumn (9m 24s):
Yes. At the very least, if you don't see it in a store, go to am writing fantasy and look for it in the workbooks there because we will be selling it off of our website and you can get it in whatever format you need. So if it's not on iTunes because Apple books as being a bugger, just come and get it from us and we will make sure you have it for whatever reader you choose.

Narrator (9m 47s):
Oh, a week on the internet with the am writing fantasy podcast.

Jesper (9m 52s):
So actually thought it was just worth mentioning how the am writing fences. Facebook group just keeps getting better and better

Autumn (9m 60s):
Rowing and froing. It's been, it's like every time I turn around, there's another six people knocking at the door. Yeah. But I mean, this, this past week I had like in the morning I let in eight people and then in the afternoon it was like,

Jesper (10m 12s):
What? Now there's a list of six more. I mean, it's crazy. But there was actually at some point in the past where we were speculating to move the group away from Facebook and try something else because the engagement was just very limited at that point in time. But Oh my God, I'm glad we didn't do that.

Autumn (10m 30s):
No, it's been fantastic. And that's with them, you know, there's a lot of advertisers currently. Okay. We could look at word more recording this. So who knows what August will be, but there's been a lot of advertisers and things pulling from Facebook because of the politics and advertising policies. And it doesn't matter. The group is just outstanding.

Jesper (10m 50s):
Yeah. And I have to say as well that I really like, and because this doesn't happen in all groups, but I think at this group, people are actually very good at following the rules of not self promoting stuff over the past week. I think I had to delete two posts where people were self promoting, but it does not have happened very often compared to how much that actually gets posted in the group. So I think that's very good.

Autumn (11m 16s):
Yes. No, I agree. I mean, it's, you're on there more than I am and goodness, our moderator, Luke, a huge shoe shout out to him and you guys handle a lot of the heavy lifting, which I very much appreciate, but it is just, I mean, they're good. If something comes up, people are very good at not overreacting, not going crazy. They'll just, you know, the, let one of us know, say, you know, they'll, you can submit the post saying, Hey, I think there's something wrong with this. And it's been fine, but in general, everyone's so well behaved and so supportive and wonderful feedback.

Autumn (11m 51s):
And the, the of questions and topics is just amazing. I mean, it's everything from people getting advice to people, pushing bits of stories. It's really got it all.

Jesper (12m 5s):
Yeah. It's, it's in general, it's a very helpful group with a very positive tone. So if you're the listener have not joined us over there yet, then simply search for am writing fantasy in the group section of Facebook and you will find us and just apply to be let in

Autumn (12m 20s):
And we'll get to you as soon as we can.

Jesper (12m 23s):
It might take a bit, but sometimes it takes a couple of days, but we will.

Autumn (12m 27s):
Don't worry. Yeah. It's not usually that long, but, and I want to give a big shout out. I already mentioned once that the type of Slayer team has been helping us out with our edits and the last reviews for the books. And they have been getting back to us already. I think we just gave it to them. But three, four days ago, people are booking it through some of these books and have great suggestions. So big shout out to everyone who has joined us on the typo Slayer team you guys are doing awesome.

Jesper (12m 55s):
Yeah, absolutely. I think the ones that we got feedback for so far was the book idea book, which is a very short one. So that's probably why they are so fast, but I will bet you that it'll take awhile before we get feedback on the plodding book, because that's, that's a beast.

Autumn (13m 11s):
Yeah. We'll have to see if anyone actually goes through the workbook doing the work, then it might take them a while to,

Jesper (13m 23s):
So we started out with that quote from that crazy college professor before he must be slightly insane.

Autumn (13m 31s):
What does fantasy not? Or what does create, you know, not creative writing. This is just, it boggles my mind. How is this not creative? I think it's the most creative pursuit out there.

Jesper (13m 41s):
Yeah. But as well, I have to say he, he's not the only one who has like, I don't know, should we call it certain opinion about the fantasy?

Autumn (13m 51s):
I think people have a certain opinion about the physical fantasy genre. Yeah.

Jesper (13m 56s):
Because I feel like in, in writing fantasy, this is something that we are faced with. And also because of that, we have to sort of deal with that problem. If we can call it a problem or whatever,

Autumn (14m 8s):
At least a perception that it's just, it's pervasive in some ways that, Oh, you're a fantasy Rother. You're not legit. And I have to admit when you look at some of the awards, like for speculative fiction, the Hugo is one of the only awards that are out there. So, you know, there's all these other wonderful awards that other writers can get. But if you want to get to the top, top, top of the food chain and speculative fiction, that's basically the Hugo, you got one spot.

Jesper (14m 36s):
Yeah, indeed. It's like, usually at least I feel like if I tell people who maybe don't know me or only know me a little, you know, if they sort of ask her, so what do you do if I say that I'm, I'm an author, then they usually get very interested and they want to learn more. That's almost always the reaction I get, you know, people like to hear about what you're writing and what you're doing. And if you then tell them that you write fantasy, then the demeanor sort of changes a bit.

Jesper (15m 6s):
And all of a sudden you feel like now I have to justify myself for, I mean, it's almost like, Oh, okay. And I don't know why that is, but it just, it happens more often than, yeah.

Autumn (15m 18s):
I don't think, I don't think there's any fantasy author out there who probably has not experienced that where people are like, Oh wow, you're a writer. That is fantastic. Oh, you're right. Fantasy. I thought you were a real writer. I was like, wow. Really? So it's not real writing. That's I've heard that saying, but yes, I just, I am shocked. I'm really shocked that it's still in all of the movements and progressiveness that we haven't come to. The conclusion that fantasy is still real writing and I'm hoping we can blow that out of the water today.

Autumn (15m 54s):
At least we will try.

Jesper (15m 56s):
I don't know. I mean, there is, of course also the, the stigma around fantasy that it's something for nerds and geeks and stuff like that, you know, at least that has been, so when, at least when I was growing up, you know, it was a lot like that over the last 15, 20 years, it was a very much like a nerd and geek environment. Yeah. That's the whole fantasy stuff. I think it's starting slowly though, to become more mainstream. I mean, nowadays we have a stuff like game of Thrones and also the Lord of the rings movies that took to the screen some years back, you know, more like the general population they are becoming increasingly familiar with with, well, basically what the rest of us has known for ages.

Jesper (16m 42s):
And that is that fantasy is awesome. Yes,

Autumn (16m 44s):
Absolutely. I do think it came up with almost a whole generation of kids with thanks to Harry Potter books, that it was there. It opened up reading to them in a way that, I mean, reading was dwindling and Harry Potter came out and suddenly there's a surge of reading and it's all in fantasy. And those kids have grown up to their twenties now and they are, you know, some of them have kids and they're bringing them up with all of these stories and fantasy is doing really, really well.

Autumn (17m 15s):
So I think that is exciting. So I think the perception is changing in the younger generation. I think if I told someone in their twenties that, Hey, I'm a fantasy author and I have met, you know, you know, you've met, you know, social parties and I tend to hang out with the younger kids. I think I've mentally think I'm only in my twenties and maybe it's because I write fantasy and they find out I'm a fancy fantasy author and we have the best conversations and we get so excited. And then you talk to the parents and they're like, Oh, what are you talking about? Oh, you're an author. Oh, you write fantasy.

Autumn (17m 45s):
It's just like, you know, you hit the brick wall and very ashamed that that perception is still there. But I do think the younger, younger ish generation is going to get rid of that. And it's not going to be such a strange thing. They'll be excited about it.

Jesper (18m 4s):
Yeah. And maybe it was because in the younger generation or the, the ones who are younger now, at least compared to, I mean, young is relative, but at least compared to us, maybe the younger generation compared to us, they, as you say, grew up with Harry Potter, but to us, the generation we are in, I mean, when I grew up, it was mostly like it was spontaneous and drag and stuff. It was just too Orden. It was well, there was a few fantasy books, like while I read dragon lands back then as well, but there wasn't a lot of it.

Jesper (18m 38s):
No, really. I mean, it was different. And then over time then of course, well, we get those kind of mainstream trains that just pulled us through everything like, like a Harry Potter or a lot of the rings. And well, a lot of rings was back there as well. Of course, when I grew up obviously, but what was it I said before, like game of Thrones, I think game of Thrones is very oldest. Well, to be honest, I think he wrote it quite a long while back.

Jesper (19m 9s):
But, but again, I mean a lot of this stuff, if you look at it from a sort of mainstream perspective, it didn't really catch on until maybe within the last say five, six, seven years,

Autumn (19m 23s):
Maybe 10 years. Maybe I would agree at the outset of 10 years, I would agree that it's, that's where it's become culturally, especially the book part has become culturally accepted and popular where you can go up to somebody on the street and they probably heard of game of Thrones. So, you know, you can talk something fantasy where before it was like, maybe everyone, maybe half the kids in your high school, might've heard of dragon lands. And you know, a small percentage might have read some books of Shannara or the last unicorn or something like that.

Autumn (19m 54s):
But there were, so it was like a little club and it was much more intimate and quiet where now it is like, literally you go to Starbucks and you can talk to somebody about, Oh, did you know the new Lord? All the drinks series is coming out. You know, people are excited about it and you hear it as a type of conversation. And I do think that is interesting.

Jesper (20m 15s):
Yeah. I think so too big because basically, yeah, it would be a very small niece of people in your high school back when we grew up, that would actually read the paper.

Autumn (20m 26s):
It's like the nut club that you really want to read defenses, you books,

Jesper (20m 31s):
The rings back then it was like the nightclub reading that stuff.

Autumn (20m 34s):
Yes. But I do think, and I think part of that perception is, I mean, even as a kid, I used to call it brain candy. Cause you know, I was, you know, top of my class and all that other crap doing well in grades. And you know, they had high hopes for me that I became a fantasy author. They're so disappointed. I would call it brain candy. You know, this was, you know, something I read to relax my brain, but I think that's part of the misperception is that there's nothing important and there's nothing true or gritty or real and fantasy.

Autumn (21m 9s):
And I'm hoping maybe with games of Thrones. So with some of these bigger genres, I mean, they're looking at it as we're going to, I'm going to bring up some stuff today that looking at it from a moneymaking aspect, if people do not take this seriously for that reason alone they're fools. But I think there's a lot more to fantasy. I mean, it taught me a lot of perceptions and things about life and other people that I hadn't yet met and how to hold myself and be openminded because of the fantasy books I read because I was opened up to whole different worlds in different cultures and different ways of meeting people and stuff that you can't pack into this world.

Autumn (21m 47s):
You can't talk about the Israeli Palestinian conflict without bringing up some kind of grudges and history lessons. But you take that and you put it in a fantasy world and you can unpack it and you can question things and you come out of it changed in a way you can't do when we're stuck and entrenched in our own cultural values. And I don't think there's any other genre really, that can do that as well as fantasy. And for me, I feel bad now that I spent so much time jokingly calling it brain candy because, Oh my goodness, you can teach people.

Autumn (22m 18s):
You can open up their minds to so much stuff through fantasy that I don't think other cultures or John Rose can really enable you to do.

Jesper (22m 27s):
Yeah. I don't know if this is true, but I also feel like now that if we sort of go with the premise here that that fantasy has become a bit more mainstream nowadays, I feel like those who still looked down upon the fantasy genre isn't as much anymore, your average reader. I think instead nowadays it's very often those who are closely associated with writing programs and stuff like that. Do you think I'm right in that?

Jesper (22m 57s):
Or

Autumn (22m 58s):
I think in many ways you're right. Like the incident I had just last week was more like, Oh, well, you know, my friend who's in publishing this advice and I was just like, wow, you know what? I've been in publishing since 2012. So good luck to your friend who told you this statement. That is completely not true. I just put it, you didn't take me seriously. And it was either my gender or it was because it was a fantasy author. I'm not sure why, but I didn't unpack it because I really didn't.

Autumn (23m 29s):
That was my Instagram personality type of, I really don't give a crap. I'm busy, so I don't need his approval. But I do think that there are definitely some writers, but there are also so many conferences and there are a lot of things set up now targeting fantasy. But again, is it because that they truly support the genre or because they see this group that grew up on fantasy that are now in their twenties, in their thirties and they're making money and they love fantasy and they want to write it. So therefore they're going to go ahead and target an audience that is there and willing to pay money to do it.

Autumn (24m 3s):
I don't know. It's hard. You would have to. I think it's different every case.

Jesper (24m 9s):
Yeah. But I also think that, you know, those kind of closely at those people closely associated with weed riding probate, it could be the professor from before. Right. But I think a part of it is basically that they compare fantasy genre fiction with literary fiction would stay sort of feel like that's proper writing literary. Right. But, but I don't, I don't understand why we, the whole premise of trying to prove that fantasy have some sort of literary value why we even have to accept that entire premise there, you know, because when somebody frowns upon it and we go into this sort of defense situation, now I need to defend why I'm writing fantasy.

Jesper (24m 57s):
And I have to explain it. I have to convince them, you know, it's sort of a bit like we insisting on grading fantasy on that same scale. Right. And I don't know, my question is more like, why do we even have to grade it at all? Why do we even have to try to defend the fact that we write fantasy? Why can't we just write fantasy? Because

Autumn (25m 19s):
We write fantasy. Exactly. I do agree. I don't know why they have, it's a pedestal, you know, there's certain types and certainly certain genres that are considered the true writing. You know, this is the Jane Austin of writing and the Charles Dickens of writing. But I think in the second part of the quote, you know, that, that was from that post I had found, it was just like, you know, these were people who were writing like Charles Dickens was paid per word. These were not high end writers at the time.

Autumn (25m 53s):
They just have come to us through the classics that now we consider it. But even to Shakespeare was, you know, people, some people hate it and they're throwing tomatoes at him. He was not revered in his time. And now, you know, even token, I think got a lot of flack when he first came out. But now it's just like, Oh my goodness, token, you know, I've met somebody who met him and you're like, Oh, you've touched a toll kid. It gives you chills. You're like, Oh my God, that's so cool. Your real life when he was 11, that was, would have been so awesome. So total fan girl, that is why, again, I agree with you.

Autumn (26m 28s):
We don't have to compare ourselves to these other genres. These are our own pillars and this is an amazing Gianna. And we create amazing works that they don't know. They're not the same as other things as, as you know, Shakespeare's plays, which I happen to love. And he has some very fantasy ish plays. I did get to see a Midsummer's night dream, which is definitely on the fantasy scale as well as the Tempus. So yeah, those are fantastic plays and this has fantastic writing, but it doesn't have to be, you know, no one else has to write like that anymore.

Autumn (27m 3s):
It's fine. You can write, you can write piers, Anthony. It's good. Yeah. True. And I actually, I have, I have a question for you and I don't even know what my answer is. Oh. So you're going to throw it on me. So I'm just going to throw it at you and see what you say, because I don't know yet. Oh, alright. I'm ready. Let's go. Okay. Okay. But do you think that fantasy Isha showing right that you either love it or you hate it?

Autumn (27m 34s):
Yes.

3 (27m 37s):
Okay. Thank you.

Autumn (27m 41s):
Doesn't yes or no? No. I would say yes. And the first thing that popped to mind is my mom who has read my first, my debut novel. And she said, it wasn't bad for fantasy. So listen, Beth, she loves me anyway. But, and I definitely, I mean, even in my own family, I have struggled with the perception that I am doing well, and this is what I'm doing because I like it. I like I've mentioned, I've had cousins or aunts who have said, Oh, well, if you want a real story, if you want to write a real story, I've got the best idea.

Autumn (28m 13s):
And you know, I would be a little bit catty going, Oh, you should write it. Good luck. You know, there's a lot more to writing than just saying, I have a good idea because believe me, if everyone who had a good idea was writing, wow. I mean, there are a lot of books, but there'll be a lot more books. But I do think that fantasy is definitely, there's very little gray. It's you either love it. And you tend to love it passionately. Even if it's just a subsection, like you've loved vampires or you love zombies or you love just something about it.

Autumn (28m 43s):
It really gets it. It's like in your blood. And if it's not there, it's just kinda like whole-home lackluster. I mean, I, I like scifi, but I don't love scifi. If there's no fantasy element, there's no magic. And you know, star Wars is good, but I like it because it's a forest. So, you know, there's something else there I cowboy, you know, count, you know, there's a few genres that are okay. But I think when it comes to books, it's sorta like art. You either get it or you don't get it.

Autumn (29m 14s):
And I do think there's a large perception who just don't get fantasy, but there's a large group that is now just ground swelling that does get fantasy and does love it. And they want something magical in this world. So they're looking for this and it's giving them something else because it's either this or post-apocalyptic dystopian tales. Do you want to read? Yeah. I quite like science fiction as well.

Jesper (29m 42s):
I prefer fantasy over science fiction, but I do quite like science fiction because I also think that like fantasy science fiction offers a lot of escapism. You know, it's just those kinds of when, when you're in a different world in a completely different setting, that that's the sort of things that I, that I really like and science fiction can do that as well. But most of the times certain fictions don't have dragons.

Autumn (30m 5s):
That's a download. I know it's a total shame and I've even written a few short shines fiction-y tails. But I just, I don't know. I come back to the magic and the characters and the world. And I just there's something there that I adore though. It is funny. Cause you how you mentioned escapism. I mean, some of the most poignant readers who have gotten back to me in the stories I remember from readers are the ones who said, you know, I've been recovering from this or I've been in the hospital and I found your book. And I just, there was one woman who has read everything except like one of the most recent stories.

Autumn (30m 39s):
And she was apologizing for like, not giving a review, but she had just gotten diagnosed with breast cancer. I mean, I just sent her a free book. I'm just like, here you go. Really? It's not just, she's like, I'm going through chemo. It's been really rough. I mean, these are the stories that just stay with me. And it is people who are literally stuck in bad situations. Their body's failing them. They're in pain and they want to book. They want to go to a different world. And that's one reason, not all fantasy is happy, you know, happy escapism. There's definitely ones where, I mean, I look at game of Thrones and so many people die.

Autumn (31m 12s):
I feel like I could read it. I could finish reading it now because I know which characters I could follow, but I can't finish reading it. Yeah. Yeah. Because George RR Martin isn't done. But as soon as he finishes, I'll consider it again. Instead of finishing it, I can read it in five years time or something like that when I'm, when I have more time on my hands, but

Jesper (31m 31s):
I am. And when he was done reading it, writing it again in five years from now,

Autumn (31m 35s):
It might be. But yeah, I mean, I think that's why I'm drawn to Nobel bright, which has a new, it's a new term for the fantasy where the heroes, you know, somehow get through, despite all the odds. And I definitely, that's why I like it is because it is an escapism where good things happen rather than grim dark, where just bad shit happens after, after bad crap. And so it's a tough one to get through. I've read a couple of grim darks and they were fantastic writing, but I know I was walking with the character through the swamp and I'm just like, if this was me in my life, I would just lay here and die because I could not go.

Autumn (32m 13s):
It was too tough. So that's the light type of fantasy.

Jesper (32m 18s):
But now, now did you set out all of that? I had a bit of time to think about my answers because, well, actually I started thinking that maybe it is every Shong row is either you hate it or you love it because you know, growing up, my, my mother always told me when I was child, that you need to something, at least once before you turn it down, because otherwise you don't understand what you're turning down. Very true. And, and then I was thinking, could I apply the same thing to reading?

Jesper (32m 50s):
Meaning for example, I have a notion thinking that I don't like romance books. I don't want to read romance, but I've actually never read a romance novel. So you don't know. So I guess the premise could then be, well then I don't know if I don't like it, then I should try to at least read one novel to check it out. And I could then say the same thing to those who say that they don't like fantasy. Then I could say, well, at least read one novel before you judge it.

Autumn (33m 20s):
But that's a really good one. That's true.

Jesper (33m 22s):
Yeah. But that, yeah, because then I'm thinking, okay, if I'm supposed to read one to judge, whether I like to show him around at how do I know that the one that I read is actually strongly representative enough? And how do I know if it's good? I mean, if you go by the bestseller list, I read the way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson, which you must say is a huge, huge bestseller. And Brenda Sanderson is probably one of the biggest fantasy authors. One of them, at least that we have right now, but I did not like way of Kings.

Jesper (33m 53s):
Wow. I really was not my taste. And I love reading fantasy. So if I gave that to somebody else, somebody else will love. I mean, a lot of people, a lot of people love those books. So that is perfectly fair. My point is more to say, how can you know that if I, for example, picked up a romance book right now and said, okay, I'll give it a try. How can I know that the one that I picked up is just because I didn't quite like that particular one, but maybe I would have liked another one. But then again, when I say all of that, I also feel like, but I don't really, really feel like even yeah.

Autumn (34m 29s):
You know, it's true. So

Jesper (34m 31s):
That's why I'm thinking, is it just every show on where, so that either you love it or you hate it, but you don't really feel like trying the other ones, even though you don't really know for sure whether you like it or not

Autumn (34m 42s):
Follow my logic. I do. And I totally get it because I mean, I, yeah, like I said, there's a lot of genres that are kind of I've maybe I've read them, but you know, they didn't stick. I mean, I read some Nancy drew my best friend growing up, just love Nancy drew. So I tried a couple and that mystery is just not for me. I mean, I really like, I guess a Christie and as I joked, I, I wanna, I want an Agatha Christie book, a hardback, so I can use it as a knife holder in my kitchen. I just think that'd be so much fun, but I even Stephen King, I like some of his books, but his favorite ones are his fantasy ones.

Autumn (35m 18s):
His horror ones don't do much for me. And I think that's fair. And there's a lot of fantasy. I love Lord of the rings, but I skimmed through the battle scenes because I just went on forever. They were not fast enough for it. Right. So everyone, as the more you read them, the more discernment you're going to have, like icing. If I went back and read DRA dragon LANSA I think I would have a totally different perception now as an adult reading it, then when I was, you know, I read the,

Jesper (35m 45s):
I read the first book in the drag land series, a what is it like four or five months ago with my sons, because I wanted to read it to them. So I actually read it out loud to them. And I was a bit concerned about what it would feel like to read it as an adult, because I have so far memories of that series because I read it when I was like 12, maybe. So I was really concerned that now I'm going to ruin it for myself. And all my fond memories are going to get destroyed. That it's not that good anyway, but it was actually okay, good.

Jesper (36m 17s):
But it is not written quite like you write novels today. So, but it was also written in, in a different time.

Autumn (36m 28s):
I look, I look at that like the Shannara book. So when they turned that into a series, I was ripping my hair out because of, they didn't update some of the tropes and this is just not what people put up with anymore. So I much prefer modern fantasy because it is just varied and has depth. And the character building is so much more in the plotting is so much more, I don't want to go backwards, but I agree. Yeah. It's, it's changed. So I'm glad to know that though it held up.

Autumn (36m 58s):
Cause I did recently, my first fantasy book was on Pern Anne McCaffrey. And I recently re-read the first dragon flight and I cannot finish a review on good reads because I just, I have such fond memories of the book and the stories. And I read the book and I'm like, I'm glad I don't have a daughter. Cause I would not let her read this because of a man treated her the way that is okay. In this book, I would be like, you're going to jail. So it was so sexist.

Autumn (37m 30s):
It was horrible, but it was written in what the seventies. So I understand it from that. But looking back, I'm like, wow, this shaped my formative years. Seriously. That's horrible. I prefer stick to modern day fantasy. It's much better, much, much better.

Jesper (37m 47s):
Yeah. I guess we could say that. But at the same time, I also feel like, I feel like there there's a logic to this fact that we just love some stuff and we hate other stuff. And we're not really that willing to cross that bridge and try something else. But I can see the logic in that argument, but at the same time saddens me slightly because it's like, so none of us, and I'm looking at myself here because I'm not taking my own medicine that, you know, none of us is willing to try some other stuff out that we just keep reading the same moment.

Jesper (38m 19s):
But this is also why we keep talking about, and there's going to be a lot about this by the way in the self publishing course, once we release that later this year, but this is also why when you're creating your covers and all that stuff that you go with, the stuff that people expect, you don't try to be fancy. You don't to show them something new that they've never seen before on the cover or whatever. You just give them what they want because that's what they want to buy. But, and I understand all of that. I understand the marketing mechanisms of it. I understand why we have to do it. But at some level in my creative heart somewhere, it, it hurts me a bit as well as it's like, it's a shame.

Autumn (38m 56s):
It is a shame. But I do think with the TV shows and things like that, that are out there, more people are going to be introduced to fantasy. Even if it's through a show and they're going to maybe go on to find authors and try it out. So they're going to be exposed to it. Where before, before we got the CGI effects and some of the amazing things they can do with film these days that, you know, they were never even exposed to it. I remember, I don't know what it was like in Denmark, but for dragon lands in the United States, if you were in the Bible belt, which is where I grew up, it was a ton of, I mean, I had to hide these books from my parents.

Autumn (39m 35s):
I like got them from a friend of a friend just in the library. Oh, you're so lucky. No. If, if I hadn't had a friend who moved in from out of town who gave him to us, I would not have been able to touch them. You thought my fingers were going to ignite. They were very bad. And then you read them and you're like, seriously, you think this is bad. You should have you ever read Lolita? I mean, this is bad. So this, this was shocking, but yeah, this is a horrible perception. So back then, you know, it was a very strict mindset.

Autumn (40m 7s):
And nowadays, you know, my parents have heard of game of Thrones at least. So they're much more exposed to it. And not just because of me as her daughter. So I think that there's at least a more, there's more gateways. It's a little there's gateway. Drugs of game of Thrones.

Jesper (40m 26s):
Yeah. That is actually true. And it, what you just said reminded me as well, that when game of Thrones were sort of at its highest, when, when the whole series was going, I was in the office at the day job one day and I share office with a guy who's probably like 10, 15 years older than me. And he was like, so what are you watching these days? Usually, actually, we, we like to share what we're watching.

Jesper (40m 56s):
So I said, well, we're watching game of Thrones. And he said that stuff with the dragons and stuff, isn't it. I said, yes. And I told him it's the best. And he said, really? I said, yeah, you should try it. And then he said, well, I don't, I don't like all the drag and stuff. He's older. Right. He's a bit different than, than that point of view. And I said, well, no, no, but there's so much more, there's so much depth in this stuff. There's a lot of politics as well. There's Wars going on, you just try it out, try and watch it. And then I think a couple of weeks later when I came back to the office and he was like, Hey, I actually tried out that game of Thrones series.

Jesper (41m 31s):
And he said, my wife doesn't want watch it, but I love

Autumn (41m 34s):
It. That's fantastic. And we converted one and that's actually, that's what I want to get to too, because, so, you know, maybe people don't like, and they don't want to try it. And so there's no way of getting rid of that attitude and you can let it roll off your back and just be the better person. Or you can come back with some stats and I like stats, so, Oh, I've got a question for you. So in the top 50 movies, and we're talking about grossing movies, so the top 50 grossing movies of all time, as of even counting since COVID, so this is shutting down in may when COVID hit and they stopped counting this stuff.

Autumn (42m 14s):
How many do you think of the top 50 are fantasy related and I will give you a caveat. Do you count Jurassic park as fantasy or as not fantasy? Not okay. I wasn't sure. I mean the whole, I mean, it's there and it's not there. I think dragons, dinosaurs it's very close, but okay. So that changes it slightly. So how many books,

Jesper (42m 33s):
How many of the top 50 are you can make me look really stupid here.

Autumn (42m 40s):
Hey, you asked me a yes, no question. You had no answer for us. So this is come back. Well, we'll at least

Jesper (42m 47s):
My question was sort of an opinion question. This is like,

Autumn (42m 51s):
Okay. Okay. Well go for higher, low that if you want to be easy. Right?

Jesper (42m 56s):
Okay. So in the top 50 movies of all time, you mean in the city

Autumn (43m 2s):
Up until May 19th or something that shut down the cinemas in the United States, that's when they really stopped catching counting. And this was straight off Wikipedia. So this is like, you know, pretty current.

Jesper (43m 14s):
Okay. But I can only go with my gut feeling and I can be completely off here because actually I have no idea, but my gut feeling is that it's probably not as many as one might think. So I will say 10 or less.

Autumn (43m 34s):
You are completely abroad. Absolutely. The opposite out of the top 56 movies are not fantasy there's Titanic, like furious seven of a few other, like I mentioned, the Jurassic park is in there, but almost everything else ever Ginger's end game avatar, star Wars. Okay. I'm counting star Wars just because OSI fantasy science fiction. Yeah. I'm counting that.

Autumn (44m 4s):
But I mean, if you go by that and then there's a lot of the Disney ones I see where Disney puts out movies, but I mean, Avengers end game was two point seven billion million, 2.7 million.

Jesper (44m 15s):
But are we a bit lenient with how we classify fantasy right now? Or

Autumn (44m 20s):
I'm being lenient in the scifi fantasy, but just to give people, if I went through again, that's when you get into the Disney, are you going to count Disney as fantasy? Like kind of Disney movies

Jesper (44m 32s):
Are frozen. Are we talking?

Autumn (44m 35s):
I mean, I think frozen is total. She just got, yeah. I would say that's fine. Yeah. So, I mean, I'd have to go through if you wanted to count out some of the other ones, but I counted most of them. Like you would consider kids ones incredible. Give me like three, four examples there. Okay. Incredibles, which is definitely, I mean, a lot of these are based on superhero, almost every superhero and captain American Lord of the rings, Spiderman, Avengers, black Panther. Okay. We skipped Jurassic park, so we have to skip that one, but that's really like, there's a lion King too.

Autumn (45m 9s):
I don't know where that one would fit talking lions. Hmm.

Jesper (45m 14s):
Yeah. It's not really fantasy aside. At least not as the way I think of fantasy.

Autumn (45m 18s):
Yes. But, but it's still, if someone wants to argue, I mean, it's still a way over top of them. Yeah. I was gonna say, yeah.

Jesper (45m 26s):
Even if we say it's yeah, indeed. I mean, even if we say it's just 30 out of 50, that's still a lot. It's a lot. I did not think that.

Autumn (45m 35s):
Yeah. It's a lot more than I really, I was expecting a list of movies that were, you know, not even close that you could at least say how to shade a fantasy. These all do a lot of them do. So that was really surprising to me. And so that's one of the first one. And then I also looked up the top 20 books of all time, bestselling books of all time. And I looked at three different lists from Wikipedia book, cave, other web, you know, one that likes to keep things.

Autumn (46m 8s):
And they're all very similar. And out of the top 20, I won't put you on the spot again, but out of the top 20 books, only nine of them. So nine of them are not fantasy. So again, over 50% are fantasy. So we have almost every Harry Potter, Harry Potter just hit the

Jesper (46m 28s):
Right. That's the tough spots all over.

Autumn (46m 31s):
Surprisingly, not Don OT is the number one bestselling book of all time. Of course they took out. They, they say the Bible is actually the top one. We won't say if that's fantasy or not. So we'll skip that. But, and then there's actually a Chinese dictionary, which I don't think that's fair to put in there, but that Lord of the rings is number four, little Prince is number five. It's one of the best selling books of all time. And then we get into Harry Potter. There's one Agatha Christie, which is mystery. The rest of them. You know, DaVinci code is also up there, but again, not, not quite fantasy, but at least goes into the mystery side of it.

Autumn (47m 6s):
Yeah. But yeah, all the Harry Potter is Lord of the rings, the line, the, which, the wardrobe, the Hobbit, those are all in the top 20 best selling books of all time. So again, amazing. Look, this is over 50%. So everything else is a, you know, a dash of this and a dose of that, but solid 50% on true hardcore fantasy. So that's again amazing. And then I had to look up one, we'll close out with two more stats. So I wanted to look up a J K Rowling's just to see what was said about her and what her net worth.

Autumn (47m 39s):
So they consider her net worth right now at a billion dollars. She denies that she has that much. But what I thought was really interesting was this sentence, and that is JK. Rollings is one of the wealthiest private citizens in the United Kingdom and the first author in the world to achieve a net worth of $1 billion. That is not by genre. That is the first author in the world in any genre to be achieved.

Autumn (48m 10s):
1 billion was a fantasy author, not a woman. So I thought that was fantastic. And I mean, alone, they said the last two, Harry Botter ha her last two Harry Potter books, Harry Potter and the half blood Prince and Harry Potter and the deathly Hallows. So nine and 11 million copies within 24 hours of their release, nine and 11 million copies. So yes, when someone says, Oh, you write fantasy, you go, yeah. Are you kidding?

Autumn (48m 41s):
But I also want to touch on because we've mentioned game of Thrones. So George RR Martin, I looked him up very quickly too. And so he is obviously made a bundle and of course, everyone loves that. He he's still living. Like I say, a very frugal lifestyle. So he earns because from his books, from his writing, he has an estimated net worth of $65 million and earns about $15 million per year.

Autumn (49m 11s):
He's not the number one highest paid author though. James Patterson is considered that he is at 95 million, but he is really, really up there. So yeah, I, you know, could you handle making $15 million a year because you're a fantasy author.

Jesper (49m 28s):
I can do one that's okay.

Autumn (49m 30s):
Yeah. You know what? I can take a million a year too. So I think that'd be fine. But once you, to me, it's like, once you look at the stats, when you look at the best performing movies, I didn't even get to the best performing T sheet TV shows. I got sidetracked. But when you look at what is being made, what is making money, why they're making money because people are going out there and watching it. So yeah, the next time someone asks me like, Oh, you're a fantasy author play. Cool. Hell yeah. This is where of it is people. This is a fantastic genre and you don't need an excuse.

Autumn (50m 2s):
You should be proud of it. This is a one that is popular and makes money. People are craving. Well, of course, why wouldn't I write in it? I don't need to, I don't need a better reason than that. Yeah.

Jesper (50m 14s):
I think for me, the main takeaway out of all of this is really that we should just leave other people to their opinions. You know, we should just stop feeling like we have to justify why we write what we love at all. And it's very true. We're not hurting anyone if they don't like it, go and read something else. I really feel like we could defend it. We could say, well, do you know how much money a J K Rowling owns?

Jesper (50m 45s):
Do you know how great the song res and yes, it, I think those are all good and valid arguments, valuable arguments. And it's good to be aware of those steps that you mentioned. I think that it, I think it's very interesting if nothing else, but I almost as well want to say, maybe we should just stop defending it and just like, yeah, that's what I write because I love it. That's it? I think that'd be a very good place to be in, but until then, I would do not mind telling people.

Jesper (51m 18s):
I like it because it makes money too. Fair enough. Alright. So next Monday, we are going to revisit the topic of Permafree books because autumn took her book free off Permafree. So we're going to analyze how that,

Narrator (51m 37s):
If you like what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support the am writing fantasy podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join Ottoman Yesper on patrion.com/and writing fantasy for as little as a dollar a month. You'll get awesome rewards and keep the M writing fantasy podcast going, stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 83 – Writing for Star Wars

What is it like to write for a massive franchise like Star Wars?

How do you get such writing opportunities?

Mur Lafferty - the Hugo and Nebula nominee, as well as, the winner of the John W. Campbell Award - joins the Am Writing Fantasy podcast to share insights, and a peek behind the curtain, on such an exclusive opportunity.

 

Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday.

SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST!

Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review.

Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy. For as little as a dollar a month, you’ll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going.

 

Read the full transcript below. (Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion).

 

Narrator (1s):
You're listening to the am. Writing fantasy podcast in today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need a literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing. Join two best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them now on to the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt, and Jesper Schmidt.

Jesper (30s):
Hello, I am Jesper, and this is episode 83 of the am writing fantasy podcast. So Autumn is taking a well deserved break today, and I'm instead joined by Mur Lafferty, who is both a fellow podcaster, but she is also a highly accomplished writer herself. She has won the John W. Campbell award for best new writer and also a Hugo. And she's also a Hugo and Nebula a nominee for best novel. And I'm quite sure I forgot some of your other rewards there or about a huge welcome onto the am writing fantasy podcasts.

Mur (1m 8s):
Thank you so much. I'm pleased to be here.

Jesper (1m 11s):
Yeah. So before we get into all this that we're going to, we're going to talk somewhat about star Wars and how it is to write in a setting that is already established and, and just in general, your experiences with writing and star Wars, because you written a novel in there, but before we get that far, maybe, maybe you could just share a bit more about yourself and your writing apart from what I just mentioned.

Mur (1m 35s):
Sure. I started, I guess, professionally, I started around 2002 when I started to get jobs, playing writing for roleplaying games, primarily with white Wolf. And I worked on several of those and then podcasting became a thing. And so I started sort of chronicling my attempt to be published and while attempting to be published. And so I started, I should be writing in 2005 and yeah, it'll be 15 years old next month actually.

Mur (2m 7s):
And yeah, then I started to get published. I sold a short story or two, I self published a superhero novel that, and I published it on podcast via podcast and it got some attention from a small press. So then we, they published it. That was 2007, I think. And then I started selling books to orbit and most recently ACE and the teens, and then I was approached to do the solo novelization.

Mur (2m 42s):
So I got to write a star Wars book too. And then I also approached to do a Minecraft book, which came out after the solo book.

Jesper (2m 50s):
Yeah. Sorta the lost journals or something. Right. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. I use still self publishing. Some of the books are all traditional puppies. It's

Mur (3m 0s):
All traditional published because I'm mainly not very good at multitasking. I would love to do some self published stuff, but I'm just, it's hard for me to think about two stories at once. So if I'm, if I'm writing a book, I'm writing that book.

Jesper (3m 17s):
Yeah. Yeah. And I know as well that, well, I actually listened to the podcast. You, you also host with you fellow host, Matt, that did stickers podcast. I listened to that as well, but I was actually wondering before we get into the topic of today, because you must have gotten into podcasting, like in the really, really early days, I think because you've been doing this for a long, long time.

Jesper (3m 49s):
And it's always interesting to me to ask somebody who is like a really early adopter, early adopter of something. Why did you decide to do podcasting back in the day?

Mur (4m 2s):
It's hard to explain. I mean, besides the fact that I thought it sounded cool and I could do it, it's, I've always loved the idea of being a DJ, but being live is kind of scary for me. I did a, a monthly local radio show with a friend of mine and the anxiety levels were huge just because I'd be thinking this is live. I have to keep talking. Oh, no, all I can think about is how I'm not talking.

Mur (4m 33s):
And now that's all I'm thinking about. And my cohost was very good at filling those empty spots when I would freeze up. But right around the time podcasting became a thing. Broadband was becoming a thing and like internet radio has been around for forever, but you needed to have huge of ability to just, to, to download a bunch of stuff. You know, it's, it's huge file streaming files.

Mur (5m 3s):
That was just not feasible to the average, you know, home. But once broadband became a thing you could conceive, it would be easy to send out a 15 Meg file that you would expect people to download. I mean, I remember back in the nineties, when somebody at the company I was working for found the very first South park short and which was 50 megs and mailed it to everybody in the company and brought the server to its knees.

Mur (5m 33s):
So yeah. So it was, it, it sounded like fun. And I could talk into a mic, but if I screwed up, I could fix it. So that's, it just seemed like a fun thing to try and I did. And it was fun.

Jesper (5m 47s):
Yeah. Do you see any difference nowadays in the podcasting landscape? Because I don't know. I mean, we've been running DM writing fantasy YouTube channel probably for like three, four years, but the podcasting element, we transitioned into podcasting probably like a year or year and a half ago. So that say we are still fairly new, at least compared to you and in terms of podcasting, but I still feel like it is like a very like early environment in terms of podcasting.

Jesper (6m 21s):
Do you always also feel that I have to offer so many years or do you see a huge different compared to back then?

Mur (6m 26s):
Oh, it's huge. It's huge difference. I, you know, I remember almost all of the major shifts in podcasting. The first being when I tuned started to support podcasts and when Libsyn came around and the idea of your podcast becoming popular was not a huge hit to your finances because your internet provider wouldn't go, Oh God, why are you suddenly distributing this podcast to so many people?

Mur (6m 58s):
There was a time when, you know, a sudden spike in downloads would be very expensive for you, right? And Oh, what what's happening now is it's like the, the corporations, like the big channels and backed by big media money and hosted by celebrities. Those shows are validating all the work we put into podcasting, which is great because you don't say you don't get that weird look on people's faces when you say I have a podcast, unfortunately, because they're there and they have validated it.

Mur (7m 41s):
That means they're also the biggest thing on the block. And it's much harder for independent podcasters to get noticed because of that. This is, this is always the funniest thing I say when the mentality of the time. And I like to say it to other writing podcasters, because when I started to my knowledge, I would say to my knowledge, there might've been somebody else. I don't know. No one's ever come forward to tell me, but to my knowledge, I had the second writing podcast and the first was a Michael a stack poles, the secrets.

Mur (8m 15s):
And because there was only one I figured I would talk to Mike and ask him if he thought it was okay, that I did number two, which is, you know, these days it's laughable. How many writing podcasts are there? Ask me for permission. Not that I could or should give it, you know what I mean? But it was just funny at the time. And it's like, I thought there was a space for me because Mike was talking from the point of view of a veteran of decades of fantasy and science fiction writing while I was trying to approach it from a beginner who was trying to learn as many lessons as possible to pass on to other beginners.

Mur (8m 53s):
So, but yeah, like the idea of contacting somebody else and saying, Hey, I might do something kind of like what you're doing. You cool with that? Yeah. That's not a thing. Now, everybody knows what a podcast is. That's really cool. And it's easier to do than ever, but it's, but there's the downside of, I wouldn't when people ask me how to start a podcast, now I have no idea because you know, my advice is go back to 2005 and, and start one when there's like a couple thousand podcasts.

Mur (9m 32s):
And I wouldn't know how to start out with episode one in the current landscape of podcasting, but more power to everybody who gives it a go cause more content is always great. But yeah, I feel very old in the fact that my experiences aren't terribly relevant anymore, but I mean, I keep producing and, and so there's that, but as for advice on how to get, get started or, or get a foothold, I, I have no idea.

Jesper (10m 11s):
No, no one, I guess to some extent, one could say that similar to one self publishing came around, you know, there's a lot of podcasts, but there's also a lot of poor ones. It's easy to make a podcast, but it's not easy to make a good one. Just like self publishing. It's easy to publish a book, but writing a good one. It's not easy. Yeah. So, but, okay. But maybe we've nerded out enough about podcasting and whatnot. And as you try to get into the topic that we were supposed to talk about here, because we really wanted to invite you onto the, to the am writing fantasy podcast here.

Jesper (10m 45s):
Because when I look at your career, of course, from a fire here, but you're probably one of the writers out there that has the most experience in writing, in a setting that somebody else created. And as you said in the beginning, there, you, you started out writing in, in some roleplaying settings already. So already there you were riding in settings that somebody I'll create it. And then afterwards you, or later on, you wrote solo, a star Wars story. And also that Minecraft book, the lost journals, as we mentioned before, but I was thinking maybe to start us out here, could you talk a bit about, what is it like to write in a universe where, where at least I assume that you have to abide to some sort of established law of that word.

Mur (11m 33s):
Oh, they're very established laws. Yeah. It's, there are a couple of things that some people don't understand. A lot of people when they write, they have this sense of this is my baby and it's mine. And you know, if anybody says anything bad about it, then you get wounded to your very soul. And if anybody wants to change anything, no you can't because this is what I created. And I got to learn early on that when you do work for hire, you're writing in somebody else's world, it doesn't belong to you at all.

Mur (12m 8s):
Nothing does. And so it, it gives you a sense of freedom to just let go. So going into it with the knowledge that, yeah, I can say I made that, but I don't own it. And I'm not getting any more money from it. Is, is it was a familiar feeling to me getting writing in somebody else's world has the challenge of already well established boundaries, but it's a fun challenge to figure out where you can go from there.

Mur (12m 45s):
I had a lot of, of, of ideas on how to add to the solo story. Some of it just being telling a scene, everyone seen on the screen in a different point of view. So the challenge was not just not necessarily in the plotting and the characters, but more in retelling it. So people don't feel like they're reading a script and you know, it's a different medium it's it's film is different than books.

Mur (13m 20s):
You can tell what people are thinking. You can give a little bit more backstory. You're not confined by a budget or minutes. You're, you're confined by your deadline, of course, but you know, it's so it's, it's, it's fun playing in somebody else's sandbox, as long as you understand the rules and you don't get too attached,

Jesper (13m 40s):
But is it expected of you that you need to read up on the lore and understand a lot of different things before you even get started writing a novel in the star Wars universe?

Mur (13m 51s):
Or do you well,

Jesper (13m 53s):
Do somebody fact check you or how do they do that?

Mur (13m 56s):
Oh, they definitely fact check. They fact check the hell out of it. I had, I know of at least two fact checkers who were commenting on the manuscript and they're fact checking about tiny things. It was an amazing public Hidalgo knows so much obscure star Wars lore. I don't understand. I think me may not understand like base remember basic things in life, like a short grocery list or something because he knows how many chickens are in the star Wars universe. He literally, I'm not just picking that out of a hat.

Mur (14m 27s):
I know he knows how many chickens there are. I think there are two, but I can't remember. I just remember somebody told me that somebody asked Pablo that and he knew, so yeah, there are people out there to fact check you, but they're one of the reasons they came to me is because they knew I was a huge star Wars fan. And my agent was in touch with the publisher of the, all the books. And I had done two short stories, one for star Wars, insider magazine, and one for the first volume of, from a certain point of view, which was the telling of the first movie from a lot of different points of view.

Mur (15m 10s):
I wrote about Gritos murder from the point of view of the band. And so I, they already knew that I was passionate about star Wars and was hoping to get a larger project. So that was, you know, it didn't just drop in my lap. It was, it was maybe over a year in communication and hoping something would happen. Right.

Jesper (15m 38s):
But in terms of the Lord, and I mean, given that you're already a big, or you were already an hour already, a big star Wars fan, do you then have to read a lot of Hans solo stories in the case of where you have to write a Han solo story or two to understand all the moving parts around that character? Or is it more like, because you are already a fan you can start writing and then they will do the fact checking and correct you for world inconsistencies and so forth.

Mur (16m 5s):
It's kind of in the middle. I mean, I did do some research, but you know, they just because the extended universe had gotten so huge, they decided to wipe it and call it legends. So none of that stuff was Canon anymore. And so a lot of what people thought of were classic Consolo stories weren't Canon anymore. So when it came to his early stories, all I needed to know was who Han solo was. And I mean that, like, I need to know who his character was, how he acted, you know, that, that cocky smuggler guy.

Mur (16m 45s):
And I picked up a lot of other star Wars things just to sort of get in the mindset. And I read a lot of star Wars novelizations because I wanted to see what other people had done. So I got a lot of inspiration from Jason. Fry's the last Jedi novelization. Cause he did some really cool stuff with that. And so that was very, very influential for me. But, you know, I knew that if I said something wrong, whether it's the name of a planet or the background of a character who has a name on the script, but we never hear it said out loud in a movie, that kind of thing.

Mur (17m 27s):
They were there to, to make sure that got fixed, but you know, they expected me to know what I was talking about. I had to do some of the heavy lifting essentially.

Jesper (17m 39s):
Yeah. Yeah. But when you then have to write your story, did they dictate sort of where they wanted you to go with the story? Or did you have creative to tell the story you wanted to tell?

Mur (17m 52s):
Well, I had the script that I had to go, you know, it can't deviate from that at all, but I was able to in fact, required to put, put in my own scenes. So the first thing I did was send them a list of scenes that I thought would add to the story. So I wanted to do a prologue, the S the movie begins with Han running away from a deal gone bad. So I wanted to tell a little bit about that deal. And I wanted to put in more about Kiras experience between getting separated from Han and then meeting him again.

Mur (18m 33s):
And I wanted to put in more about emphasis, and that was the only thing they cut. They just outright said they didn't want was a bit of history on emphasis because they, they didn't want to believe the words they use, where we're not ready to explore the backstory of this character yet, which, you know, made me think that somebody else was already on deck to do it. So, but they gave me a lot of leeway. I put some humor in where, as somebody who's had long hair, several times in her life, I thought that if Chewbacca had been in a mud pit for days or weeks, then one shower on a spaceship was not going to do it.

Mur (19m 17s):
And if he was with landing, Kalryzian the biggest space dandy. There is nobody would have better product than him. So I wrote a scene where chewy approaches Lando and they try to communicate cause Lando understands a little bit of Wiki, but not a lot. And he, he says, you know, basically, do you have anything to help me get all this mud out? And Lando gives them permission to he just trashes his bathroom. And I had so much fun imagining that scene.

Mur (19m 49s):
And I really did not think they would let me do it. And they approved the whole thing. So it was, you know, just telling little scenes between the scenes you get in the movie or some scenes I told from different points of view than you would think of, because I told Kira meeting Han at the big fancy party on the space yacht. I told that from her point of view, not Hans. So she got, you know, we got to see her reaction to him and what she thought of him and how she viewed everything in the room happening.

Mur (20m 27s):
So while I was still telling the scene exactly how it was in the movie, it was a bit different because you kind of see that scene from Han's point of view, whereas in the book it's from QRIS.

Jesper (20m 41s):
Right. But it almost sounds to me like, and I don't know if I'm right or wrong here, but I'm just thinking in terms of give, being, giving a script and saying, okay, you need to, you need to follow this. And, and I, I, by the sounds of what you're saying, it sounds like it is a fairly detailed script. And then you have to find your own way through that in terms of injecting some of your own creativity here and there, where you can, but would it be fair to say that it's more like if you were not experienced and seasoned writer that then it almost sounds like it would be pretty difficult?

Jesper (21m 20s):
Would you say?

Mur (21m 22s):
I think so. It might be because it's I did before I wrote the scene, I just told you about Kira from curious point of view. I was feeling really down because suddenly I thought I've got, I didn't have the script. I was able to take notes on the script. I was flown out to San Francisco, took notes on the script and came home, but they also gave me the middle grade book, which was already done. So I had a novelization already, and I'm like, I've got the movie, I've got the middle grade novel and I've got the script.

Mur (21m 57s):
How in the world am I going to add anything to this? Because there's already so much. And it was, yeah, I struggled a lot. And I w I was very relieved when I came up with the same scene, different point of view solution. You know, there's always the, you come out of every movie going, man. I wish we'd learned more about X character or Y character. And when I'd read the script, I'm like, yeah.

Mur (22m 27s):
Some things need to, I think there's some things missing here. I'm not sure if I don't know. I, I would think that seasoned fan fiction writers would probably take to it just fine. So long as they understood that you can't just go anywhere with this, you have to follow some very specific rules, but it is a lot like a approved fanfic, it's, it's writing about beloved characters and a beloved setting, and just pushing a little bit more of your own story into it.

Jesper (23m 4s):
Yeah. And I think heading into it as well, you probably, I mean, I could imagine some people feeling quite daunted already before you even start to like, okay, all, but all that law and all those details about the world, it can almost feel like a mountain to climb before you even get started. I think some people could feel that at least. Sure.

Mur (23m 24s):
But there is a mountain of Laura out there, but say the details of the eyelids of the, of course, I can't remember their race now, but the, the, the band playing in the MOS, Eisley, Cantina the details about their eyelids and how they respond to light have nothing to do with solo. So, yes, I know that from my previous story that I wrote, but I'm just saying little details like that were not important.

Mur (23m 58s):
I didn't need to go out and read all the Darth Vader comics to write solo. I didn't need to play the role playing game. So there, there were, there's a lot out there, but when it comes to specific stories about specific people, it can be, you know, much more of a focused approach.

Jesper (24m 24s):
Yeah. I can see that. Yeah. But so once you have written a novel like this, does it then become part of the, of the established law and the Canon, or is it treated like it's, it's like just a separate novel and it doesn't, it doesn't become part of the official star Wars universe, or how does that work?

Mur (24m 41s):
It is Canon. It is, it is. That's why it's so closely fact checked and, and, you know, we did very close edits. It's it's it is cannon.

Jesper (24m 53s):
Right. Okay. And you mentioned early on that you had been in a year long conversation with those guys in order to get to the stage where you could write this story, but how did this, how did that conversation start in the first, first place? How did you get into even being considered to write the story?

Mur (25m 14s):
My agent knew the publisher and dropped my name as somebody who was really interested in star Wars. So, you know, next time you need an author for star Wars, consider my client, and that's how the conversation got started.

Jesper (25m 29s):
Okay. So is it more like, do you think that, you know, it is very much dependent on agents and sort of like that it would be almost impossible unless, you know, somebody there that you could, that other people could get into. I'm thinking about listeners here who might be interested in getting into writing star Wars or something, would that even be possible without an agent and being encompassed right already and so forth?

Mur (25m 55s):
I really doubt it. They're, they're going to want to, to approach them. It's easier to have an agent and they, they're going to want seasoned writers with a track record that they know won't like, leave the project or screw it up. And I'm not saying an agented writers would do that. I'm just saying that when you have an agent speak for you, that carries more weight with editors.

Mur (26m 26s):
So for, for the unaided, I don't think it would be very easy. I can't speak for my publishers. So it's just my opinion, but everybody I know who writes for star Wars is agented

Jesper (26m 38s):
Right. And does it benefit at all for those who just write a lot star Wars fan fiction, and if they do that really well, would that help them?

Mur (26m 48s):
I honestly, I mean, I really don't know some, some, I mean, I know agents who read fanfic for fun and would like to find clients that way. Sometimes I know editors who read fanfic for fun. So it's not outside the realm of possibility, but you gotta remember that. I hate saying this out loud, but according to copyright law fanfic is illegal.

Mur (27m 19s):
And a lot of places, you know, is the author doesn't mind. They just turn a blind eye to it and they say, you know, just don't send me anything, have fun, go play in my world. I don't care. Just don't send it to me because that can open legal doors that are very bad. But so I, I don't know on an official level how that would work out. And again, I can't speak for Del Ray, so I'm not going to, if my editor might think otherwise, but I know I I'll, I'll tell you 99% sure that I don't think you could sell your fanfic to the star Wars universe.

Mur (27m 58s):
I really cause they have very specific ideas of where they want to go with their stories. But, but yeah, I don't know. I don't want to squash anybody's dreams, but I doubt I would have had this chance if I didn't have an agent who was knew the right people to talk to.

Jesper (28m 18s):
No, I understand. But it's also very interested because there is a lot of fan fiction out there in not only for star Wars, but for different kinds of settings. Right. And it's, it's interesting because at least, at least somebody's like, you know, star Wars, brand ownerships, you know, they certainly have enough money and the power to go after stuff like that, if they wanted to. But it seems like they don't really do that, right?

Mur (28m 42s):
Oh no, they don't. Until you start making money from it, then they'll come down on you pretty hard. But like I said, there's like a handful of people who frown on that kind of thing. And they're kind of seen as the ogres of the world. So it's, it's a lot of people don't mind, but they can't like there have to be some rules regarding it, you know, don't sell it, et cetera. But yeah, I'm not saying there's not excellent.

Mur (29m 12s):
Fanfic being written. I know that for debt, for a fact, I've rent a lot myself and I wrote it when I was younger before the word fanfic was still very old right now. I wrote Fred saber Hagan fanfic but it's it's yeah, I it's, I don't know how similar my story is to everybody else's so yeah,

Jesper (29m 38s):
No, that's fair. That's fair, but okay. I'm thinking maybe to broaden out a bit more here, I mean, we can still focus on star Wars if you feel more comfortable with that, but I'm just thinking in more, a bit more broad terms here. It could also be in relation to some of the white Wolf stuff that you wrote in the past as well or whatever. But I'm just thinking if you are to advise a listener, for example, of this podcast who maybe is, let's say they have a couple of novels under their belt, so they're not completely new to writing, but they, they are still building their writing career and they might be thinking about, would it be better for me?

Jesper (30m 18s):
And I'm not talking fanfiction now, since we just establish that that's not legal, but, but would it be better for me to just create my own universe if, if I have only written a few novels and then write in that setting or would it be, well, I guess I can't ask you if it would be better to write in somebody else's university, you know, if you contacted somebody or you re made arrangement with somebody who already have an established universe with established readers, but I guess I'm more asking about how do you see the pros and cons on, on each one of those and what kind of things would the listener need to think about if they consider that either?

Jesper (30m 59s):
Should I write in somebody should step this word? Well, because that can sort of lift my meat up a bit versus should I create my own?

Mur (31m 7s):
Are you talking about writing fanfic or a license?

Jesper (31m 11s):
No, I'm more, I'm more thinking like, so for example, autumn and myself, we have an established setting that we are writing novels in. So for example, in theory, if somebody then said, Hey, I would like to write some novel, just like you did for star Wars. Right. I would like to write a story in your setting and I'm not talking fan fiction. I'm more talking like you write, for example, in, for lack of a better example, our setting here, meaning that we be basically sort of become the star Wars part in the story here, meaning that we are the ones editing it.

Jesper (31m 49s):
We are, the ones may be publishing it or whatever, but they write in, in another setting. It's just like, I guess also when you wrote for white Wolf, I guess they were the publisher, they were the ones publishing and you were more a writer on staff day or whatever you would call it.

Mur (32m 5s):
Right. I was freelance, but yeah. Yeah,

Jesper (32m 7s):
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So that's what I'm thinking. How do you see the pros and cons about riding in somebody else's setting versus creating your own?

Mur (32m 16s):
Well, I'll be honest with you. I think that if you want for your career to move forward in a traditionally published sphere, you just need, you're going to need to write books that people see. I, when I was starting out, when podcast fiction started to really become a big thing, like in 2006, 2007, a lot of us were writing stories in each other's worlds. I had, I did my superhero novel and had a lot of friends write short stories in the world.

Mur (32m 51s):
And Scott Sigler also has done the same thing was his stuff. I wrote a novella for him. I don't think that was, it was fun. And I learned a lot, but I don't know how much it actually furthered my career until, you know, I sold my own story to orbit if you want it, like, I don't regret it. I'm definitely thinking if you, if that sounds like fun to you, then do it.

Mur (33m 21s):
Why not? You're going to learn everything you write you learned from. And so if nothing else, you're going to be perfecting your craft, I would warn you to make sure there's some pretty clear rules about who owns the, the work, because it can't just be a friendly handshake. You should write something down because if they think, Hey, you know what? I really liked this character that I wrote in your world, and I'm going to go sell it.

Mur (33m 55s):
Does that belong to you? Or does that belong to them? And then if you're not friends anymore, then that can get really ugly. So you'd want to do something to make sure the legalities are all there, but I don't know. It's, it's, it's fun. But if, I don't know if that's how you're going to get a mainstream publisher to notice you,

Jesper (34m 22s):
No, maybe I'm thinking that if we are, because there's probably a difference between a traditional publisher here versus self publishing, because if we are talking self-publishing, I could actually see that it could be beneficial to, again, I fully agree with what you say about that. You need to have a contract in place with the people who, whose world you're writing so that everything is clear and what can you do and what can you not do going forward and whatnot. So I fully agree with that, but if we assume that is in place, I could see what self publishing that it might actually, in some cases benefit you from writing in somebody else's setting, because you can tap into their readership and if they are publishing it or editing it or whatever, then they will probably promote it for you as well.

Jesper (35m 10s):
And if they already have 5,000 readers who buy a Kindle books, then that's pretty cool.

Mur (35m 18s):
If you're, if you're talking like in the self publishing sphere, definitely. I think it's a great idea. You know, I got Scott Sigler's fans interested in me when I wrote the novella in his world. And it's, it's really good to have the cross promotion. I think, great. I have not done a ton of self publishing since I started traditionally publishing traditional publishing. So I can't say what it takes to get a completely new original world in front of people in self publishing.

Mur (35m 57s):
So I'm really not sure how one would do that. So I can't say whether the, whether playing in somebody else's sandbox or building your own world would do better in self publishing, but you know, why not try both? I mean, it is, like I said, it's fun and it, it sets up your networking for sure. And the people who, you know, you and autumn who publish your friend, who wrote a story in your universe five years later, if you guys are doing another big project, you could think, Hey, you remember that person who wrote that cool thing for us.

Mur (36m 43s):
I mean, that's, that's networking that doesn't die unless you kill it. So, you know, there's definitely not, I don't, I don't want to downplay the action. I can't tell you if one is better than the other, but I think, I think they're both good ideas, but it's it's, it was a lot of fun to do. And I think it made me a better writer and made me tighten the bonds I've made in podcasting, which helped my career along later.

Mur (37m 15s):
So the thing is, you never know what's going to help your career never, which is why, you know, be nice to people and hit your deadlines and you'll go far. I know it doesn't sound like it. And it's not something that, you know, you put the camp, you put the coin in the machine and the candy comes out immediately, but it is something that you never know what's going to benefit you. So why not try as much as you can, as long as you can, and then still be nice and hit your deadlines.

Jesper (37m 49s):
Yeah, I think that's, that's good advice. And as well, if, if there was like one thing that if we say we had a time machine humor and we could travel back in time, and there was only one thing or one message that you could send back to your former self when you were just starting out writing, do you know what, what would that be?

Mur (38m 7s):
Oh gosh,

Jesper (38m 9s):
I caught you off guard there. Sorry.

Mur (38m 12s):
It's the thing is I stopped. I had a real crisis of confidence when I left college. And for some reason thought that that now that I was out of the academic atmosphere, I would never improve on my writing. I didn't think my writing was that great to begin with. So I would never get any better. And I talked myself out of doing it for quite some time. So if I could go back to her, I would say, don't quit because you do get better. Every time you write something new, you get better.

Mur (38m 42s):
And, but if I went back to myself at the start of podcasting, I think at the start, I was afraid of publishing my own stuff until I saw other people do it because I was afraid it would kill any chances for it to be published. Because once you publish something yourself, you do that does get rid of the first North American print rights or wherever you are print rights. And that was something I was afraid of losing.

Mur (39m 12s):
But then I found out that some people just didn't care and thought it was more important to build an audience. And some publishers, if your book got enough attention, wouldn't care and still buy the rights. So, you know, I was careful at the beginning and I don't think I sh I mean, I was, I was pretty pioneering and trying lots of different stuff, but I think I could have tried more if I had not been so afraid to put my own fiction out there. So I would've said don't, don't worry about it. I mean, right now really good fiction podcasts are getting more attention to than some books on the shelf at the bookstore.

Mur (39m 48s):
So definitely don't be afraid of that.

Jesper (39m 53s):
No, I think that those are both good advice. It's basically, it's like, don't be afraid. Keep going and don't give up. Right. I think that's, that's some of the best advice we can give to, to, to new listeners or those just starting out.

Mur (40m 8s):
Yeah. And it sounds so simple and people would go, of course, but no, I suffered my career suffered. Of course it did from quitting. I hadn't been so worried about never improving and actually written in my twenties. You know, I might be farther along in my career right now.

Jesper (40m 27s):
Yeah. And I, sorry, go ahead. No, I was just speculating while you set that, because it made me think as well that I think one of the things about this writing stuff is that we are doing it, especially when we're starting out, we're doing it so much in isolation. So it is for one, because you are in isolation, it is easy to give up because there's not a manager standing there telling you to get to work or whatever. And the other thing is that you have no idea if you're good at it or bad at it because you have nothing to compare against.

Jesper (40m 59s):
Yeah. So yeah, giving up, it's just very easy. And I think those who makes it a lot of the time is just the one who, the ones who kept going

Mur (41m 8s):
Exactly. And, you know, there's a, there's a phrase that you can either take ferry is very, very negative or actually quite positive. And that is nobody cares what you're doing. And you can think to me that, that, that nobody ever is going to read my stuff and nobody cares, but also you can be like, so I can go stand in the corner and dance naked with a chicken on my head and no one's going to care. So why not just do the writing equivalent of standing naked in the corner with the chicken on your head and dancing and see where that gets you because nobody cares.

Mur (41m 41s):
So you can do the weirdest stuff, the worst stuff, and nobody cares. And then once you start getting attention, then maybe you can make more careful decisions. But at the beginning of your career, you could do anything it's always liberating. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's actually a perfect note to end on because it's, it's a very positive one. Like I've been really negative this whole time. I'm so sorry. I don't want to be honest, but you know, no, I think it's important to be honest about things at the same time.

Mur (42m 16s):
It is also a matter of, as we just concluded here about keeping, keeping, going and not giving up. But at the same time, you shouldn't go into it with your eyes closed. You need to open your eyes and understand what you're dealing with here. And listening to podcasts like this one or others where you're, you're getting the truth of things that will help you in the longterm. But, and I don't think you've been negative at Alma. I think it's been good. Thank you.

Mur (42m 46s):
So is there any place where you would like people to go to check you out on the internet or wherever if they want to learn more about you and what you do more? Yeah. You can find all my stuff at dot com. That's one R M U R V E R S E. And that's where you can find links to my books, links to my podcasts and a press kit and all that. And my blog, which really is just my list of podcast episodes. Cause I don't blog much anymore, but that's where you can find me. And when the world's not on fire, I'm on Twitter more often and that's twitter.com/mighty Mer.

Mur (43m 22s):
Excellent. So thank you so much for joining us today. More certainly. It was a pleasure. Thank you. So next Monday, autumn, we'll be back and we are going to discuss how some people seem to have a bit of an attitude to what the fantasy Shunra.

Narrator (43m 41s):
If you like, what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support the am writing fantasy podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join autumn and Yesper on patrion.com/and writing fantasy for as little as a dollar a month, you'll get awesome rewards and keep the M writing fantasy podcast going, stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 82 – Using Personality types to Create Characters

There are a lot of ways to create characters, but one technique we've found that has not only fantastic results but also helps with character arcs is using Enneagram personality types! Wait. What are Enneagrams?

 

Discover just what the nine Enneagram types are and how you can use them for your characters is what this episode is all about. Well, that and we might just have a little bit of fun too!

 

To learn more about Enneagram personality types check out https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/type-descriptions

 

And, as we mention in the show, we cover this in much greater detail in our soon to be released book Plot Development: An Outlining Method for Fiction which you can pick up on preorder (and at a discount!) at https://books2read.com/Plot-Development 

 

Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday.

 

SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST! Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review.

 

Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy. For as little as a dollar a month, you’ll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going.

 

Read the full transcript below. (Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion).

 

Narrator (2s):
You're listening to the am. Writing fantasy podcast in today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need a literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing. Join two best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them now onto the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt, and Jesper Schmidt.

Jesper (30s):
Hello, I am Jesper

Autumn (32s):
and I'm Autumn.

Jesper (34s):
This is episode 82 of the M writing fantasy podcast. And when we wrote our upcoming guide on how to plot a novel, we also talked about character creation. And we mentioned before how important character creation really is having, we talked about that before autumn. Oh yes. We've. We've hinted that characters are kind of important to writing and especially to what readers love. So I don't think it's the first time listeners have no say that.

Jesper (1m 5s):
No, indeed. Yeah. And in the plodding book, we centered the process of creating characters around personality types. So we thought we would take you through the nine different personality types in today's episode here. And I don't know if I'm going to be successful, but I'm going to try to do my best to make it a bit entertaining. So it's not dry and boring. Let's see how it goes as well. I think we'll do our best. I mean, these are really fun personality types. And even just trying to think of characters from movies, I'm so bad at actress names and stuff, so I'm not going to do super well.

Jesper (1m 44s):
We can try to flip point out a few individuals, but it's the, you'll see so quickly why this is fascinating because not only do you get these nine wonderful types of people, but they have levels within them. So it's easy to work on your character arc and all these things. So it's a fantastic method. And of course that's why we use it. Yeah. Yeah. I think it works extremely well for, for how we laid it out in the plotting book. It all, it makes the couch arc so easy to deal with.

Jesper (2m 17s):
All of a sudden, you sort of have a bit of a template you can use. And of course you can modify it as much as you want, but, but it gives you a very good starting point. It doesn't, it's even, not even just heroes, but even your villain it's you can see little quirks and why they're going to act certain ways and you might not have even thought of. And I just think that is just fantastic and you can move them up and down the scale as well. So it gives you some great resources for creating some really dynamic characters.

Jesper (2m 46s):
Yeah. But before we get that fries is all well on your end, then autumn, how is, how are things? It is good. Of course we're recording this like way early, cause we're getting ahead for the summer, but where we're sitting currently in June, we're actually

Autumn (3m 0s):
In for I'm in Vermont. And it is actually been a really dry spring stream is dried up. We haven't had a significant rain, like over a half an inch in a month and a half. So I'm really hoping we get some rain soon, but I do think it's funny. I have a garden going and I'm my mom, my mom and my dad are both master gardeners. They're amazing gardeners. And I've always admired my mom's green thumb, but for ones, Oh my gosh, my garden looks so good.

Autumn (3m 32s):
I've had so many people come up to me like, wow, what are you doing? And I'm like watering it I've fertilized once every seven days because I'm basically growing stuff in gravel. When I did the soil test, it basically said, congratulations, you have gravel. No organic matter, no nitrogen, no phosphorus, no potassium. So despite this, I have like, my tomatoes are beautiful. My cucumbers are blooming. I have shard.

Autumn (4m 2s):
It's just, I've let us like we're eating salads every day. So it's amazing. So I feel very oddly proud of myself and I wish I had a better answer. People say, how are you doing? Because, Oh yes, that's my announcement. Or we need a little chime. My debut novel, born of water, just hit 300 reviews on Amazon.

Jesper (4m 26s):
I saw your post on Facebook. That's absolutely awesome

Autumn (4m 29s):
That also I am so pretty hungry lot. It is. And so at least when people ask me, how did you do that? I least have an answer. If you ask me how I'm managing to grow stuff. Oh, well I think I, maybe my mother's green thumb rubbed off on me. Otherwise I'm watering every day and feeding them once a week. Yeah.

Jesper (4m 53s):
But I, I guess if it's that dry and warm, is it also this kind of times where you have to watch out for forest fires and stuff like that, then

Autumn (5m 3s):
I think if it keeps up, it's going to go that way. There's been some fires North of us in Maine, and I'm really worried like Quebec and Ontario, I'm only a few hours from the Canadian border. I'm really worried about some bad fires on the East coast, much less the fires that are going to break out on the West coast this year. If we don't get some rain soon, the Arctic areas of Canada and stuff have already hit record highs. I think Siberia over the weekend hit 104 degrees. So beer. Yeah. This is not supposed to be 104 degrees.

Autumn (5m 34s):
So it's terrifying. So I, yeah, that could happen. How are things, hopefully you're not quite as warm as Siberia. How are things in Denmark?

Jesper (5m 44s):
At least forest fires is not something we have to worry about everybody over here that doesn't have it happen. Nobody it's good. This past weekend, I was out refereeing for the first time since Corona lockdown. Wow. That was awesome. That must have been awesome. Was it like a normal game? Was there something weird going on after the Corona virus? Well, it was yeah, more or less a normal game. I mean there, when you're, you're doing the Fairplay, you know, hello thingy, normally you do before, you know, everybody normally as the match starts, every, every player says a good match, have a good match to the referee and also to you to the opposing team.

Jesper (6m 27s):
And obviously we can't shake hands. So basically we just sort of walked past each other and say it rather than shaking hands. So that part is a bit different. And then on, on the pitch or the side of the pitch on both sides, there is a, these large drawn out boxes basically where the players have to stay within those boxes, which just to make sure that they don't get mingled with the crowd watching and spectators and stuff like that. So, so there's a few things that are slightly different, but in terms of the actual play, it's exactly the same as before.

Jesper (7m 2s):
So, so that was good. It was, it was a match just in the league that sits just below the semiprofessional level. So it was quite good because well, one of the teams have played at that level for a bit more than a year, whereas the other team just advanced, so this was their first match in this new league and for them and it, it really showed within 45 seconds, 45 seconds, it was a one to nail. So welcome to the big boys league.

Jesper (7m 35s):
It was like that. Right. So they, they got beat three to nothing. So it was, it was pretty that there was a big difference. That is a big difference, but yeah, especially not getting any points in, but you know, it wasn't something outrageous, you know, sometimes when the football in the U S you know, it was like 46 to one to seven or something it's spot. Yeah. Never happens in soccer. No, it's a little different. And then we went to visit some friends in the evening afterwards, and we were back home in bed, like 3:00 AM.

Jesper (8m 7s):
So thank God I don't drink alcohol because we had to get up at 8:00 AM. Or I had to get up at 8:00 AM, 8:00 AM the day after to take my youngest son to a soccer tournament. So yeah, I got like five, five hours of sleep. And if, if I was drinking alcohol, I would never have gotten up there, but thank God I don't do that. So I did take a nap yesterday afternoon. I didn't think that sounds like a well deserved yeah.

Jesper (8m 38s):
On the internet with the yam writing fantasy podcast. So I saw a very cool post in the amp writing fantasy Facebook group from Melanie. Oh yeah. Because yeah, because she discovered that Excel actually have a writing submission tracker template built in.

Autumn (8m 57s):
I did see that. And of course I don't, I use numbers over Excel, so I wasn't quite as excited, but that is pretty cool.

Jesper (9m 5s):
Yeah. I think it's cool in the sense that, I mean, of course it can help you keep track of stories and submissions and publications and stuff like that. But I just thought it was cool because I never knew that.

Autumn (9m 17s):
I just felt like that was very helpful to just

Jesper (9m 20s):
Point that out. I mean, it could be something you just discovered, you know, Oh, I found this, but the fact that she actually took it and posted it in the Facebook group to help everybody else, I thought that was very cool. So thank you for sharing that.

Autumn (9m 34s):
Yes. I did think, like I said, I saw that and I'm like, yeah, that is definitely such a cool feature that it's built right in. And now that people know all the group, people, members of the group and everyone we're telling today, that is fantastic because it's funny. I have been in the fantasy, the I'm writing fantasy Facebook group because it's been, Oh my gosh. So many people the last few days have been coming in. So I think we've all been pitching in to welcome folks. But I was looking at Mike's post recently, cause I said 42 comments just now.

Autumn (10m 7s):
And he was asking about anyone with main characters that are dysfunctional or disabled or autistic anxiety, OCD, something like that. And man, I know there's was one comment in there that listed like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, everything from game of Thrones, to some of the classics where there were characters that met those qualifications. I was like the hard man, this guy knows Sue has read a lot of books and could just organize it very quickly, but it is fantastic to see some of the questions out there. And like I said, 42 comments and they're still coming in on characters that have some kind of disability or dysfunction.

Jesper (10m 45s):
Yes. Probably more widespread than we think.

Autumn (10m 48s):
Yeah. It really was. When he, like I said, the one I would have to go back and find who came up with the one answer that was just listing off all of these different books. There were ones I had read that I hadn't thought of it. I just didn't come to mind when you, when it was asked. So I was like, wow, that is just fantastic.

Jesper (11m 8s):
Yeah. Yeah. So if you haven't joined us yet, just search for am writing fantasy in the group section of Facebook and you will

Autumn (11m 18s):
Find us. Yes. And that one poor person you beat me, but yes, there was some money. Somebody who actually messaged me on Facebook on how to join. So you can do that. And I'm sorry if it takes me a while to get back to you because sometimes Facebook hides my messages. I'm sorry. Yeah. So now we're okay today

Jesper (11m 39s):
Onto today's topic. Yeah. So, well, my, my wife is a certified, she certified in the end in a grand personality type. So I've had heard a lot about anagram types before we even started writing our guide on plodding. So it sort of made a lot of sense to find ways in which to use the anagram to develop fictional characters. Because I just, I liked the entire setup with these personality types because it, it just helps a lot. So, so that was sort of a starting point.

Autumn (12m 12s):
That's a good one. I mean, it's funny. Cause I had heard about the anagram cause I've taken some psychology classes and Adam has taken quite a few psychology classes. And so yeah, we'd both gone through them. We'd both taken the tests before. So it was kind of interesting to be like, Oh yeah, I gotta have the heart of this for characters, but this is so fantastic for characters.

Jesper (12m 34s):
It is absolutely. I think it is. And, but maybe before we sort of go any further, we should just probably be a bit helpful and clarify what this whole anagram deal is all about.

Autumn (12m 46s):
That's true. Yes. If you never heard of them before, you're like, this is a big word and I can't even smell it to figure out how to Google it. And that's just kind of mean of us, isn't it?

Jesper (12m 59s):
Yeah. So it's basically like a personality categorization system. So you have nine different personality types and each one of these personality types view the world different and has a different underlying motivation that drives their life and their feelings. So yeah, that's basically what it is. And I guess in a nutshell, if we boil it down

Autumn (13m 27s):
Yeah. I think that's a great explanation for an introduction to it. And just like, if someone is more familiar with the Myers Briggs personality type, that's a very common one in the United States. It's like that, but a lot more nuanced and structured. I think, I think it works very well. I get lost in Myers Briggs where this one is just kind of, you can read through it, grasp it and go like, Oh I got it. I like this one.

Jesper (13m 55s):
Yeah. And I guess I could, I could foresee somebody thinking at this point, but you said that there is nine personality types. Is that not like super limited to believe that there are only nine personality types in the world, but then I would say no, no, no, my friend, it is not like that because there are many different ways in which the personality types express themselves. So while the system has nine personality types, it's in fact just a bit more complicated than that.

Autumn (14m 31s):
That was another level below the nine as well.

Jesper (14m 35s):
Yeah. And they were there. There's a lot of, well, there's a lot of other things, but actually it's when it comes to fiction writing, we don't need all those other things. So there's things like triads and personality wings and all this kind of things that makes every of every one of those nine personality types different. So it's not like there is only nine, you have triumphs and wings and whatnot that makes you different. But the good news is that we don't need all that stuff for fiction writing.

Jesper (15m 7s):
So we are basically focusing on the nine types themselves and I'm thinking what we're going to do is we just going to go through all nine and explain what they are and I'll try to see if I can make it a bit entertaining. And then afterwards we can just talk a bit about how to use those, how to use them as character arcs as well. Oh yeah. Yeah. So I should probably also say that this is intended as some, a bit of fun here.

Jesper (15m 45s):
So I don't want it to come across as if I'm, you know, I'm passing judgment on any personality type.

Autumn (15m 54s):
No there's no. Yeah, definitely. There's no right or wrong answers here. There's nothing except for maybe being on the, one of the lower tiers of any of these is kind of a sad place to be, but there's nothing, nothing, none of them are, right. None of them are wrong numbers. None of them are better to be other than another one. I think it's, if you recognize as what do they say, if you recognize yourself, that's, that's fine. It's just a way of understanding yourself. It is not passing judgment. This is just, especially now we're talking about characters for your book.

Autumn (16m 25s):
So this is just about creating some really cool characters.

Jesper (16m 30s):
Yeah, indeed. So there is also, none of these are better than the others, so they all have their own strengths and weaknesses built in. So yeah, if you know something about the anagram and you think I'm stereotyping a bit too much or making too much fun of something, you know, just know that that's not the intention here. I'm just trying to make it a bit entertaining instead of reading out very dry personality type information. Because I think that that would be on the flip side, pretty boring.

Jesper (17m 0s):
So I do run the risk risk here of maybe offending somebody who feel like I'm a passing judgment, but just know that I'm not.

Autumn (17m 8s):
Yeah, that is fair enough.

Jesper (17m 11s):
So hopefully that, that disclaimer is out of the way here so we can, we can get started. And I think maybe as we go through this, perhaps we can think about which personality type you and I think we are ordering. And then afterwards we could just talk about that as well. I don't think we've ever talked about that before, to be honest.

Autumn (17m 31s):
I, and I actually, I prepared, I pulled out my old anagram. It's not that old a test to see which one I was. And it is funny because I almost had a triple tie. So I guess I am just complicated, but we can talk about that at the end.

Jesper (17m 47s):
Okay. So what I propose do with that, I'll go through all nine and then maybe once I'm done with each one, I'll just stop there just in case you have something to add or something that I missed or whatever, and then we'll do all nine and then afterward we can talk a bit about how to use these and, and, and which personality type we think we are ourselves. Sounds good.

Jesper (18m 17s):
Okay. So type number one is called the reformer. So this is the type of person who find it extremely important that things are done, right? So they want to basically make the world a better place and they do so by using principles. And when they're at their best, the reformer is actually a very amazing and passionate per person who excels at what they put their mind to.

Jesper (18m 48s):
But do you know the kind of person who can get extremely fixated on a very, very small, tiny detail?

Autumn (18m 58s):
She didn't. We just talk about that. I don't think I'm legally allowed to say yes, but I can say bride Zilla. I saw a bride who was getting ready for her wedding. Can, it starts worrying about, you know, the arrangements and the colors. And if you're off the shoulder dress versus on the shoulder, whether or not you wore a necklace and yeah, that's a total reformer type on the downside, the bedside. But I mean, that's a good side. This is someone who could go change the world. I mean, we could possibly look at some really big climate change activists.

Autumn (19m 31s):
They might be reformer types maybe. Yeah,

Jesper (19m 34s):
Yeah. Yeah. So when they're at the bedside, they have a tendency to focus on small details. That really doesn't matter that much. You know, they can be super obsessive about it and just cannot seem to relax. You know, they can be like, if there's a picture hanging there and is slightly crooked, they can get completely hung up on why it's crooked and it should be straightened. Or they could be like, let's say they come over to your house and they just park their car and they ring on the doorbell and you open the door and then they say something like, you know, I just couldn't help to notice as I entered here.

Jesper (20m 12s):
And I don't mean this the wrong way, but you guys quite dirty probably clean it, but don't use regular soap water. I found this environmental and specialized product that everyone should use. Honestly, I don't understand why you wouldn't use it. It's three times as expensive, but you will make the world a better place if you use it. So you can see that. So, and then the person would probably also go like here, I'll just text you an image of the product. You can go and buy it. You know,

Autumn (20m 43s):
I know a couple of these.

Jesper (20m 45s):
Yeah. This can be type number one is, did they have a tendency? As I said before, right? They, they view the world or they, they use principles to maneuver the world and try to make the world a better place that they mean well by it. But they do see the world very black or white that there is either right. Or there's wrong. There's very little in between for them.

Autumn (21m 8s):
Sounds fair. And yeah, I definitely can point out a few of those folks in the world, but yeah, I know. They mean, well at heart, they just might get a little tied up sometimes on the banalities of it.

Jesper (21m 21s):
Yeah. So that was a type number one. Anything more to add on that?

Autumn (21m 25s):
No, I think you covered it very well.

Jesper (21m 29s):
Okay. So let's move on to type number two, which is called the helper a and S it says in the title there, this person is someone who goes out of the, out of their way to help others. So when the helper is at their best, they are extremely generous and they care a lot for other people at their worst. Well, that's a different matter. So this purse person then at their worst, just doesn't know when to say no to others.

Jesper (22m 5s):
You know, they can be like neck deep in a million tasks. And then when their significant other comes home from work and ask if the helper will cook dinner, he or she will be like, Oh yeah, yeah, of course I will. Of course I'll get right on that. And then while the person is probably juggling laundry, cleaning and work, some sort of work assignment for the day job at the same time, you know, they will still want to get right on that cooking of dinner. And in the end, of course, because the helper takes on so many things, they will let somebody down in the end.

Jesper (22m 41s):
And that's where the unhealthy type number two will quickly resort to melodrama. So they'll be like, Oh my God, I have suffered and tortured myself for you. And you're not even grateful. And maybe you'll say, well, sorry, but you were the one who said that you were gonna turn that work assignment in today. And then they might be like, are you mad at me? I get the sense that you're really mad at me. No, I'm not mad. You can just complete your assignment tomorrow.

Jesper (23m 12s):
It's because I did something wrong. Isn't it? What is wrong with me?

Autumn (23m 15s):
Please tell me. So that's probably the unhealthy type too. Yes. That's a fun one. Oh my goodness. Okay. I'm going to have to try to be serious a little bit because I, on the good scale type two's helper, I admire them so much because they're warm and generous. I think the, the woman whose property I'm currently living in is definitely maybe a type two. She has the biggest heart and just never suspicious. Just always just the biggest brightest smile and so compassionate.

Autumn (23m 49s):
And I must be a little bit more jaded than that. I don't think I'm in helper, hint, hint, but I admire that. But the other side, the melodramatic side, I get that I don't get that at either that other one that's like, well, if you couldn't take it on, just say, no, don't sit there and complain that, you know what? I didn't want to let you down. Well, you didn't get it done anyway. So I'm still let down. Yeah. Yeah. Number two. Doesn't see it like that. It's just too difficult to say. No, it is.

Autumn (24m 19s):
And I do understand that idea of, you know, wanting to be the one who's there for people. And I think every child and every parent has that little bit of a helper somewhere in there where you don't want to let that other person down. So it's a really good type. Like I said, I admire them so much because there's, without them, the world would be not quite as happy and Brighton kind of place. Yeah. That's absolutely sure. Yup.

Autumn (24m 49s):
Okay. So I think we ready to move on to number three. Oh yes. And type number three is called the achiever. So at their best threes are genuine and confident personalities. So they want to feel valuable. Hence the name, the achiever. Yes. And if you've played a board game with a number three, you will know that they are not only competitive, but they are so to an annoyingly high degree, you know, they could be screaming.

Autumn (25m 23s):
Things like I'm like the best chess player that ever lived. You are the loser loser. I can't believe how great I am at this game. Number three, I don't think I want to play a board game. Was it achiever? And also three cannot stand to be wrong. And they will go out of their way to explain how, what they did was absolutely perfect. And it was flawless. And this also goes, as far as if they're unhealthy on the scale of three Eastern, it goes as fast to invent stuff about themselves and their own accomplishment as well.

Autumn (26m 3s):
So they could be saying things like, well, it's actually, so that when I was 15, I played in an official tournament against the best chess player in the world. And yes, I beat his ass, but he got it. Right. Cause it's no, no, no. Of course it was a secret batch that we only did. Yeah. Please don't Google it. Don't Google it. Put away your phone. And in the flight home, I also came up with the business idea for tick-tock. So I actually invented that.

Autumn (26m 35s):
Wow. That's so that'll be your unhealthy achiever. You kind of watch what they say. Cause you might not believe, but they're there, their belief of it can make you almost believe it. So that's a tough one.

Jesper (26m 50s):
Yeah. And it's it's it's yeah. They, they will just do anything to avoid admitting that they were wrong. So

Autumn (26m 58s):
I think I do know someone like that. Hmm. Yeah. A long time ago a coworker now I understand them better. Yeah.

Jesper (27m 9s):
Yeah. I know. I actually had a previous coworker like that as well. It was amazing. What kind of stories that come up with Jesus. He was like, you should almost believe he was an astronaut or something.

Autumn (27m 21s):
Huh? That would be, I do remember a joke once where I was on a cruise and we're like, we can be anything we want to be, they don't know who we are, but I don't think we went really forward with it, but that would have been fun. That would have been a total achiever thing to do to start just making up who you are when you're in a new place. This is somebody who does it every day. So I think a healthy achiever could be interesting as long as I tone it down. I don't know if I can tell, take yelling and having their greatness shoved in my face.

Autumn (27m 51s):
No.

Jesper (27m 55s):
Okay. So number four, number four, the number four is called the individualist. So when the individualist is at their best, they are very creative, emotionally honest and focused on the beauty of the world. Yeah. However, those who are not at their best can really, really struggle with any dissatisfaction in their life. So they always want to have something that they can't have.

Jesper (28m 27s):
So if you have a boyfriend or girlfriend, husband, or wife, who's a type four. They can be looking for like the perfect soulmate that probably doesn't exist at all. So they constantly desire everything that others have as well. So like a better house, a better car at a job. Anything can just make these people envious. And because they feel like they are never complete or whole as a person, it just makes them constantly searched for that missing piece of themselves.

Jesper (29m 0s):
And maybe also just to pull it down on an even like smaller scale too, could be like, so let's say the unhealthy number for you. You're having, you're having a burger with this person. So you're sitting both down in your chair and then number four will say, I just wish my burger tasted as good as good as yours. And you might say, it's the same way we are having the exact same burger. I know, but I feel like yours are still better than mine. I just wished that mine was as good as yours.

Autumn (29m 33s):
And I would be like, okay, let's switch. And they'd really know Mike was better. Right?

Jesper (29m 37s):
Yeah. Then they would be like, no, no, I don't want you on this. Mine was,

Autumn (29m 43s):
Oh yeah. Oh, you make the high level, you know, the one that's well-functioning creative and it sounds so beautiful. Like I would like to be this creative and inspiring person that just wants to express myself, inspires others to do the same thing. But the downside, I guess if you're having a bad year, bad life is just, I would be sick of myself so fast. So I couldn't do it.

Autumn (30m 13s):
I am, I am obviously not this one either. Cause I am hopelessly usually content with my situation, at least finding at least the bed, the best side of where I'm at. So I just couldn't imagine, just imagine that someone else's drink is better or that person who's always clicking the remote because they think there's something better on TV. I have physically taken the remote away from I'm an ex boyfriend actually. So yeah, I think I dated one of these. It didn't last.

Autumn (30m 46s):
No. Oh, okay. All right. Type five. Are you ready for one more? Yeah, let's go for five.

Jesper (30m 54s):
Number five. The investigator. So at their best type fives are insightful, curious and very perceptive. So because of their ability to research and understand rather complex matters, they also have the ability to see the world in innovative new ways. The downside is that the investigator hates feeling useless. So they often struggle with anything that makes them feel incompetent.

Jesper (31m 27s):
Oh, so if there's a topic that comes up that they don't really know that much about, then the investigator will be the one who rushes home, buys 15 books on the topic, Amazon what's 35 YouTube videos and they just absorb it all because God forbid the best. Anything that the type five doesn't know

Autumn (31m 48s):
Is that like that meme where you see the ones, like when did you become a brain surgeon? And the author's like last night, that's, that's an investigator. Awesome, indeed.

Jesper (32m 0s):
But of course, because of all of this then for type number five, life can also feel really demanding and type five often don't believe themselves that they have the needed energy to deal with everything that is strong, met them because every time they face something that they don't know, they need to know it. So they struggle with energies. And as a result, they often socially detest themselves. And also, because of all the things that they know, they also know that stuff that they don't know.

Jesper (32m 33s):
So they research even more because of that,

Autumn (32m 37s):
They see that gap. Yeah. They see gap and they don't

Jesper (32m 40s):
Focus on all the stuff that they do know. Instead they basically start doubting themselves a lot because the more they read, the more they become aware that there's other stuff that they don't know. So they will start doubting themselves even more so it's it's it can become a very vicious,

Autumn (32m 58s):
Oh, that's horrible. That does sound like a really tough one. So on the upside they're innovative and alert and perceptive and they can create some problem solved. I could imagine this is just a great problem solver. They see the world differently. Or as I definitely, we joke my husband and I, he doesn't, he doesn't see outside the box. He doesn't even see the box. So I definitely think he goes to the investigator side. There's no box for him. And he's just in another universe from the box. And he sees solutions that it's just like, Oh, actually there was a movie, it was a Cinderella movie.

Autumn (33m 33s):
And it had DaVinci in it for some reason, which is why I remember it because I loved Leonardo DaVinci. I was born on the same day. So he's one of my heroes and he comes up and he gets Cinderella out of a locked door by taking off the hinges. And they're like, Oh my gosh, you're amazing. You're a miracle. You figured out how to open this lock door. And he's like, yes, I will go down in history for opening a door. But again, it is because everyone else was looking at the lock. He looks at the other side and he takes off the hinges.

Autumn (34m 3s):
That's an investigator.

Jesper (34m 5s):
Indeed. Indeed. Yes. Okay. So we're up to number six. Yes. Are you ready for this one? I'm ready for this one. Okay. So number six is the loyalist. So this person is funny, compassionate, very reliable. So at their best they are fateful and self-sacrificing, it's a very productive person who looks towards the common. Good. Yeah. So that's good. Now get ready for the bad side.

Autumn (34m 33s):
I know. I'm going to say, just stop there. I want this person as my sidekick. I want, if I'm the hero, I want this person as my sidekick. Just slate that in. Make sure they're a high functioning loyalist. Cause what's

Jesper (34m 44s):
Just about to say then you don't want the,

Autumn (34m 47s):
Yeah. Let's the downside now. All right. What is it?

Jesper (34m 51s):
Yeah, because type six has a very deep need to feel secure. Oh. And that can evolve into crazy anxiety for them. I don't, you know, there'll be like, what is that? That dark cloud overhead there will suddenly throw a lightning bolt at me. The entire world is probably no, not probably most definitely against me so nobody can be trusted and a while they can act pretty decisively in a crisis situation.

Jesper (35m 21s):
Right. Afterward they will fall completely apart. Oh no. Yeah. And they will always look for the worst case scenario. So if you're going to go camping with this person, the type number six will probably create like a whole list of all the things that can go wrong and all the things you need to do to,

Autumn (35m 41s):
I was just going to say, I don't want to go camping with this person said, then you said camp. Oh my goodness. No. I'm thinking though, Sam from the Lord of the rings sounds totally like a loyalist even to the point. I mean being a Hobbit, he wants to sing know he wants to comfort as well. I mean, he, he goes up and down the scale. And so looking at that character, you can kind of see how the scale system works, where if you are tired, having a really bad day, you're going to fall down the scale.

Autumn (36m 12s):
And you're just going to sit there and talk about the rocks. You're going to fall down and you're going to be eaten by the giant spiders and Gandalf hates you today. And if you're having a good day, you're the one who's gonna rescue Frodo, which is awesome. So that's a really kind of a good example.

Jesper (36m 28s):
Yeah. I think Sam is actually excellent the same because there's also several times throughout a lot of the rings where he will start being concerned about mr. Frodo. I'm not sure this is a good idea. He does that several times. He becomes a very insecure. Yeah.

Autumn (36m 44s):
Yeah. So yeah, I still will take one a loyalist at a high functioning level preferably, but I, I will be there to support them on the bad days. That'd be a good sidekick.

Jesper (36m 54s):
Okay. All right. So type number seven is the Intuitionist all right. So as implied by the name, this person loves to share what he or she is excited about. So it's a very people oriented person who, who usually has a ton of friends. Oh, okay. So they are very fun to be around when they are at their best.

Autumn (37m 20s):
Of course. Yeah. Everyone likes a high functioning person.

Jesper (37m 26s):
Yeah. I mean, there's good and bad in all of these exactly. When they are not at their best, they are basically constantly looking to feel an emptiness that they feel inside. They feel inside of themselves.

Autumn (37m 41s):
That sounds so sad.

Jesper (37m 43s):
Yeah. Perhaps someday they'll feel contempt if they can just experience one more thing, you know, who says that you can't head off to climb Mount Everest next week. Yeah. We should certainly do that. And then perhaps on the way home we could run the New York marathon. Just that that's also a good idea. That would actually be great. And then I just need a pair of new running shoes and I'm going to visit the new shopping mall right now and find a new pair. Bye, bye. See you.

Autumn (38m 12s):
Oh no. So that I was gonna say, I think there's definitely, I'm on the lots of friends and so the enthusiasm and all of those things, that's probably my mom and my mom and I are about opposite types. So she's such an extrovert. So this is an extroverted go out, conquer the world, going to go do all this stuff. It sounds great. But boy, that's a tough one for me. If you're a quiet introvert, you're probably don't want to hang out with an enthusiast.

Autumn (38m 44s):
You're going to get stressed out, stressed out wrangle.

Jesper (38m 49s):
Basically the enthusiast is always looking for something else to do that they just can't settle down and relax for just a bit. You know, they always have to do something and they get bored very fast. And also, as you can imagine, sevens have a problem finishing anything. Cause they basically just jump from one thing to the next

Autumn (39m 10s):
All the time. Oh, that's a good point. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. So I think they would be an interesting character to throw into a book, but I think on a personal level, I would only be able to take small doses.

Jesper (39m 25s):
Yeah. Yeah. I follow you. If you're with them for one evening or something, it's probably going to be very entertaining, but living with them

Autumn (39m 33s):
Most exciting evenings of the year for me, because after that I'll be in a cave.

Jesper (39m 40s):
Yeah. Okay. So type number eight. We're almost to the end now. So type number eight is to challenge you. So H R when they are at their best, they are amazing friends and partners. So they can both assume a leader role, but they can also follow. So they are very, very resourceful people when they are not at their best. It's an entirely different methadone.

Jesper (40m 11s):
Yeah. So eights just hate to be controlled by others. And as a result, they tend to dominate their environment. Okay. So this is the only way that the eight believe that no one will be able to harm them is basically by dominating. Oh, that's interesting. If things go wrong it's of course never number eight fault. So the eight we'll see him or herself as pure and very, very honest person.

Jesper (40m 42s):
So because of that, it is inconceivable that such a person could have any kind of negative effect on others. Right. Right. So if they have to admit that they were wrong, I did something wrong. It takes away from their feeling of control and they don't like that. So they don't do it. So let's say that number eight, forgot to do the dishes. And you might ask, did you do the issues? And number eight, we'll say what? No, but we agreed that you would do that while I did the grocery shopping.

Jesper (41m 15s):
I don't think I was part of that planning. Oh, well we sat right here at this table and agreed. It was that when I was reading emails on my tablet. Yeah, exactly. So you do remember it. You shouldn't make agreements with me when I'm not paying attention. You need to talk to me at the right times.

Autumn (41m 35s):
Oh, that's definitely controlling.

Jesper (41m 38s):
Yeah. And it's not number eight's fault. Of course. Yes, absolutely. He or she has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he didn't, he or she didn't do the dishes that's cost. Of course the other person's fault that they made the arrangement or agreement in Iraq, Pronto.

Autumn (41m 53s):
Well, that could be, I could see definitely the bad side. This is someone who is controlling and could definitely be abusive to those around them as they age, they force other. Cause it's always someone else's problem. Always someone else's mistake that impinged on them. So that's a problem. But I love the idea of a strong, a, especially like as a leader, like this is like a perfect mentor, figure someone who to be a leader, but can also say it is your time to fly. I'm going to let you go first and I will follow you and support you in this.

Autumn (42m 26s):
I mean, that's just beautiful. This is who you want as a mentor. This is that person you want on the, on the team with you. But as long as around a good day, not a bad day, otherwise they might be telling you it's your fault, but they just led you into the Dragon's layer, which would be actually a really good con comedic moment. But if you want to write that one out, but Oh my God. So one more, one more line number nine,

Jesper (42m 57s):
The peacemaker. So the healthy number nine is very, very flexible and probably one of the best people in the world to sit down with for heartfelt conversation. Oh, that sounds nice. Yeah. So the peacemaker wants to feel like their present matters and that's why they are natural born mediators and they always search for peace and stability.

Autumn (43m 27s):
That sounds nice. I like that. Yeah. So good. So far. So COVID how can we screw this up?

Jesper (43m 37s):
Well, all of this then feeds into their basic fear, which is conflict. So they worry a lot about losing relationships and they will go out of their way to avoid any kind of conflict. That doesn't sound good. No. And this also goes as far as to basically neglecting their own feelings and priorities in order to avoid that conflict that they fear so much. So they can, because of all of this, they can be quite prone to anxiety and they will not finish anything.

Jesper (44m 11s):
They start. So if you've ever sort of experienced the person who talks about doing the laundry forever, but never do it well now, you know why? So it's sometimes it's the simple act of making a decision that can feel completely overwhelming when the number nine is at their worst. So it's hell when you simultaneously are trying to please yourself and others at the same time. So what if you are at the library and you want to take a book out, but then you start wondering, but what if somebody else also wants to read this book, then I can't take it.

Jesper (44m 52s):
No, no, I, but I really want to read this. I should take a note now, but I can't. So it's just,

Autumn (44m 57s):
You shouldn't making is horrible and tormenting to, this is like, what do you want for dinner? But what do you want? What we'll have whatever you want, but I want to know what you want. It just, she would never kid anywhere. That's horrible. Oh, I might know one or two of these in my life. I have to admit, I think they're on the mild side.

Jesper (45m 19s):
If, if we think enough about it, we probably most, we probably know most of these in somebody that we know. Yeah,

Autumn (45m 25s):
Absolutely. At least parts of them,

Jesper (45m 28s):
Of course. Throughout my nine examples. Yeah. I'm also exaggerating and put it sort of on edge right on purpose. But, but I think it, it, it shows quite well how they are all very different.

Autumn (45m 41s):
And I think that we, when it comes down to, for choosing one as a character, in a novel, you do have to kind of push it and emphasize it. That'd be, that's sort of all of our writing fantasy and fiction writing was we are, it's all ramped up a little bit. It's not real life you're were kind of pushing everyone to their limits constantly. So that's fair. I think our examples are very fair.

Jesper (46m 4s):
Right. So did any of these, some sort of stick out to you? Do you know which one you want?

Autumn (46m 9s):
Well, I know. And it's funny. Cause I do see, like I mentioned, when I took the test, I ranked almost all of mine are within points of each other. It's like one point difference for the top four. And I don't know if that's common, but they basically had to said, you know, you were probably one of these three. So I thought that was funny and I do on certain days and depending on it, cause I, I am left brain, right brain. So I am creative, but I'm also scientific at the same time. So I'm organized as well as chaos.

Autumn (46m 41s):
So I do, I do, depending on if I'm currently, like if I'm working on formatting, I'm definitely more one way. And if I'm doing something far more creative, like drawing, I'm more the other way. But my top one, which surprises me looking at it now, because I think I must have taken this when I was formatting something. Was it an achiever was my top one and it was achiever investigator were tied and then I was also a peacemaker. So I think those are valid, but I think I stream between all three of them possibly daily, but definitely weekly.

Autumn (47m 17s):
But yes, there are definitely times I see a little bit of myself in a lot of them.

Jesper (47m 23s):
Well, yeah, that's also, I mean, again, we don't need to get into for fiction writing about wings and whatnot, but quite normal that if you take the test that depending on the situation you're in right now, you might be sort of editing more to one of your wings rather than the one you actually are. So, so it depends, it depends on the situation you were in when you're taking the tests as well.

Autumn (47m 46s):
Absolutely. Yeah. Like I said, it, your mindset, there's so many things I've been going on your life and could be pushing you one way or another. And you're relying on one of those other traits that you have instead of, you've probably had to take it a few times and see which one kind of keeps popping up towards the top.

Jesper (48m 3s):
Yeah. I mean, in the end, the gram, the idea is that you are one of these, you're not several of them, but, but you can sort of borrow from one or the other times, depending on which life situation you were in. And some of them borrow more from others than, than then again than others do. So. Yeah.

Autumn (48m 21s):
Yeah. And I think, yeah,

Jesper (48m 24s):
A large portion of it that you can take the test to try to figure out which one you are. But a lot of it is also just about reading about the personality types of sort of feel within yourself. Which one do you feel most aligned with that will usually give you the best answer?

Autumn (48m 41s):
I think so too. And you'll get, and you'll see aspects of, like you said, with the wings and other things I would say, cause I like the peacemaker one, but I am far more decisive. So I know that it's definitely lower on the list. So the investigator, or maybe the achiever are probably pretty legit for me. How about you? What do you think you are? I'm number eight. You are yeah. A challenger that's isn't that what it was? Yes, that's correct.

Autumn (49m 10s):
Oh, I see. I guess that that's interesting. Now I must think about this for awhile. So that's very cool.

Jesper (49m 24s):
Yeah. So I think this whole Instagram stuff is very, very interesting. So we'll put a link in the show notes to the Instagram as a whole. So you can go to the website and read more about it. If you're interesting, even outside of fiction writing, I, I do find it very, very interesting.

Autumn (49m 43s):
It's so fascinating to wonder why people tick. I think all good writers, all people who get into character development end up being psychologists to some little degree, we kind of have this stuff and yes. And plus in the show notes too, we will put in a link to the plotting book, which we currently have on preorder where we go over, how to use these anagrams to create characters like we've been talking about today,

Jesper (50m 8s):
Correct? Yeah. And in the plotting bogus, well, we have actively listed out all the steps between the very healthy one and a very unhealthy one. And basically that's how you can use the, to develop the character arc. So you can sort of slide the couch in and say, okay, they are at this level. And then by the end of this book or the final book in the trilogy or whatever it may be, I want them at that level. And then of course you can slide them up or down depending on what you want them and what, where the story takes them. But by using those steps that we have listed in plotting book, it becomes very, very easy for you to understand how to slide them up and down, where will they end at the end of their arc from a personality point of view.

Jesper (50m 50s):
And yeah, you'll have to read it in the plotting book itself, but I can promise you some of the worst cases for some of these really, really, really bad, bad, you can definitely put some characters into some very dark places, which is great for an insane villain. Yeah. But also you can also stop the character out on a very low level and then move them upward. So that by the end of the series, they've become a much, much better version of themselves. So that's also cool. Very cool. Yeah.

Jesper (51m 20s):
So we'll add a link to that as well as autumn set in the show notes. It is on preorder when you're listening to this, but once we reached the 3rd of August and that's 2020, if you're listening to this later, but the 3rd of August, 2020, the price of that book will go up. In fact, it will double. So if you're interested, I recommend that you go and purchase the preorder right now, as long as you can get it for half price. So yeah, there is a link in the show notes there sounds good.

Jesper (51m 53s):
Okay. So we hope you enjoy today's episode next Monday. And if all goes well there, I will have a very interesting interview lined up for you.

Narrator (52m 5s):
If you like, what you just heard. There's a few things you can do to support the am writing fantasy podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join autumn and Yesper on patrion.com/and writing fantasy for as little as a dollar a month, you'll get awesome rewards and keep the M writing fantasy podcast going, stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 81 – How do You Plan and Write a Series?

The idea for today's podcast episode initially came from a Patreon supporter, who wanted to know what the ideal time is to start writing sequels when working on a series.

In episode 81 of the Am Writing Fantasy podcast, Autumn and Jesper have an in-depth discussion about, not only how to plan a series, but also what the author need to be mindful about during the actual writing.

Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday.

SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST!

Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review.

Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy. For as little as a dollar a month, you’ll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going.

Read the full transcript below. (Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion).

Narrator (1s):
You're listening to the am. Writing fantasy podcast in today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need a literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing. Join two best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them now onto the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt, and Jesper Schmidt.

Jesper (30s):
Hello, I am Jesper

Autumn (31s):
and I'm Autumn.

Jesper (33s):
This is episode 80, one of the am writing fantasy podcast. And today's episode is actually a suggestion from one of our support us on patron. I always set what is the ideal time to write SQLs when working on a series? So we quite found this quite interesting question, and we decided to turn it into a full episode. However, we did decide to rephrase the question slightly. So we rephrased it into this.

Jesper (1m 5s):
How do you plan and write a series? So that's what we're going to talk about today. I think it was a great topic because I mean, fantasy, everyone loves a good series, but yeah, it's an interesting, you know, figuring out when do you need to write the whole series? How much do you plot the whole series? How do you figure it out and want to release books and how all that happened? So I think it'll be a good episode, hopefully. So yes, that's the plan at least how we usually succeed in our plan.

Jesper (1m 36s):
So I'm sure we'll get there, but for now, I mean, gosh, we haven't talked for almost a, for a week. So how are things over on your side of the Atlantic? No, it's pretty good over here. I must say to them, I sort of have my I'm like a trail doc with the notes in the trail or whatever you, however you say that properly. But my main focus is just getting everything done for a moment before summer holidays comes around. So I must admit that it's quite busy at the moment.

Jesper (2m 7s):
I'm getting the self publishing success course recorded, but I'm halfway through it at one that so impressed with how well you get your half the courses done. It's amazing. So yeah, you're going to have that one ready. I think you'll make it, you'll get it done before you end up going on vacation and yes, I, you are totally burning the candle at both ends. How's that? Yeah, I'm thinking I can last for a couple of weeks burning in both ends of the handle here without collapsing, but I'll probably need the rest.

Jesper (2m 41s):
Once a summer holidays comes up because it's not only the self publishing success. Cause we also preparing to launch our fantasy writing course by the end of August, just because we're even more insane because you know, why not? We also, we also the middle of launching three nonfiction books all at once.

Autumn (3m 3s):
Oh, it's crazy. Yes. I mean I'm elbow deep in adding images and formatting those books. So I think we're totally insane, but I'm so excited to see all of this happening. We said this was going to be a big year and not just because of pandemics and riots and protests. We're hoping for it to be a big year for us too, with courses and books and exciting things that will hopefully help out other writers and authors. So I think we're doing well.

Jesper (3m 33s):
Yeah. The idea is basically by the end of this year, we sort of want to have all these, these elements in place so that we're ready for next year where we want to focus on fiction writing. So we have all the nonfiction parts and all the course parts and all the author business services and all this stuff. We want to get that done before we get to the end of this year, end of 2020. So that we're basically ready to shift our focus a bit next year, but well, I'm actually, I have to say I'm really pleased at all the three nonfiction books that's so that's the plodding book, the workbook that goes with the plotting book and the getting story ideas and creating a story premise book, all three of them have actually earned the number one new release tack on Amazon for their respective categories.

Jesper (4m 21s):
So that's pretty damn cool.

Autumn (4m 22s):
Yeah. Celebrate, waving the sparklers. I was very so excited to all three of them, which I'm going to say, if anyone wants to know Yesper is in charge of, you know, managing the categories and the Amazon ads and that's all I own, but I'm so excited. It was fantastic to see those little orange tags come up.

Jesper (4m 41s):
Yeah. Especially if all three of them,

Autumn (4m 43s):
I thought that was pretty cool. That's was a full study.

Jesper (4m 46s):
Yeah, indeed. But an actually to be honest, it's not that hard to do, but we will explain how to do that in the self publishing success course that once that comes out for free later this year, so, and it it's, it's not that hard to do so it's nice with those orange tax day on Amazon, number one, new release. That that's really cool, but to be honest, as long as you know what you're doing, we probably only earned $10 royalties for that,

Autumn (5m 12s):
But we have the tag. So that's awesome. And yeah. Talk about proofing concept. I think people should be very excited about this course because it really works.

Jesper (5m 23s):
It does work for sure. But how are things are with you?

Autumn (5m 27s):
Oh, it's good. We're in a, we're in, I don't know if I've ever mentioned this, but I'm definitely not a hot weather type of girl. And so I like the coal and I like the North and summer is tough, but we just, we went through a humidity so thick that it felt like you were breathing under water, finally got cleared off and we're in like barely 72 degree days. So it's like, you know, you kind of want to fleece on, it's just gorgeous, gorgeous, low humidity. I just signed me up for a lifetime of this. And so when I hit weather, I also hit my work prove.

Autumn (5m 60s):
And so I'm just plowing through a lot of work and it's good. I've got some graphics, I've got beautiful weather. My garden's doing well. I'm working on books, writing just a little bit on this side, just because Hey or writers, which is what I was actually going to say about half. The reason why we want to get our platform done for him writing fantasy is because we're writers we would have. Right. So we're so excited about these books that we've been plotting

Jesper (6m 26s):
Really want to get back to fiction writing.

Autumn (6m 28s):
Yeah. So it's good. Things are, you know, this week is a good week. World is in chaos, but I, I still remember my leadership course from my old full time job. And we read the seven steps of highly effective people, which was an interesting book, right? Yes. I love that. And I come back to that idea when you feel overwhelmed to work inside your sphere of influence. So I am working very hard in my sphere of influence to make sure that the sub positive positivity and productivity around me and, and occasionally taking a little bit of time off for maybe some self care and sitting on the porch and drinking some tea.

Jesper (7m 7s):
Yeah. I think I read that book first, the first time when I was in my early twenties, nice time. And it was like, yeah. And when I read it, it was like, wow, I read a press like complete eye-opener. It was like, wow, I never thought about things this way. It was like, it's amazing. It is a good book. I love that book on the internet with the yam writing fantasy podcast. So over the weekend I noticed a conversation going on in the am, writing fantasy Facebook group.

Jesper (7m 43s):
And well, I guess before I get into that, I have to say that I appreciate all the different points of view and also the willingness in the group to respect other people's opinions, because there were certainly some different opinions in that conversation there. But anyway, the conversation was about using a story structure on not using a story.

Autumn (8m 5s):
Interesting. I missed that one and I was even in the group a couple of times this weekend. Yeah.

Jesper (8m 11s):
That, well, it was sort of, it started in one place and then it, throughout the comments, there was probably like 40 comments on that one. And then down, down the road, somewhere there in the comments, it started, they started debating whether or not a story should have, you should follow a story structure or not. And on one hand, some said that they didn't want to read something for Blake and others then said that it's not about creating something formulaic, but rather how to apply a structure to a story, to, you know, study writing and understanding how stories work.

Jesper (8m 47s):
And I thought that was pretty interesting.

Autumn (8m 49s):
That is a good conversation. I will have to go look for that one. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,

Jesper (8m 56s):
Since we've written an entire guide on how to plot a novel, it's really no secret where we stand in this conversation. No, I decided not to pitch in there in the comment section, but a it's I think it's pretty clear what our view is that stories that work to follow a structure and that there's nothing about being formulaic or anything. We do explain why in the plodding book on why we think this way. So I'm not gonna labor that here. But my main point, I guess, is just to acknowledge that I like to see how the Facebook group is able to have constructive conversations when there are different points of view or disagreements.

Jesper (9m 35s):
I, I really think that was nice to see. Yeah.

Autumn (9m 37s):
Yes, there was. I did notice recently, I mean, there was a few people talking about how and why they like the group and how very supportive and people were, you know, open to different interpretations. We're very honest with each other and very kind with each other. And they compared it to other groups that seem to be dominated by just a couple of individuals and how much am writing fantasy isn't that way. And I just really, it was hard not to chime in there and say, thank you, but just let it then go on.

Autumn (10m 7s):
It'd be like, yeah, I think this group is pretty fantastic too. So I think that is there do a wonderful job of being nice and supportive, but also being good critique partners and helping each other out. So it's a really wonderful group. Know what I thought? Because go ahead. Okay.

Jesper (10m 26s):
No, yeah. I was just about to say, because honestly it's not that easy, you know, especially, especially when you're thinking about anything on the internet, you know, a Facebook group, or it could also be common sections on YouTube or whatever, but when people can behind, they can hide behind the screen and behind the keyboard and you don't have to sit there in front of somebody and tell them the same thing to their face. It is so easy to be the let's call it nasty commandant. Who's very opinionated about everything and thinks that, you know, the best and those kinds of people it's so easy to do.

Jesper (11m 3s):
And, and I think sometimes it's not because those people want to be nasty or anything. It just comes across differently when for one, you hide behind your screen. And secondly, when you're writing and you cannot hear the person's tone of voice or see the expression, it just in writing in general, I can also see it from a day job perspective. You know, when you get emails about something that's very different when they call you something. So I just think that this whole conversation that was going on there, there was definitely different opinions in there, but it never turned nasty.

Jesper (11m 38s):
And I really liked that. So I just wanted to do a shout out to every group members and they I'm writing fantasy Facebook group and say, well done everyone, you know, keep the conversation going because we can all learn from one another. And I think that's important. And the group is just,

Autumn (11m 54s):
Just awesome. So big shout out to them because they're, it's really a dynamic group. I'm not even a Facebook fan, but I absolutely love, I love the group. So that says something to me. I mean, either

Jesper (12m 7s):
If I didn't have to, if we didn't have the Facebook group and I didn't have to run some ads for us on Facebook, I would definitely on the stall it for me.

Autumn (12m 16s):
Yeah. We're in the same boat. They're the things we do just to, you know, because we're writers. What I thought was interesting. So I did some research and then I, we just got a nice email from James Brown, who is one of our new Patrion members, but he was actually emailing back regarding our newsletter. We send out to people who join our list or pick up one of our things like the starter kit or the global download. And I thought it was neat because it actually spawned something in me that I had thought of ages ago and just remembered.

Autumn (12m 47s):
And that was that we send out a newsletter with like really good writing tips that almost invariably, whenever one of them goes out, we hear back from at least a handful of people. Somebody says, Oh my gosh, thank you. This came at the perfect timing. Just like James just said. And I was thinking of all the writerly things that I'm involved in and even non readily. I mean, I'm into like what travel and bushcraft and all this other stuff that I got going on in my life. None of them, once you sign up for something or do a course, they all Peter out and maybe you'll hear from them when they're doing affiliate marketing for someone else.

Autumn (13m 21s):
But we don't do that. We have this newsletter that goes out every three weeks or so with really good tips. And it just keeps, we keep adding to it and adding to it. And I don't know anyone else who does that. So I wanted to give us a big Pat on the back and say, this is really cool. I don't know anyone else who keeps delivering this to people and trying to be helpful, no matter, cause you signed up for a free something like five years ago, we're still trying to give you helpful tips. And I also think it's cool because you know, it's something people can sign up for and just gone to, but I realized today that there's no easy way of getting it unless you pick up something free.

Autumn (14m 2s):
So I know we've talked about fixing up our website, I'm thinking, you know, we have to find a way of like, just, just subscribe to the I'm writing fantasy email list. Didn't get tips. But right now, if you want to get these awesome tips, you have to go and like pick up a free writing course, like the starter kits. So that's always there though, if anyone's interested.

Jesper (14m 26s):
Okay. You know, actually I was thinking that the best place to start is probably to just talk about how do you even decide if a series is the right choice for the story that you want to tell. That is one thing is that we're going to talk about writing and series and how to do that. But before you eat, you can even get to that pot. It is relevant to question the story you want to write. Is that supposed to be a series? You know, is that a good match?

Autumn (14m 56s):
Yes. I feel like channeling our old AI, old Mick grumpy. I just feel this need to bring him back to life.

Jesper (15m 3s):
Oh, I forgot about it.

Autumn (15m 6s):
He was the best devil's advocate. And I feel that urge within me to be the devil's advocate and just say it's fantasy. Of course it's a series. The,

Jesper (15m 16s):
If anybody doesn't know what autumn is talking about, trying to go to the am, riding fences, YouTube channel and what some of the older videos, and then you'll you'll understand what she's doing.

Autumn (15m 26s):
Believe it or not the first podcast, because I recently added the transcripts and he is in the first, like first 10, 15 podcasts. So if you go back there, you will actually hear old Grumpy's voice and his salty sarcastic was done.

Jesper (15m 43s):
Yeah. I think from a business standpoint, at least, and we talked about this before, but from an orthopedic standpoint, it makes most financial sense to write in a series. But I think you could find some arguing where not all stories and, or I guess characters are suited for a series, not all the time, necessarily the autos books that just works well as standalones as well.

Autumn (16m 12s):
I totally agree. There is definitely some books. I'd be nice, still playing with. I love trilogies. I've got two Epic fantasy trilogies, but I have this idea for this other story. And my initial instinct was, Oh, trilogy. But I keep looking at it going, I don't know if there's more than one book in there. So there is, you know, I could feel a gut instinct kicking in, but there's definitely ways of doing this as much more concrete as step by step then saying how much material, how much does my character change?

Autumn (16m 44s):
Is there enough action to make this last for three books? Is it two books? Is it seven books what's going to happen here?

Jesper (16m 52s):
Yeah. And it also comes down to how much you're putting at stake, but also the actual, what should we call it? Environment in which the book takes place. For example, you know, if you have like somebody trapped in a snowstorm or whatever, right, right. That's going to be difficult to sustain for series for three books.

Autumn (17m 17s):
No, I agree. And I think that's where you get into looking at, I'm sure we're going, we're moving in this direction. But if you look at themes or your, what your premise is going to be for the story versus your series has a premise. So this, if your premise is the dire events that happen when so and so is trapped in a snowstorm and such, and they're running out of food, that's a good premise. But how can you break that down into three separate, equally exciting ones that would each be an entire novel, even if it was only 50,000 words, but when we're talking about fantasy, so we're talking about 80 to 110, 120,000 words, those are big books.

Jesper (18m 4s):
Absolutely. So I think step number one here in this whole conversation is to say, is this story I want to tell, suited for series, but for the sake of not having to stop this or already now, I think we have to, we have to assume for now that this is the case that you want to write the series, otherwise this whole episode won't be,

Autumn (18m 30s):
But I think that's a good step. One is you've got to look at the idea and say, you know, like I said, so you come up with this idea of being lost in a snowstorm. So, okay. Maybe is it the entire world is, you know, North of the wall and you're stuck in snow or ideally you're developing and you're expanding your timeline, your timeframe. So maybe you can make a whole series about a snowy Hoth like world and be able to make this really dredge out. Or you're going to have to revisit your idea until you can break down the big idea into three separate little ideas that kind of fit into it.

Autumn (19m 9s):
So let's say we're there. And so we're going to move on to the real question is how do you go about plotting this? And when do you start writing the sequels and how does that all work out once you decide that this really is going to be a series?

Jesper (19m 26s):
Yeah. And I could, I think we actually talked about this in a past episode, but I could just reiterate here once again, what our process is just for the sake of completeness here. And just in case somebody can't remember what we said in there. I don't remember if it was last week or a couple of weeks ago, but I do remember saying this before, but let me just repeat it here then. So when we are creating a new series, we start out by creating a premise description for the entire series and how to do that is exactly, is explained in that brand new book on how to get story ideas.

Jesper (20m 6s):
So just check that one out. It only costs a couple of dollars, so everybody can manage that. I think. So I'm not going to go into how to develop the premise here, but basically we create a premise for the entire series. And then once we have that, then we use that as sort of the guiding star so that we know, okay, this is the, this is what the entire series is going to be about and what's this going to encompass? And then we basically break that one down into a premise for each of the books in the series.

Jesper (20m 43s):
And in that way, we start to understand how are we going to deliver on that guiding star? Absolutely. So we don't, we don't do any detailed plotting for this. So these, these premises are just short descriptions. It's probably a couple of sentences.

Autumn (20m 58s):
Yeah. Very high level. I think the most high level, maybe a paragraph, but yeah, you can get away with like two sentences, even for the series theme. It's not overly complicated. I mean, an example from my second trilogy is the series whole premise was one culture was trying to undo a punishment created by having lost an ancient battle. That was enough. Obviously there's a lot in there. You can mine out to separate what happens in each of the three books to fulfill this premise.

Jesper (21m 32s):
Yeah, absolutely. And, and I think the danger here is once you feel compelled to stop putting in all those details in already at the beginning stage issue, you know, so we purposely make sure that we only plot the first book or the current book that we're working on. So if we're done with the first book, then obviously we move on to book number two and so forth. But we are only doing the plot for the actual book that we are working on. And then we just leave all the rest with only the premises set.

Jesper (22m 6s):
Because even though in our case, for example, we plot in quite a lot of detail. We are very focused on all the small nuances in the plot before we even start writing. But even though we do that, there's still gonna be a few things here and there that pops up during the writing of the first draft that isn't in the plot. So we don't want to waste efforts and we don't want to waste time. We want to be as efficient as we can.

Jesper (22m 37s):
So hence starting to put in a lot of detailed plots on book two, three, four, five, et cetera, once we're still on one, on one, it's just going to be a waste of time because we have to correct all of it afterwards. Yeah,

Autumn (22m 50s):
I think I like to put it. So I like to, when I first did my first series of what I was writing alone, I would maybe work out like put in the seven steps of story structure, going back to the beginning of this episode, when we kind of hinted, we like structure. I used the seven steps all the time, even in my personal writing. And maybe I would take the premise and I would put in the seven steps and I'd make sure that those are filled out pretty concretely for book one. And I might have them outline in two and three.

Autumn (23m 20s):
I might have an idea of which character is that book going to be based on because that's typically how I often wrote. I would have I juggle a ton of characters and that's just what I known for in my personal or fantasy writing. So I would often pull out as different characters as the main character for the SQL, the next book or the next book. And so I have some ideas of the things that, that one's some big things, what the inciting incident is, what the climax is maybe one or two small hurdles, but it would be, as I wrote book one, I would say, Oh, this is going to be the thing that's gonna, they're going to have to face that in book two, or they're going to face that in book three.

Autumn (24m 1s):
And I just go run over to the, a where I have that in Scrivener and saved and I would drop it into the plotting note. So I wouldn't forget. And I could go back and look it up later, right. When I needed it, like when I'm working on the plot. So, but it stayed very high level and it changed, it was much more fluid. You didn't spend days and days and days or weeks or months trying to work out these detailed plots when, you know, just having to me having those files at least organized saying, Oh, I know I'm going to put this here. I'm going to put it there.

Autumn (24m 32s):
That was enough that I could move forward, knowing that it's going to be three books. I could name the books. I could brand the books. Heck I could do the covers for the books even, and go ahead and even promote that it's going to be a trilogy, link them all together, but I could just be writing book one, which is pretty cool.

Jesper (24m 52s):
Yeah. And even beyond that, I would say for our first joint fiction book that we talked about, that we're going to do next year when we were doing the plotting for that one, not even haven't gotten advice to write anything at all, but when we're just doing the plotting of it, it happened several times that I thought of something like, Oh, okay, maybe we should do this in a later book then. So I now have a word file would probably like 30 items in it.

Jesper (25m 23s):
It just says in some later book, and then I have a sentence or two saying something that could have, I have no idea if it's two or book five, but it's just some ideas that I have sort of once we then start plotting book, number two, I can, we can go to that file and pull it back out and see, okay, is there anything in this list that actually fits in here? Maybe some of it is never going to fit in anywhere. That's also okay. It's just ideas. Right. But it's, it's nice. It's nice to have sort of it, at least for me.

Jesper (25m 53s):
And I think this is not unique to me at all. I think it happens to most writers, but once you get into the narrative and the story of it, whether that could be just the plodding, if you plot in detail like we do, or the actual writing, but it will spark new ideas. You will start thinking about things that, Oh yeah. And then I can do this and I can do that. And it's just so good to just pack them in that placeholder file and just let her sit there and then come back to it later. So it doesn't derail it.

Autumn (26m 20s):
You hear now. Yes. That's a very good way of doing it and saving them is so important. Cause I think, I mean, especially, especially if you had something that does happen that you're like, this is going to be perfect for having ramifications later. You don't want to have to reread your own book or you don't want to forget about it. I'll leave this thread. That's going to drive you and readers insane. It's nice to have a place to park that, like you said, and, and pick it up. That is funny though, because we've sort of answered the original question from Irish, which was sort of, when do you start writing the sequels?

Autumn (26m 52s):
If you're writing, if you are writing a trilogy and basically were saying that, you know, as you're going through this, your plotting one book at a time you're saving your ideas into the, for the other books and delete these files. You're basically writing one book at a time. So you finish one and then you go to the next one. And you plot that though. I have to admit if when I was really fired up and really just chugging out these books, I would probably get about three quarters of the way through book one.

Autumn (27m 22s):
And then I would start, I'd feel confident enough that I could start plotting book two, but not writing. I have finished book one or at least I think it was book two and started book three the exact same day. I mean, I don't think I even took a breath. I'm like, Oh, I did that finished book. I'm not even the next one. I've got to go and tell Facebook, I'm not going to tell anyone I'm I just had the idea for the first scene. So I kept writing, but I write them back to back. Even though I have written books, multiple books at the same time, I think we've talked about that in a different episode.

Autumn (27m 54s):
So I've written two books at once, but never in the same series because too many things can change. And if you started too soon, you're going to be kicking yourself because you're not going to be adding detail and you're going to have to go back and edit pretty heavily.

Jesper (28m 8s):
Yeah. Speaking of editing her heavily and having major headaches and whatnot, the whole point that we've sort of touched upon a few times by now the whole point about story structure really becomes important when we're dealing with series. If you're just writing a standalone single book, you can more easily adjust as you go. You know, for those who more rely more heavily on their intuition for story creation, that can work to some extent when you're doing a single book, but once you start juggling three, four or five, six books, if you don't have a proper story structure and you know, you have the arc plotted out, you know, the character arcs as well, where the, where things are going, going to change.

Jesper (28m 56s):
So to speak over time, you're gonna have so much to do in editing that it, Oh my God, I can't even imagine the headaches.

Autumn (29m 7s):
I still remember my first book by debut work. And when I discovered story structure, cause I think I got lost at chapter three. I might've made it up to chapter nine before I really threw in the talents that I need to go back and figure out what I'm doing and learn plotting. But it's just, that was, you know, that wasn't even a third of that book. That was a huge book. And so, yeah, I, I can't imagine trying to do that and understand where the character is coming in and their character arc is making them change.

Autumn (29m 38s):
And that is affecting the plot. And the plot is affecting the character arc in that bundle of things. It becomes this giant ball of tension that explodes into the climax. And plus you have to add the villains arc and or the antagonist. However you want to put it in. All of that is coming together in this spiraling, twisting DNA, strand of synergy, doing that and doing it powerfully so that you have a really well connected and dynamic trilogy or series. If I can find someone who can do that off the top of their head and hasn't written like 30 books, I would just be so astounded because I can't imagine knowing it, maybe someone's a subtle writer and they just could do it out of instinct.

Autumn (30m 22s):
But man, not me.

Jesper (30m 24s):
No. Well, I'll, I'll, I'll make a bold claim here. I will say that if anybody says that they can do that, I do not believe it. I don't care how, how a claim. They, I don't care if they're Stephen King. I do not believe it. What I would do believe is that they can, they can write the books, but they will spend a ton of time editing it to make it make sense. And the progression is just right from one book to the next, et cetera. Nobody is able to do this intuitively without any structure in place or if they do, then they've just decided that, okay, I'm just going to write it and then I will make sure it all makes sense afterwards.

Jesper (30m 60s):
And then you, you spent just as smart, just as much time or even more during the editing, which is own, that's absolutely fine. You can do it however you want. I just feel like I would rather spend a bit more time plotting upfront. So I don't have to redo work that I hate redoing work. So once I've written the first draft, rather move straight into editing it so that it sounds nice, but the whole story is there. The arc is there on the character arcs and the story progression is already there because also when, when we are talking about these character arcs, if you have a six book series, the changes in the character should have happen incremental throughout with each book.

Jesper (31m 43s):
It shouldn't be so that in book number six, you can see that the author, all of a sudden figured out, Oh, I heard somebody said something on a podcast once about character six, all of a sudden the character changes and everything happens in one book because I just remembered now that before I finished the series, I should also have a character arc where the character changes. That's not how it works and that can be difficult to handle again, unless you want to do the whole thing in editing, be my guest, but I wouldn't, but who it can be difficult to do unless you know where you're heading.

Jesper (32m 22s):
And you, you have a firm understanding like, like it was discussed in that Facebook thread that we talked about a bit earlier, right? We're saying that it's important to study writing and understand the structures of stories. And I do firmly believe that that's true because if you understand how structures works in a story, how character ox works, then you will be able to embed it into your series. And you just, again, gonna save yourself so much headache,

Autumn (32m 52s):
You will, and you will help improve your plotting. You'll know how you're going. And it's funny while we were talking about this, all only thing that popped in my mind was so you think George RR Martin is a plotter. I answered my own question because book seven is still not finished or released. And he managed to give the information to the filming agency so that they could create their own script and create their own using his framework and what he planned to happen to create the final episode.

Autumn (33m 23s):
So there you go. So George RR Martin, that's the only way to handle the, what 150 named characters plus how many others that he's got going on in those books. So yeah, it shows, I think a level of, I wouldn't even call it professionalism, but it's a level of understanding the depth of storytelling, that if you want to have something that's really layered and impactful and full attention, and you have your characters shifting and changing, and that fits the plots, what happens?

Autumn (33m 54s):
It doesn't just happen because you need it to happen then because you know, you needed your character to change, but that the plot has wrangled them and massage them enough that the changes reflected and make sense. So that readers are surprised, but also understand that doesn't happen unless you've sat down and thought about it quite a lot. And that comes with plotting. And when you're going to do that over the course of several books, I mean me, like with all my characters, I like to actually have characters who have arcs that. I mean, the one that is tied to that book, they have a character arc that ends, begins and ends in that book.

Autumn (34m 29s):
But then they go on to the next book and they could have a character arc that spans two books. But because they're not tied to the plot is tightly. And all of that with you're juggling like six source. So I'm not going to admit how many characters are in my six book series and keeping readers and grossed and keeping everyone straight. You don't do that unless you have it written out, you have that framework in place.

Jesper (34m 58s):
Yeah. The other thing is all also that it's important that each book is interesting on its own. It shouldn't be. So that the, for example, if you have a trilogy then book number one, that's usually exciting, right? Because then everything is starting out on, Whoa, this is, this is a new adventure and yeah, everybody loves it. And the third book is also very exciting because we get to the final battle. There is the climax of the entire story.

Jesper (35m 28s):
Everything is nice and dandy as well. And then book number two, there is just like a placeholder sitting in between there, right? And that doesn't work, you know? And again, the, if you can embed every single book in the series with story structure, then each of them will also be an interesting read on their own. And they have to be, it has to, they have to have their own conflicts as well. It can't be just like, yeah, this is then the middle of book where it's all about them traveling halfway across the countries.

Jesper (35m 60s):
And then they have, there's a few via places talks throughout, but that's it, you know, nobody wants to read this.

Autumn (36m 6s):
You don't want to see that inverse bell curve in the tension graph where it's like, Brooklyn's exciting too is like, Oh, why did I bother picking this up? Just picking up book three. Cause I'm hoping it's exciting again. No, it really should be an escalation where you're getting more and more exciting. We're booked to is more intense. And I mean, I know I've seen readers say that on some of my books that it's like, I rarely read a second book that you know is better than the first, but that's what you want readers to be saying. They went to say, Oh my gosh.

Autumn (36m 38s):
I mean, I have a, between book two and three, I have a hundred percent through rate because they're tied so tightly. And you just have to know, but at the same time, the story that starts in each book, book one as its own premise and it begins and ends in book one book two has a premise and it begins and ends in book two. And the same thing with book three, but they're all tied together by this bridge of this premise. That is the serious premise that if you can do that and you can create this tightly knit series where each book is standalone, but equally actually even more exciting than the one previously.

Autumn (37m 15s):
Oh, just readers adore it. And I have to admit when I was a teenager or when I found books like that. Oh, well, that's why I write them now. Isn't it? Because that's what you get so engrossed in as like homework, no food, no, I'm just reading this. I don't care. It's 3:00 AM. And I have a test in chemistry in the morning. I am doing this and that's, that's exciting and that's what you want to do. And this is what you want to find as a reader. And that's what you want to write as a writer.

Jesper (37m 40s):
Yeah. And I just thought about when you said that actually in fantasy, I feel like with, with a series, we really need to be a bit careful with the overpowered characters as well. That's very serious. That really becomes a problem sometimes in some stories where it's just like, well, okay, honestly I gave up at book number six in the wheel of time series, but, but the main character there rant, he's, he's becoming like this Superman kind of thing, you know?

Jesper (38m 15s):
And I mean, some people enjoy that. That's fine. But I just feel like you need to be careful with overpowering the characters as you progress through the series. Because if you get to a stage where the reader basically knows that nothing can beat this person, then it takes out a lot of tension of the story. You have to keep reader right down the balance where they're not quite sure if this guy's going to make it or not. Right. That's why you want to keep them. But if it's like God like powers and you're immortal almost or whatever then I mean, okay.

Jesper (38m 50s):
Of course, of course there's also interesting stories about vampires who I modeled and stuff like that. But then you have to come up with some, some other threats that really, you know, I love and one of Anne Rice's books where the, I guess it's listed, but I think it is, but he is so powerful once you get far enough into those books. But at some point he wants to feel what it's like being a human again. So he actually finds, I can't remember if it's like a Sharman or something, but there's some magic involved and somebody is able to take your body and your shift buddy with somebody else.

Jesper (39m 28s):
And then he does that. Yeah.

Autumn (39m 30s):
Yes. I remember that. Yeah.

Jesper (39m 32s):
It's just so amazing that story, because he wants to get back in his vampire body. But what if this guy just don't want to shift back because now he has the vampire body and he's a million times stronger than let's that isn't in human body. Right. So he can do nothing. So it, the entire story is really why, how he's he comes up with a plan on how to trick this person so he can get back into his vampire body. And it's it's I like that, you know? So that kind of thing work. But my point is just that if you want to do something like that, if you do have really overpower characters, you have to work extremely hard at coming up with something that makes it in an intriguing read, because just throwing five dragons at him who cares, right.

Jesper (40m 18s):
I mean, he's a model,

Autumn (40m 19s):
Right? Yes. And I think that's such a great point because it does when serious lose that excitement and that tension because you just feel like, Oh, well the hero can handle it. I'm just reading it. Cause they're my best friend, but it's lost that flavor and that excitement. And it's a very easy to do as your character becomes, you know, the character art continues and they become so strong and proficient at their magic or whatever they can do. They're just fantastic heroes. And I mean, I still remember that even from dragon Lance, you know, the heroes become so great, but a lot of them kind of die off before they get to the point where you feel like they're immortal, they're facing mortality.

Autumn (40m 57s):
So you feel that. And I think that is a very such a valid point and something, I had a hard time with my first time out writing a series is it's so easy to make your characters get powerful, but then you are having to make sure that your antagonists, your villains are equally powerful. You have to make sure that they're still weaknesses. So I do think people, regionally writers when they're doing character arcs, think that, you know, the proficient becoming proficient in magic is important, but that doesn't have to mean that they have all powerful encompassing powers that, you know, they can still just, if they're a water elemental, they only control water.

Autumn (41m 33s):
You don't need to give them the control out of fire earth and air because, well, that's just getting crazy and then you can't defeat them and that's becoming, you know, you've got to keep it. You got to keep the weaknesses there as well as the strengths. And you have to show progression in possibly other ways than just power. Otherwise you're going to be writing yourself into a little box corner of, Oh, how do I, I'm going to have to bring out the gods at this point to create destroy this character. And that's not a character I planned on writing, but there you go.

Jesper (42m 5s):
Yeah. And I think apart from all this story's structure and character arcs and all this other stuff that is really about well said that the writing itself, I would want to just take a side step here and talk a bit about the writer, him or herself, if that's all right. Absolutely. Because I feel like apart from all the writing craft stuff that we basically is what we've been talking about for about, for like 25 minutes or so.

Jesper (42m 39s):
But the other thing that I really feel that can't be neglected is that you also have to ask yourself, can you commit to write a series? Because you know, writing one novel is a lot of work, but a series. Wow. You know, you're talking a whole new level of commitment here. So yeah, I think it's just worth mentioning that before you jump into the deep end of the pool here, I did, you know, I started out saying, okay, I'm just going to ride trilogy.

Jesper (43m 10s):
And I jumped straight into the deep end and it can work. I mean, I wrote the entire trilogy, so it's not that it can't work, but I'm just saying that maybe sometimes it's at least worth considering if you want to dip your toes into the water and maybe start off with a standalone or something first, just, you could still tie that standalone into the series. Maybe it's something that happens a hundred years before or after, or whatever you want to do. So that still ties together with the series in one way or another.

Jesper (43m 40s):
But I just feel like it's, it's worth considering if, if you can commit to that because it is a lot of work.

Autumn (43m 51s):
Yes. I think that's a fantastic point. Yeah. We, we both just dove right into trilogies on our first bet out, but

Jesper (43m 59s):
Yeah, but I think we've sorted out or concluded by now all these podcasts that we are in saving, listen to,

Autumn (44m 7s):
I I've told more than enough people that I'm definitely jumping into the fire, just so maybe you don't have to. So this is a fantastic word of warning that it's, it's a lot of work. I mean, that was three years. Plus I rewrote the first book a couple of times to learn what I was doing. So it was my debut. So that was like five years of my life. And then I went and wrote a second trilogy in the same world, but why not? I got a little bit, but we

Jesper (44m 32s):
Are a lot of work and it, there's nothing wrong with maybe coming up with a novella for seeing if you like the characters, like the world, make sure that you've really got it in you to keep going, because that's horrible to disappoint readers to write something that you're planning. You know, you leave all these loose ends and you get to the end of the book. And you're like, I really just don't want to write book two and three it's, you know, don't do that to readers. It's just, I, I try not to pick up series until I know they're complete because it's so painful otherwise.

Jesper (45m 3s):
And a lot of readers feel the same way. Yeah. That is absolutely true. And I think it's basically safe to conclude that maybe, well, two or three elements here, depending on how you look at it. One is the writer, him or herself. Can you commit to write an entire series because the demand and the work involved in that is, is a lot. So think about that. And then the second part, and I guess this could be two things or one thing. Yeah.

Jesper (45m 33s):
Depending on how we look at it, but understand plodding, understand story structure. Those two things are pretty important. And I know that there are a lot of people out there who don't want to plot and that's absolutely fine, but at least understand the whole line of thinking that we started out with about creating that premise per the series first and then per book below so that, you know, that overall, all this stuff, you know, it fits together and it's not just like a random book here and then something else happened over there.

Jesper (46m 10s):
And you know, that everything fits together before you start, that is incredibly important and it will really help you, even if you don't want to do all the detailed plodding and that stuff, that's fine. But, but at least put those guiding stars in place from the get go. Yes. I think that was a fantastic summary to this podcast. All right. So next Monday, it's all about character creation. We will explain how to use the integral types to create great characters for your novel.

Narrator (46m 44s):
If you like, what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support the am writing fantasy podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join Ottoman Yesper on patrion.com/and writing fantasy for as little as a dollar a month. You'll get awesome rewards and keep the M writing fantasy podcast going, stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 80 – Where to Find Story Ideas

It seems like some authors pull from a bottomless well of story ideas and others, well, it is a shallow and finicky spring. How do some authors generate so many ideas they woefully declare they'll never write them all?

Jesper and Autumn dive into ways of generating story ideas in this episode full of tips, practical advice, and even a few really good ideas!

Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday.

SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST! Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review.

Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy. For as little as a dollar a month, you’ll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going.

Pick up Story Ideas: A Method to Develop a Book Idea at https://books2read.com/StoryIdeas

Looking to get in touch with us? Email us using the form at https://www.amwritingfantasy.com/about/.

Read the full transcript below. (Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion).

Narrator (1s):
You're listening to The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast in today's publishing landscape. You can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need a literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from WRITING Join two best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them now onto the show with your hosts. Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt

Jesper (30s):
Hello. I am. Jesper.

Autumn (32s):
And I am Autumn.

Jesper (34s):
This is episode 80 of The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast Story Ideas some of the questions I often ask. Ah, how do I get Ideas? How do I turn the idea into something which can serve as a starting point for my novel? And how do I know if my idea is good enough? And I, I cannot promise that will answer all of those in full here now, but we will definitely try to tackle this topic about story ideas as best as we can. Yes.

Jesper (1m 3s):
I think some of those could be a topic and a half fall on their own. But if this is a fun one, I'm looking forward to this one because I'm definitely one of those people who I can almost always come up with an idea. So this will be a fun one to get to share some of that with people you have five. And I think about it it's Episode 88. Isn't that amazing? Exciting. It really is exciting. Seems it seems like we've just started this. It gets its been eight episodes, which is a special 80 weeks that Oh my God.

Jesper (1m 37s):
Yes. Now I feel old. I know I can't even, I can't even make the math on that. That's incredible. Well, yeah, I was gonna say, I could look up. I thought I knew how many weeks in a year pull. This is not worry about this stuff. We're not here for math. We're here to write notes to that, but we are getting closer to a hundred episodes. So I'm thinking we should do something special there. Maybe, maybe we could ask listeners' if they had any good ideas, if they do it in a place, the link in the shownotes where people can email us from.

Jesper (2m 11s):
And then the, if they have some good ideas about what they would like us to do four Episode number a hundred and then they can send us an email and give us some ideas. I think it should be something special. I think so too. And I think that's a fantastic idea to get some feedback, phone listeners, what they like to see it as a special 100th episode. It's only 20 episodes away. It is. Yes, indeed. And a, I was started thinking that maybe we could do it like a ask us anything you want Episode so that there could be an idea.

Jesper (2m 45s):
There could be an Idea. So that'd be again, if something to ask where you do it, if the listeners, if that's what you want you to have to be sending it in your, your questions. So that sounds good. Yeah, indeed. That's also why I want to get started a bit early on it here, because if that is what we are to do,

Autumn (3m 0s):
We need to build up enough questions. So if we need to remind people on going for a while to, to send us questions. So that's, but I dunno if, if that's something people want to do and maybe somebody will have a better idea, but yeah, like we'll put a link, have the show notes from where you can email it to us and then let us know if you have any good ideas or you can also just let us know. If you think ask us anything is a good idea as well, then that would be, that would be interesting. And you could here about the time where I had to put my hands on a fiber optic cable full of power.

Autumn (3m 38s):
Not knowing if it would kill me or not. So that's right. That's something you could ask me about it in that episode if you want. And I can tell you the story. Yeah,

Jesper (3m 46s):
That sounds interesting. I can certainly tell. So all of my stories of living on the road in an SUV while traveling across the country. So there's lots of stories I think we can share. I am curious about your fiber optic cable myself now. Obviously I'm still alive. So that's a good sign.

Autumn (4m 4s):
Yeah. That's a bit of a tell tale though is not a good story then, but well, I can tell the story if, if somebody's since an email they're and says we would like a QA and then yeah. Tell me to tell the story and I will, so you can ask us anything. That's an idea. I don't know if it's going to fly or not, but yeah. Let us know. At least

Jesper (4m 26s):
Sounds good. So otherwise, how are things on your side of the Atlantic? Well, it's a actually pretty

Autumn (4m 34s):
Good, good. I would say a, at the point of this recording, of course a we have pre-recording a bit, we really are trying to build up. The really Reese have enough Episode so that we have enough episode's in the bank before we go on summer holidays. So that means that we are right now recording in the beginning of June, even though you're going to listen to it later. And I said that because what I'm about to say, doesn't really make it be, makes sense when your listening to the, to do it in July. So, but I actually went to the cinema all over the weekend.

Jesper (5m 6s):
Oh yeah. That was wow. You were yeah,

Autumn (5m 10s):
Yeah, yeah. That the cinemas here has opened after COVID-19 again. So it was a bit weird being out and about like that again, but at the same time, it also sort of felt just normal almost at least. I mean, there was no self service in here with the popcorn and in the cinema, there was also an empty chair between you and EVERY stranger. But other, other than that, then it felt quite normal on the empty chair as an introvert. I'm pretty happy with that anyway.

Autumn (5m 40s):
So that's kind of, that was fine with me.

Jesper (5m 43s):
It was, I think I usually aim for that anyway. So that's good. Yeah,

Autumn (5m 46s):
Exactly. So now you have forced MTTR. That was quite a lot

Jesper (5m 51s):
And that's fantastic. Well, that's actually really cool to have some kind of normalicy back in the world. So I'm hoping when this is released, the world is more normal than even that. Yeah,

Autumn (6m 2s):
Yeah. That, that was why I'm prefacing the timing because it maybe, maybe going to the cinema we'll be, be perfectly normal or the fingers crossed or when you listen to this book or maybe it won't, I don't know, but, but thinking of opening up, back up society as well, I also received an email from the national soccer association. Yeah,

Jesper (6m 23s):
Yeah. They weren't asking me.

Autumn (6m 25s):
Yeah. They were asking me about my availability to two referees the matches on the side of some of the cases. So they, yeah,

Jesper (6m 32s):
It was pretty exciting. Excellent. That's sounds really exciting and will be good. Give it to get out there again.

Autumn (6m 38s):
Yeah. I'm looking so much for, with it. I mean, of course there will be some COVID-19 restrictions, so you know, no handshakes and I'm not supposed to touch the ball and stuff like that. So there'll be some special things we need to be mindful about. But other than that, we are opening back up. So we allow me to start playing matches again. So, but I don't know if to hit the national association has been a bit too optimistic because they have basically told, so it's like, it's supposed to start playing matches from next week. And then just two weeks following that and then just some of the vacation.

Autumn (7m 10s):
Yeah. So three weeks of matches and they have set to every single club that you can play three matches within those three weeks. So of course, because there's been locked down for so long, almost every single club will want to play three matches. There are going to be, I mean, I, I dunno if they are too ambitious, but that demand on referees will go through the roof in these three week. I mean, everybody needs a raffle of a sudden, Oh, I think I'm going to, I'm going to wrap up.

Jesper (7m 40s):
Do you look at your exercise in it? For sure. Yeah. Yeah.

Autumn (7m 43s):
And I'm probably going to be saw it when I, when I get to some of a case and I can't walk anymore. Yeah.

Jesper (7m 48s):
I feel like I need a hammock, some treaties. I'm good. Bring your drink. But how about you then? Oh, well the United States. So this is early June that were recording and it's just, I don't know where wearable will be in July. I don't, I really don't know. I have, for one of the first times in my life, I don't know what I'm watching and I can't believe this is happening in my country where I've grown up and spend so much of my life.

Jesper (8m 17s):
So it's a, it's a very uncertain and I always used to joke S half joke half seriously though, if things get bad, I was just going to go to Canada. But the borders closed because of COVID, but it is tough. Like my parents, I was really, I was so close. I had agreed with my mom that is going to wait for a strawberry season. Again, it, if you don't know much about me, if you're just listening in food is love. And my family it's been that way since as a little kid, but it's how my parents were telling my mom.

Jesper (8m 47s):
She goes, how much she loves you by cooking you so much, food is going to kill you, but it's so good. Good. So I had agreed. She has strawberries. I mean, like she lives in the burbs now We I grew up on 10 acres of my neighbors were Amish. We are in the countryside. We have this huge garden. And while my mom is still has the only guard and in the burbs and she cans like 30 something court's of tomatoes out of bed every summer, its hilarious. But she also had an amazing strawberry as, and I would agree that would come down during and strawberry season while it strawberry season.

Jesper (9m 18s):
And there's so big and she's Quik picking like four quarts of every other day. And we talked about in both, my parents are, are immune compromised. So I just finally said is an eight hour drive covert as a peaking back up in other States, I have to go through three or four States just to get there. It's eight hours. I got stopped for gas two or three times. I just don't want to be the cause of you getting sick or what's worse. Her sister is guilting her into like, Ohhh, you let your daughter come and stay where you want to come over for dinner because everyone wants to go to my mom's house.

Jesper (9m 54s):
It's an awesome Howell. She is an awesome cook. So these are a great host. So I'm like, Oh I can't deal with it. Guilt of every one then else, you know, twisting the screw is saying, I wanna come over. Cause you let your daughter come. So we regretfully said she'll free some strawberries and hopefully soon I'll make it down to Pennsylvania. But I'm thinking of 50th more important than it is

Narrator (10m 20s):
A week on the internet with The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast

Jesper (10m 26s):
So a huge shout out and thank you to James Brown who joined us on the Petro. Yes were so happy to welcome you. And if by the time you we're listening to this, you will have received your bookmark butt. As of today, let me just get your email, address it or your little actual physical address. And we'll be sending that out too. You probably tomorrow, you know, it really makes a difference for us in justifying the time that we've spent to report these podcasts episodes, which by the, we love recording these episodes for you, but is also a big, a time investment.

Jesper (10m 60s):
So few dollars or, or, or just a single dollar a month to show that you appreciate what we try to do for you here. And they get something out of it. That really means a lot too us. So thank you again, James, for you, our support. Absolutely. We were so happy to welcome you and why it's so funny that a, you know, it's just great to see a Patreon growing and the comments and the feedback that we get there. It's fun to spend time almost as much fun as the Am Writing Fantasy group, but naw, you know, there's a few more people in there too.

Jesper (11m 30s):
Yeah, yeah. I mean it's a growing thing, but the, if you are a deal list and I want to check out our patron patron Petro, and I dunno we are professional Podcast you know, apparently that's a link on the show notes, so we make it worth your while too. And we try to offer a whole range of exclusive Patrion benefits for you. As I said,

Autumn (11m 54s):
Go at least too, check it out for you.

Jesper (11m 56s):
Yes. I think it's sort of like tomatoes in tomatoes, you know, and we just have a different kinds of patron and, and other say you Pat, I think I said I had no idea. That's the fun thing about, you know, I, do you think that with characters and reading names? I think it's so funny. I get so one way stuck in my head, then I hear someone else say a characteristic I'm like, Ohh. Yeah, I guess she could say it that way too. So it doesn't really matter

Autumn (12m 24s):
Or something to do with U S versus U K. Yeah,

Jesper (12m 28s):
Probably Aye it took me forever when I was in the UK to get used to how they pronounce my name, my name over there because of the United States. Its Autumn but over there it's momentum and it sounds so awesome. Yeah. It's a totally different, they don't sell anything the same to me, but I did eventually start replying to my name. Yeah, I did. I mean, it's probably thought I was snotty at first because he never responded. Yeah.

Autumn (12m 54s):
Yeah. Well, yeah. Yeah. Well you can stop being selective than right now. I mean, tell me sometimes you want to reply. Depends on what they say.

Jesper (13m 1s):
And I am now officially half deaf. So I do have that ACE in my pocket if I feel like ignoring someone now my husband now, but it was gonna say I wanted to do a shout out to Mary van EVERY Brooke, who is, she has sent a lovely email saying how much she really enjoyed the podcast that we released recently on character development. So, or is it she's in the character development course, but she really enjoyed the 10 Traits of heroes podcasts. So, you know, However we hear from you.

Jesper (13m 33s):
That was just an Email. So it's so wonderful getting feedback. So, you know, but leaving reviews, leaving comments on the podcast, we do scan for those. So it's always wonderful to find a new review, to find a new comment and find out someone else's really enjoyed something we put out there. That's just, it again, it makes it feel worthwhile.

Autumn (14m 0s):
So Book ID. Yeah.

Jesper (14m 1s):
Yes. Yeah. This is a, this is interesting. It is. And there's so much, I mean we only like created an entire book about story ideas, so, you know, for sure.

Autumn (14m 13s):
Yes. Yeah. So it's a short, short, quick read. Yeah,

Jesper (14m 16s):
But that's OK. It's still worth the book because a lot of authors do a struggle coming up with ideas or sometimes you feel like you're ideas just, you know, they're not good enough, are they good enough? You're wondering if it's worth a whole story. So that's always a fun topic to explore and to talk about.

Autumn (14m 34s):
Yeah. And actually one of the first questions I wrote on my list here that I was thinking that we may be, could start out with and then the bass, a bit of what we think about it was the question goes like this is having a good idea and a necessity to write a good book. Ha

Jesper (14m 51s):
Mmm. It's so funny. It, you say that because on Patrick on this Tuesday, my, I do my Monday posts and I released to sort of reviews of recent movies and both are jam packed full of traditional stereotypical, even tropes. Right. And the one that was a horrible movie, even though it was a big name actors, it was actually called triple frontier was so typical. Have a paramilitary movie that I think I said, I don't think there even they took the character straight off of military men shelf and they don't even dust them off.

Jesper (15m 29s):
And with the other one, it was called a vast of Knight. And this is a micro budget debut show about typical alien Idea trope of all the way down to Roswell. And they don't actually know the big New Mexico. They had mentioned Roswell and forget the name of the town in New Mexico. Alien's 1950s, but all my gosh, he was spent tastic. It was so fresh. It made you tingle.

Jesper (15m 59s):
I mean, it was just, it was truly riveting, but again, it was such an, it was an almost every classic trip you can think of about a, a, an alien spaced UFO movie. So now I think you need something that is a hundred percent original. You can take something, you can take Cinderella and you can turn it into something amazing and special, but obviously you can also take sell the Cinderella in turn into something that's been seamed a million times before as these two movies.

Jesper (16m 31s):
Totally show.

Autumn (16m 33s):
Yeah. I don't even think I've watched any of those.

Jesper (16m 37s):
I don't recommend Trump all frontier a vast of night. It's on Amazon. It is so worth it. It's wonderful.

Autumn (16m 43s):
Oh, okay. Yeah. I don't have Amazon prime, but I need to get that one day. I at least, I mean, next year they're gonna release the M the new law of the rings stuff. I think it's next year on Amazon. So at that point I have no excuse. I just have to get it. Just have to get it

Jesper (17m 0s):
When you do go watch fascinate, because it is totally worth it, especially from a storytelling perspective where you take traditional tropes and you can turn it into something absolutely remarkable.

Autumn (17m 12s):
Yeah. I'd just started watching the last few days. I started watching Snowpiercer on Netflix. Oh really? Yeah. And, and that, because that is also a good example of it sort of common, common ideas that you've seen before. So it's basically, post-apocalyptic, you know, we have the classes fighting each other, you know, the poor versus the rich and they are fighting over resources and food and whatnot, but what they just did. And so they took all the common tropes here, but then they just created the setting as like a huge train.

Autumn (17m 47s):
So it's like an arch there's 1001 cops on the train and the tail end of the train is like this slump kind of way. Right. And the front end is the luxurious first time.

Jesper (18m 3s):
And then basically,

Autumn (18m 5s):
Oh, it's quite interesting. Actually it is it's I haven't watched a lot of it yet. Just like, I think three episodes or something, but it's quite interesting because the premise is the story idea is, is something, you know, is the same thing that you have seen a million times before, but just because they put it in a train, it's like,

Jesper (18m 22s):
This, this is new. And it's, it just feels quite a good,

Autumn (18m 25s):
Cool something you use to that is true. And this trend in just drive it around and around and around and around, and never stops because outsides it's like minus and 107 degrees. So if you go out and you can die, so it just keeps driving all the time, never stops sort of the day they can survive. Right. All right.

Jesper (18m 46s):
I saw the thing is there's a Book I think its based on it, but there was also a movie and I have seen the movie Snowpiercer and I sorta thought that there was part of it. I'm like, Oh, you know, from a practical perspective, how are they feeling this thing? But it is definitely, it was different. I will say that. And it really Aye, it had a place to go, but you're right. It was very typical class warfare. Post-apocalyptic survival, you know, elements or the hunger games are all in this, but it can be a fresh take.

Jesper (19m 19s):
So I think your answers are you answering you're own question that it doesn't have to be a a hundred percent out of a brand new idea for sure.

Autumn (19m 26s):
Yeah. Yeah. I guess, I guess I'm saying that as well, but I do think, I do think you need a strong idea. Yeah. I don't think that you can just take whatever thing off the shelf and then it'll make a great story. Yeah. You have to have a good idea. Umm, but the idea, I guess what I'm saying is to dad, do you can't be built off of things that we already know, every story you have already been told or, you know, I would challenge anybody to come up with an idea for a story that has never, ever been told before, because I don't think it's possible.

Autumn (20m 1s):
You will always be able to find some sort of story that has been told about this particular idea. But what I think mindset's about is how you bring that idea too life. You know how you tell it because as we've talked about before, if, if, if we right, a one sentence premise for a story with, by the way, I'm going to come back too, in this episode here about the premise. But if we write a one line premise for a story and you sit down and write it and I sit down a ride and we don't talk to each other in between at all, those two storeys will be completely different.

Autumn (20m 36s):
Now, even though they were still sparked from exactly the same or origin point. And, and I think the idea he is more it's about what you make of it. It's not about stressing about, I need to get like this unique idea that nobody ever thought about before because it's not going to happen. And I think a lot of authors are stressing themselves about, well, this idea is not original enough or I need to think of something else. And then you keep going around those circles. Okay. Instead of just trying to find out how can I build something that is different from what is seen before, but it still incorporates maybe, or maybe it's just a new version of something you've seen before that.

Autumn (21m 17s):
I don't think there's anything bad at that. I guess that's what I'm saying.

Jesper (21m 21s):
No, and I totally agree because its, you can take any stereotypical trope and if you layer on something unique, some aspect that maybe you've come up with maybe two different tropes that are, you know, vampire's in space or something different and really bring it to life with strong characters that feel like they are truly grounded in the world or the setting that you've created. Like Snowpiercer, if they believe it a hundred percent and you have these characters, readers want to follow the underlying Trump can be, you know, something, post-apocalyptic something spawn by something, you know, someone you've seen before that part is fine.

Jesper (22m 3s):
But yeah, it's what you do with it. From that point on that really makes it original and fresh. Not the truth just based on

Autumn (22m 12s):
Yeah, indeed. I'm going to take the young orphan trope. You know, the young orphan who goes off on greater ventures and data becomes the Hero who saves today. You know that that's basically both the premise of Harry Potter, but it's also the premise

Jesper (22m 26s):
Star Wars and those are two massively different stories. King Arthur. I mean, do we ever hear about his parents? Is he an orphan? I can't remember anymore. He's been so long, but if it's the same idea, it's the same ideas that, you know, it can be King Arthur, it could be star Wars. It can be Harry Potter. It's really, the story grows from there in the best ones are the things that are based on those characters and adding in those unique settings and twists and plots that are, that makes the story interesting.

Autumn (22m 59s):
Yeah. And I also think when it comes to the Idea I was thinking earlier today that it also have a lot to do with how enthusiastic you are about it yourself. Very because I mean, that's what we've talked about before writing a book it's yeah.

Jesper (23m 16s):
A lot of work. So,

Autumn (23m 19s):
And you don't really have a strong drive of a motivation that you really want to write this idea, but you sort of, let's say, let's say you've gone about at the other way around it. So basically you've investigated. OK. What are the sort of the most selling tropes with this young girl? You may be, you know, you've gone through Amazon category's or whatever and check what do all of these books have in common. Yeah.

Jesper (23m 41s):
And maybe I'll be smart about it and I'll be the marketing guy and I will out

Autumn (23m 46s):
Okay. If I just write decent these things, then apparently that looks like that's something that the market wasn't and quite honestly you might be lucky doing that. You might, you might be able to pick that up and actually hit something that the market want. Right. But the thing is that if the only reason you're doing that is to make some money and you don't really like Did. I mean, I could say if we had some sense in us, we should probably go and write romance. There's a lot more money in Rome. Yeah.

Jesper (24m 14s):
And there is always going to say it right now, magic Academy. And it seems like every Kover, you know, people are looking for there looking for a magic Academy and it's like, okay, this must be like a really popular genre right now because everyone's like talking about magical Academy covers. But I just thought that I thought of sitting down and writing a magical Academy Book Oh, I just couldn't do it.

Autumn (24m 42s):
But, but that's the thing, right? I mean, if you, if your not on Tuesday last week about it yourself, I bet you readers will pick that up too. The nails they'll pick up that they are not like they can't, S not like taking a seed on the words themselves or others in the sentences, all of the chapters, but they, they can feel whether it, whether or not, or at least this is my, this is me saying that they can have, of course I wanted to know, but I think people, people can sense if the author really loves what they did here, what they created versus somebody, I just wrote this because I had to pull out another book.

Autumn (25m 16s):
Yeah. I think those are different stare.

Jesper (25m 19s):
And so, and I think even as you know, maybe I would definitely, I think it's a surface. I enjoy life. I definitely like comfort. Those are my motivators. The idea of spending, you know, what, if I don't like it, I'm going to be grinding my teeth to get it done. I'm not going to be looking forward to writing. It's the idea of spending months or a year. If you're thinking of a full series writing something that I just am not in love with will be hard. I mean, I've had characters. I didn't really like that. Aye I could sit their and twist myself into thinking finally, you know, I could feel like when I snapped into place and I finally, it was on their point of view, but it took some real effort to really get into this character's head, oddly enough, it was a politician.

Jesper (26m 1s):
So I'd just not political, but in my life. So that was a very hard, I would never want to be an actor. I could not fit some characters, but it's definitely end even writing. Even if you had something you love, it's a story that you love. There is going to be days that you sit down to right going, Oh, do I have to do the seam? But that's, it's still the overall novel, the characters you love in some way, but to do it for a book that you're like, I'm just doing this to make money. And I mean, we just talked about that. So your selling a book for four 99 that you absolutely, but it was torturous to right.

Jesper (26m 36s):
It was just doesn't sound worth to me. But again, I enjoy my comfy couch and my hot T so that's what motivates me is the chocolate at the end of the day.

Autumn (26m 49s):
Yeah. I think that's fair, but I mean, I'm not trying to say either that, you know, you should have an idea that is so you are so enthusiastic about that every single day we just sit down too, right. You're just overly Join to, Oh, this is awesome. This is amazing. You know, it's not like either, you know, books is also a jar, so you will have days where this is not really dealing for me. I don't quite feel it today. And it's a bit of a, it's a, it's a bit of a job, you know, I just have to write this chapter is very and get it done in those days are there and then just, just pop into the game and you have to accept that.

Autumn (27m 27s):
So yeah. So don't get me wrong.

Jesper (27m 30s):
No, no that's yeah. That's what I was trying to say as well, is that there are going to be Daisy. And if you like the idea that you're not going to want to sit down or it's not going to flow well or whatever, but I, I don't know. I think readers possibly can tell and that you're struggling the entire time and you're going to struggle and its going to go slower. It's just not going to flow as well. And you might not have the passion for the characters. That's just not going to be as good, a novel as if you truly are inspired to write it at least, you know, a majority of the time.

Autumn (28m 3s):
Yeah. Yeah. I think that's fair. But maybe we should talk a bit about something that I also, well, I don't know, to be honest, if this is authors asking this or if it's a more like people who are not authorized, but I do hear this question quite a lot and it is where do ideas come from? How do you get your ideas for your books? I mean, I hear that over and over again, but now that I said it out loud, I'm not entirely sure if it's mostly people who do not right to ask those kind of questions, but I don't know if you have a gut feeling about right.

Jesper (28m 32s):
That I think I've heard it from both, especially new authors or struggling authors. And I had heard it from reader's as well saying how did you ever come up with that? So I've definitely heard it from both sides. So I think your gut is that's why it's your not sure who was from, because I think its from both

Autumn (28m 48s):
From both. Yeah. Okay. Fair. That's a tough question. Well, yeah, because well, as S you hinted at a bit early on, we actually, we are about to release a book on story ideas and how to basically develop initial ideas into the premise for Book. And we will have a link in the show notes where you can preorder that Book in the show notes, but a, Hey I'm just gonna tell you a little secrets and that they it's, if you buy the plumbing Book then they will be a link incite that one for where I can download this book.

Autumn (29m 28s):
Idea book on developing a story ideas for free. So in two weeks we're going to talk about the plotting book on the podcast and then we will give you the preop, the link for that one. So that's a way where you can get story Idea book for free. But yeah, I don't know which is stupid, but the, and if you don't want to wait for two weeks a for us to talk about that, then I'm going to go to Amazon and search file names and you will find that quite easily it's already there.

Autumn (29m 60s):
But why I said that it was because we actually wrote a short chapter in that book about how to get ideas Because and it was actually its a very short chapter then what the whole book is. If it's a very quick, a quick read, it is not very, it's an not a long book, but the point is just that, even though it is such a short chapter on how do you get ideas, it was actually hide quite hard to come up with something concrete for it because I think it's also very, very like basic, you know, it's just like we have stuff like, okay, what's the movies we books, listening to podcasts, go for walks.

Autumn (30m 41s):
But I think what it all comes down two at the end of it is about being open minded and observant of what's happening around me because there's a ton of ideas every single day. But you need to sort of open your mind to catch them. Yes.

Jesper (30m 57s):
I think that's a very good way of putting it. And I also think everyone has an entry point to an idea and maybe, maybe its going to be at a different one for every idea. But some people start with world idea or, or the plot Idea I know my entry point is almost always a character Idea Aye kind of come up with a character and the characters sells me. Then I've got to find a story for them or maybe they have one that's tagging along. That's always nice, but it's definitely, everyone's got to find, you've got to find what it is that gets your attention.

Jesper (31m 32s):
And sometimes, I mean, some of the things that are in the book, you know, it is being out there in getting sometimes the news story or something you heard and a conversation and it all comes together. I've jokingly said, you know, if you, especially, if you're a character oriented, like I am, if I sit down and I look at like this wooden table, my microphone's on, they start wondering about the tree and the would. And suddenly if you give your, the tree's outside some personality and what they've been seeing in this girl, you know, and then I'll have a kid story, but I do, but it all comes together for me.

Jesper (32m 6s):
It's the way you can, if you can put personality into a dust ball, you can probably come up with a story.

Autumn (32m 12s):
Yeah. It, but this is also my, I think it's a very well, there we'll be a lot of overlap between different people, but it's also very individual. I mean, for me it is usually scenes, you know, that's how I get Ideas. I, I just, it could be that I watched some movie. It could be that I am reading a book, but it could also be something that just sort of comes together in the back of my mind all of a sudden then, Oh, and then I'll have to write it down. We always have to write them down and often as well when I'm either just falling asleep or waking up, it happens often there.

Autumn (32m 47s):
So I have like a small notebook in my, a Knight drawer, which is just scribbled down to scenes when I get an idea, because then I won't forget about them later on because I really don't prescribe to, I have heard those saying that, well don't ever write down ideas because if it's good enough, you will remember it. And I do not believe in that at all. I always write everything down because there is a lot of good things in that book, an a, in my small, a small notebook there, an orphan, because I think in scenes it'll just be something cool.

Autumn (33m 19s):
You know, something, they think this is cool. Then I just write it down. It's a three lines or something. But then often what happens is that when I don't need to go into creating a story for it, often I can take several of these different scenes and they can all become part of the same story. And then it starts, let's say much together. And out of that comes, what is the overarching story? Really? So, but again, I think it's, it's very different from, for everybody how they think of ideas and how they come up with them.

Autumn (33m 51s):
But I mean, for me, it's, it's four for you. Autumn it's characters from me. It seems.

Jesper (33m 57s):
And then I, I, but I do agree with you that if I come up with an idea, I write it down. Most of mine or in like an idea of Scrivener file are stored on my Dropbox somewhere. But again, there are some really good ideas and you'd just never know how they are going to generate and grow up. And sometimes you can incorporate them into a book, your writing, or they'll inspire new things. Sometimes they just need that extra little spark. I know we are going to get there in the premise, but sometimes yeah, I gathering up all those ideas. You can crunch them all up into a ball that is just so totally awesome.

Autumn (34m 33s):
Yes, indeed. But maybe we should go to in and out. And the story, the premise that you mentioned Because, this is basically the way the heart of that small book that we wrote there, it is basically taking you from some initial ideas. However, you get those ideas and then develop them into what we call a Story premise. And that is also what we have named the foundation of your story. So it's basically like a single core statement that summarizes what this entire story is about.

Jesper (35m 6s):
Absolutely. And it's gotta be a little more in depth than good versus evil. Just don't warn people. I mean, you can start there, but you need a little bit more than that.

Autumn (35m 17s):
Yeah. That was exactly what I was going to mention because I mentioned Harry Potter up before. Right. And if the premise for Harry Potter, for example, was a boy discovers his magic abilities, then that would not be much to go on, simply not strong enough to carry a story. So what do we do? And what we'll talk about in idea of Book here is how you need five different pieces to build your premise. And I think what I could do is that I could just list out every week or five of them.

Autumn (35m 51s):
OK. And then maybe a year, maybe they will be fairly self explanatory, but maybe you could just add a few words to it, then automatically go for it. So five things, number one, a protagonist number two is a situation. Number three is a goal. Number four is a villain, a number five, a disaster. That's our formula. That is

Jesper (36m 14s):
It's pretty easy. And it does go. You just kind of combine those into two senses. But the reason that this works very well is that it gives you, you know, who your main character is, which so your not floundering around and going, who is the story about, and there are in a situation that they need to get out of and if they don't get out of it, there's going to be a disaster. So you were getting stakes by knowing your steaks. You know that there's a story, there is something there's going to be tension, there'll be plotting. So it's good to know your stakes. It also gives you your antagonist, which is wonderful because you know, who is going to be confronting your Hero your protagonist.

Jesper (36m 51s):
So you want to know that having that right in the front also gives you some ideas to Develop to start getting that tension and finding out how can you Thorte your hero? And of course, if it doesn't, if the hero doesn't win in the antagonist is the one who comes out on top, you have this ultimate disaster that the Hero is trying to stop. The villain's trying to create. And again, it sets you up for a very dynamic story. It builds up to your climax. So, you know, by going by this, you have almost three quarters of your book plotted in a sentence or too, and then you kinda, no, if you can't fill in those pieces, you know, you need to keep working on it, but if you can fill it in, you know, you can probably start plotting it.

Autumn (37m 37s):
Yeah. And maybe just to serve as an example, I'm thinking that maybe, maybe I could just pulled up the premise that we created for our entire series, basically. So maybe I could just to explain that a as an example, he is okay, this time, what we're talking about. So number one was the protagonist, right. But okay. Maybe, or maybe I'll just read out the entire premise that we wrote, then we can map it into number two or three, four or five, just so it, it becomes clear.

Autumn (38m 8s):
So it goes like this and magic use a census. He is magic is tainted by a dark force, but is also affect his sick love interest. And the Hero wants to save this person. However, the ruling dynasty is depending on the dark force and wants to stop him. And if successful will cost a Hero to experience magic becoming chaotic and destructive. So that was the premise for not book, but that entire series. Yeah. So you have a number one was the protectionist, that's the magic.

Autumn (38m 41s):
Usually there, we had that upfront and we had a situation that was the whole thing about magic getting tented. Yes. Then we had a goal and that was the, Hero wanting to save the love interest. We have a villain, that's the ruling dynasty that is dependent on the dark force and wants to stop the Hero. And then we have a number five and this Saster, which is basically a magic becoming chaotic and destructive.

Jesper (39m 10s):
So there you go. And from that, we're not getting just a book. We could do it. This is our series a theme. So we're kidding. Well, how are we going to have a lot at six, nine? You know, we're, we're, we're aiming for six. What we also have both said, do you know that ending ha problem of working with author's, as I said, I'm on my tombstone and will be the word's to be continued. I, you will never be done. Right?

Autumn (39m 39s):
Yeah. So, but basically as if I break it down, one more step just to make it very concrete. And I like concrete examples, as you know, but so once we have this overarching premise for the entire series and what we do is that we make a similar, basically the same premise where we break down this all work in one into law in this case six books. So we create a premise for each of the six books that all basically, what would you say close up into this overarching a series premise, but we don't really play out any detail except for the book that we are currently working on.

Autumn (40m 21s):
So when we're working on book one, we have the premise for a book one day and we detail out or plot out all the details related to that. And then for the Book two, three, four, five, six, we only have this high level premise. But what it does give us is that we have a clear compress as to where things are heading. And we know where Book six is the premise of book six. We know what it is. We know what's going to happen. We know nothing of the, detail's nothing about how its going to happen, but we know where we are heading. And it just makes things so much easier.

Autumn (40m 55s):
And of course you need to think a bit about these premises and make it interesting and make it not something you've seen a million times over before. But on the other hand, it is not that hard. I mean, I, I can't remember exactly how long it took us to do the six premises for the six books, but we probably be talking to a couple of hours now. Nothing. Yeah.

Jesper (41m 13s):
Yeah. I was going to say, I think it was in just one of our normal Monday sessions. The weed. Yeah.

Autumn (41m 18s):
Probably talk for two hours. No, we were done. Yeah,

Jesper (41m 20s):
Exactly. So it's not that hard. And by not plotting out all the other books, one, we're not wasting time when we could be writing, but that way we don't get too far off track. If we think it's going to go somewhere and I was just Story you come up with something really interesting and you want add that in later, but the books are already plotted. It just becomes such a nightmare. The further out you go, the harder it is to plot something that has yet to be developed in the beginning. So it was better to have that looser framework in the backend and the first book Ray to go.

Jesper (41m 51s):
And then as things happen, we take notes and we say, okay, this is going to happen in book two. Or remember that this happened in book three. So this is going to affect something down there because we have the premises we know sorta where things are going to fit in later. And that really helps, you know, keep things organized. And we were both having to like organization in Scrivener. So we keep our file even being clean. Yeah. But I dunno, sort of an over all the conclusion of this Episode can, can we conclude the, getting the perfect story idea is just overrated.

Jesper (42m 24s):
All of them. Do you think that's fair? I think that's fair. I don't think that you need, well, I would say the perfect or the most unique doesn't have to be something never seen before or something only you've come up with and you don't have to sit there and rattle and struggle and think about it for hours and hours. You can take a typical trip. You can take a dust bowl on the corner. And as long as you add something fresh in you and unique, give some twists, make it concrete with characters. It can be a wonderful story. It's how you write it as long as you're right.

Jesper (42m 55s):
It well, okay. So next week we will discuss how to plan and write out a serious, this will be a very interesting topic to tackle and as good add onto it. Yeah.

Narrator (43m 9s):
Have you like what you've just heard. There's a few things you can do to SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join Autumn and Jesper on patrion.com/am Writing Fantasy for as little as a dollar a month. You'll get awesome rewards and keep The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast going to stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 79 – Advice from an Editor (with Kristina Stanley)

A bestselling author, and professional editor, joins the Am Writing Fantasy podcast to give you advice on how to edit your first draft.

What do you need to pay attention to?
What are some of the common errors writers make over and over again.

Kristina Stanley, the CEO of Fictionary, share lots and lots of information in episode 79. 

Learn about Fictionary here: https://fictionary.co/

Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday.

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(Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion).

Narrator (2s):
You're listening to The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast in today's publishing landscape. You can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need a literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from riding Join two best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them. Now on to the show with your hosts. Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt.

Jesper (30s):
Hello. I am Jesper. And this is episode 79 of The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast. And as you can hear, Autumn is taking a break today. And instead I'm joined by Kristina Stanley who is the CEO of Fictionary. Fictionary is a platform run by Kristina and her husband. Kristina is a best selling author and a fiction editor. And we are going to talk about editing today. So welcome to The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast, Kristina

Kristina (1m 1s):
Thank you for having me it's pleasure to be here.

Jesper (1m 5s):
So I actually did check on the Fictionary website earlier today. Kristina and I saw you're actually had quite a nice description of how and why Fictionary start it. And I was thinking that that might be a good place to start if you could retell a bit of that story. So our listeners as well, get to know you a little better here.

Kristina (1m 25s):
Sure. I'd love to, I mean, who doesn't like talking about their story. Exactly. Yeah. So, umm, Fictionary came to be from my writing career and I started that in around 2009 and I started writing the stone mountain series and I started writing that because I just left living in a ski resort and I missed it and I wanted to write about it. And what I found after I had three novels in the series written and I was having trouble editing it and keeping track of everything.

Kristina (1m 59s):
And I had this massive, massive spreadsheet organized. And my husband actually walked by and looked at my computer and said, what are you doing? And I said, Oh, I Writing is like an Excel when I said, Oh, well, okay, I'm actually editing and I need to keep track. And this is how I do it. And he said, Oh, there's gotta be a better way. I'll find you something. And so he went on this search of course, for a product that would help me. And they're just, wasn't anything that focused on story editing, you know, there's lots for copy editing and proofreading, but really nothing on the structure of a story.

Kristina (2m 31s):
And the two of us decided together that we would build a product and that was kind of the beginning of it. You know, it was just sort of idea of it. Well, lets make an app and see what happens.

Jesper (2m 46s):
So is it more like an... an app that keeps track of everything or how does it work?

Kristina (2m 53s):
So it's how it works. So we like to focus on people who have a draft written and you can right from scratch and Fictionary, but that's not really our thing. Our thing is if you have a draft written, you import it into Fictionary and Fictionary scan's it. And when it's scanning it, it draws the story arc and it compares it to a commercially successful book of around the same length. And it gives the rider right away, a look at, you know, where their key plot points are for exciting incident excetera and are they in the right place?

Kristina (3m 26s):
It does that word count per seen and shows you in a visual way. So here's your work comp foreseen. And so you can see what your pacing is doing and do you have any outliers that are just too long or too short or something? And it pulls out using natural language processing. It pulls out all of the character names and links them to Saenz and then chose a writer. You know, how many characters are need seen. And when they come in, who's got the point of view and how many point of view characters or are and stuff. And so it's a very visual way for a writer to look at their story.

Kristina (4m 0s):
And then, because it's all broken out and organized and just seeing and chapters, we push scene by scene editing and we have 38 story elements there that help the writer know what to look at when they're evaluating their own story.

Jesper (4m 18s):
Yeah. That, that's very interesting. Actually, I don't, as you said in the beginning of that, I can't think of any other product like exactly like that. I mean, I know of other products where you can use it to sort of structure well character's, you can connect them together visually as well. And you can, well, the whole world of building part that comes with Fantasy, for example, you can connect all the places together and in the visual fashion, I know tool's like that, but not really tools where I think I can think of where you can upload your draft like that.

Kristina (4m 50s):
Yeah. And it, I mean, part of historically this happened because I have a degree in computer mathematics and my husband has a degree in computer science. And so even though I'm a writer, I have a very techie background. And so I was naturally drawn to this side of it and to figure out how this would all work and how would you draw a story arc and, and, and make these things happen. So it really, really entertained both sides of my brain to, to work on this and build it.

Jesper (5m 22s):
Yeah. I can certainly see that. Okay. Well that's actually pretty cool. And maybe we can a at the end of the episode, we can just to make sure that we give people a link so they can go and check that out. She, is there any like M is there any like a trial version, stuff like that or a demo versions of people can use?

Kristina (5m 40s):
Yeah, absolutely. So we have a two week free trial. So you just pop in your manuscript and have a look around, we have online chats, so people could ask us questions on how to use it. And when people sign up to the free trial, they also get a 14 lesson online course that goes with it, that teaches all of the story elements and why they're important and how to use them and what it means to you as a writer. And so there's a whole educational piece that goes with it to help people as they work through Fictionary and are kind of a dream, is that once you go through it once, then the next time you write a novel, it's much easier because you have all of this in your head and you know how to start a scene and is seen all over.

Kristina (6m 24s):
These are things that, especially newer writer's, you have to learn how to do.

Jesper (6m 29s):
Yeah. And the whole structure of a novel, I mean, they're is a formulaic approach to structuring a novel. And while we, as authors needs to understand how that formula works and how to put all those different milestones, that the right places in a novel, you know, that the reader don't really understand those, but they intuitively know. So if it's off, they will intuitively sort of feel like there's something wrong with the structure of the story, but they won't be able to pinpoint what it is. But a, we as authors really need to understand that

Kristina (7m 1s):
It's a super important point because what we're trying to do with Fictionary is make the Author aware of it. And so if you do decide to break the rules, know why you're doing it. And then you're making an educated decision on, well, that doesn't work from my story and I have a reason for it. And that's great as opposed to just getting it wrong. And then you don't know why your story's not working.

Jesper (7m 21s):
Yeah, indeed. Okay. That, that's a very good, but I also know, based on the whole thing that you have developed here at Kristina that you really liked editing isn't that right?

Kristina (7m 32s):
Yeah, I do. I do. It's kind of funny that I, I had no idea when I started writing that really my true passion is editing. I love working with writers. We developed a, an Editor product to go along with our Writing product, just for our editors to do structural edits in it with the dream that we can make editors really strong editor's. And so I edit maybe one, one novel a month just to keep my skillset up, but it's not, it's not, my main focus were really focus now on pushing Fictionary Editor version out to editor's and which we call it a story coach.

Kristina (8m 9s):
And it's really meant to help an editor do a comprehensive story, edit without being biased. So it makes it really objective and they have to cover everything and it ends up being a really good edit for the writer.

Jesper (8m 23s):
Yeah. So it sounds like you've actually come quite a long way from when you were first sitting with that Excel sheet, then this is how I'm editing two now, where, where are you both built this up here, but also teaching other Editor other people how to get it.

Kristina (8m 40s):
Yeah. And so we've got 'em we have a Fictionary certified story coach editing program that we bring editors through to teach them how to do a proper structural edit and then certify them so that when a rider hires and Editor, they know what they are getting, and they know that person really understands story versus hiring an editor that may be thinks they do or have certain biases have how they edit and, and were trying to push editors to get a little bit away from that.

Jesper (9m 8s):
Yeah. But you see, this is the second Why. I want you to come on the podcast today because you have the excellent, an excellent approach here and a very strong background in educating us, hear on the podcast a bit about how do we go about editing. And especially also when authors are self-editing down the work, you know, maybe a good place to start would be just so when you start editing a new manuscript, what is the first thing you do?

Jesper (9m 37s):
Do, do you just start from page one and then you start editing or do you read through it in a high level pass first? Or what do you do?

Kristina (9m 44s):
Yeah, so we like to first thing for, for newer authors, I mean, authors who are more experienced they're a little bit farther along, but for newer Author of the most important thing is to understand what a scene is and look through their manuscript and make sure that they have their scene structure done right first. And so when I encourage riders to do, if they are already broken out into scenes and chapters, that's great. Then I'll, I'll tell her, I'll tell you a bit where you would start at that point, but there are many newer writer writers who have written their novel and it's not properly structured into stories and oriented scenes.

Kristina (10m 22s):
And so what I recommend is first going through and looking for logical places to start seeing them without thinking about word account that can come later, but just to look through and go, okay, so the point of view has changed or at the point of view, character has changed. That's a good place to start a new scene, or the location has changed, or the timing has changed. These are three key areas where a rider can go through and, and read their manuscript, not don't focus on words and copyediting or anything like that.

Kristina (10m 56s):
Just go through and look for the points where you would break out a scene. And once you've done that, it's amazing how you can see the structure of your story just by having it broken into scene's and its a big eye opener. When you do that for the first time, it's really kind of fun and you can see how many scenes you have and once you've done that, then you can start looking at all of the other things you need to do for a story at it. Does that make sense?

Jesper (11m 23s):
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I think sometimes it can be confusing and then in, for a new author, when, when you stop doing the editing because they're is there's a tendency to, well, okay. I stopped on page one and then I will stop looking at commerce or spelling errors or making the sentences sound a bit better. But I think there's a very good point in looking at the overall structure first. And even if you don't have something like Fictionary help you then at least educate yourself by, you know, reading, maybe nonfiction books about how to plot a novel and understand the structure of it and this out there and see when you're off.

Kristina (12m 5s):
And it is it's super important not to waste time on making a sentence or beautiful. I mean, in some people do it in actually some people really struggled. You have to spend a lot of time and not to spend time on the commas and typos and all of those things until you have a story because what's going to happen once you've broken out everything in the scenes, you're gonna realize that, okay, you have a lot of revisions to do. And if you spend hours making everything perfect at this sentence level, but your story is off, you have to rewrite it anyway and then you have to copy it all over again.

Kristina (12m 37s):
And I certainly don't recommend paying for a copy at it or proofreading until you've done your own story at it that you will have to do it again. And it's kind of a waste of money if you do it too early.

Jesper (12m 49s):
Yeah. So, so what your view on this revision past as you know, how many should, is there any recommendation you would give to say, okay, you can do one past in the high level story elements, you know, and one pass in looking at the copy, edit, and then you do a third pass proof reading and then you hand it off to copyedit or something. Or do I, do we have like a work permit methodology? Did you follow the customer that right?

Kristina (13m 20s):
Yeah. So again, it depends on the level of the, where the author is in their career and how many books they've written because the more books you write, obviously the easier it becomes, you know how to structure so you can start and different places. But the basic thing is once, once everything is broken out into scenes, then I like to recommend that they Author Now goes through and names each scene in three words or less. And the reason I say this is if you can't name a scene, you don't know what it's about.

Kristina (13m 51s):
So you should be able to name names every scene in your story. And by doing that, it tells you, does it have a place in this story? So it does it have a purpose in my story and everybody gets carried away writing and your right, this fantastic seen, and you will love it, but it was nothing to do with your story. It's just a great scene about the character. Right? Okay. So if you can't define the name and the purpose of that scene, then perhaps it shouldn't be in the story. And so it's a good place to start looking at high level.

Kristina (14m 23s):
Do you, as an author understand why you put every scene in your story,

Jesper (14m 28s):
Right? Yeah. Fully agree with that for sure. So that's right.

Kristina (14m 33s):
It's a big step. I mean it takes time, right? You have to really think hard when your doing it. Yes,

Jesper (14m 39s):
Indeed. But it's still like something that you would say. So when you have edited tons of manuscripts, so is, is there something that you would say maybe we could put them into buckets here? So it's sort of seeing the bucket, one being The fletching rider who is just starting out and maybe another bucket with the more experienced Ryder, but is there some common issues that you see that is very in both buckets? Because I, I think that they will be different, but it still like a common issue is that you see popping up over and over again from, from the stuff that you edit.

Kristina (15m 16s):
Yeah. So the big, the big things that show up the thing that I see most often as people don't know when to start an indices. So even if they're story is broken into the scenes, they are starting a scene at the wrong place or ending at, at the wrong place. And what I mean by that is if, if, when you think about as a reader, when you're reading a book and you're kind of getting tired and you want to, you're you kind of peak at the next seen to see if you wanna keep reading you going to read three or four sentences and if it captures you right away, okay, I'm going to keep reading, I'll get one more seen and all fuel, all accomplished.

Kristina (15m 50s):
It's great. Write if you look at anything, it kind of boring. If you put the book down in, he might not pick it back up or would you pick it back up your eyes? You're a little bit out of the flow. So having an entry hook, there's a lot of stuff written about the first first sentence of your novel has to be the best in your opening hook. Have your novel has to be the best, but I believe the opening hook of your every scene has to be strong because every time you start, a new scene has a chance for the reader to put that book down, they finish a scene and if they are not engaged in the next scene.

Kristina (16m 25s):
And so I often look right away to see how is the author doing their entry hooks. And then at the end of the scene, I want to see how are they leaving the scene and do they leave it at the right point? And often you can just cut off the last two paragraphs and there's the right point to leave it. So you leave it with an unanswered question or someone just built a big secret that they shouldn't have, or a cliff hanger, you know, there's really intriguing piece of dialog or a revelation or a part of a revelation or something like that. So that the end of the scene, the reader is feeling okay.

Kristina (16m 58s):
I just... I have to keep reading and you'll notice really good books, all have a great entry and exit hook for every single seat and as hard to do because you try and fill in with description and, and have a lot of ambiance around it. And if your skillset isn't quite there yet on how to make that suspenseful, it's tricky to do it.

Jesper (17m 19s):
Yeah. Autumn and Aye, we, we plot our novels in quite a lot of detail, but that's also of course, because we are co writing. So we need to know where things are going. So we have quite a lot of details, but I would say, especially with what you just mentioned here at the beginning of each chapter, and also at the end of each chapter, we spent quite a lot of time in the plotting phase detailing out, how has this kind of start on how it's just going to end? And we, we try to be a bit creative as well, so that every chapter doesn't enter the same way. You know, it shouldn't that every time a chapter in the monster appears or whatever, you know?

Jesper (17m 52s):
Right. So, but, but I think if it doesn't come natural to you, to, or for the writer to, to find the right place to stop the scene or whatever, a lot of it can be gained by just planning out ahead, you know, figuring out a head, how do you want this one to end and find a good cliffhanger or something to add on it.

Kristina (18m 14s):
And it really just comes down to thinking about it, like, and to know that you need to think about it as a writer. And once you have that in your head, even when your writing and you write on an unplanned scene is if it's there and your head, you know it. And so you write that way and it's really the first time going through it, really learning. This is how you do it. And of course experienced all authors make mistakes too. And you put too much in, and then you're Editor comes and goes, Hey, take all that out. And you know, if you cringe any to take it all out. Yeah.

Jesper (18m 41s):
Yes, that's absolutely true. But I also think when were talking about seeing some chapters or However, or somebody wants to whatever they want to call it, but when were talking about that, and we were talking about starting points and points, I think that there is also something that I could imagine, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I couldn't imagine what you would also see quite often as an issue is that there is not enough variation on high conflict versus low conflict chapter's so that if you can read several chapters with high conflict and a, in a row does not really a problem, but if you read 15 of them in road and you're gonna get tired, you no, you need a break and read, it needs to break once in a while.

Kristina (19m 23s):
Yup. Yeah. And the tricky part comes. So when you give the reader a brake, you want to go maybe into a contemplate of seeing where your character is reacting to something. And those are hard scenes too, right. Because you wanted to get the characters feeling's out and, and how is it changing them and what decisions or are they gonna make based on it. And so it's a really great time to connect your readers two, your character's when you get to those contemplate of scenes and if they are placed right within exactly what you're saying, that you've got action.

Kristina (19m 55s):
Action, action, action, action. A bit of a SQL. Okay. It gives you gives your reader a, a, a breath, and then they also feel it along with the character. So it's very important.

Jesper (20m 5s):
Yeah. And I feel a lot of the time, those bit of a break chapter, or if we call it that those are excellent tools to use For for the character arc to basically build upon the character arc and how they change throughout the novel. You can use those a, if you have like five of the slow chapters throughout the entire novel, those are excellent five different points where you can show that the character is, is going through the character arc because they are reflective seems so.

Jesper (20m 36s):
So they are good. They put to good use there.

Kristina (20m 38s):
Well, and you know, whose book has really good on this is Sasha Black's book that just came out, that's called anatomy of pros. And she has super examples in their, of exactly what were talking about Andy. She gives a new way of writing out that goes to, this is good. And then she rewrites it and you can say, this is great. And it's exactly what you're saying about the character arc can, it's it, it's a great book. So anyone who is working on not as highly recommend that book.

Jesper (21m 4s):
Yes, absolutely. And the, also for the listener, if you forgot, we actually have Sasha black on this podcast as well. I don't recall the episode number on the top of my head here, but if you go back through the archive, you can certainly find it a, when we talked to a Sasha blacks, so she knows what she's talking about. So, so that's a very good as well. What I was also wondering, and this is sort of something that pops up over and over and over again, you know, Autumn, and I also do courses for authors and stuff like that. So we also are heavily into the teachings.

Jesper (21m 35s):
So we here a lot of the common questions. I think this has probably a good one to two cover here as well, because it is something a lot of people are wondering about and I have my key of you on it, but I'm curious, curious to hear he was the first time, but it basically goes to something like this. So when you're writing, is it best to edit as you go? Because then when you reach the end of the manuscript, you are sort of done. Why is it better to just write out the entire manuscript, not worrying about any of the editing or any of the grammar errors you might be making along the way, and then edit one only once you have the full first draft complete.

Jesper (22m 17s):
Yeah.

Kristina (22m 18s):
Okay. I'm going to give you a big caveat on this one. Okay. So I think it's good to get your story down and right. Your whole story, but sometimes your, your brain is tired, but you wanted to do something productive. And so maybe you want to do some copy, editing, have stuff that you've written when you don't have your whole story written. And I actually think it's not a bad thing to do because then you practice it and you can start to see where your weaknesses are and what you need to fix in what you might wanna look at when your doing a full copy at it.

Kristina (22m 51s):
So, I mean, I have author friends who are perfect each seen, but they've done a very serious outline. Kind of, it sounds like what you do to see the outline has written. They know what the story is. They know what's going on in every seen and they know how to write a story. And so they right there seen, and then they prefect it and they go to the next one, four other people who are, you know, what are called pastors, you know, writing by the seat of your pants, like to get the whole story out. And so there's a lot of personal preference.

Kristina (23m 22s):
I believe that there should be a lot of joy in writing. And so to force yourself to do it one way or another, if it makes you unhappy, it's not the right way. For for you as an author, you know, I'm a big proponent of finish your story and then do all your, your copy editing and proofreading. However, if it's not what works best for you and your process don't change it because somebody else told to

Jesper (23m 47s):
Right now, I think that's actually a fair and good answer in my view. Normally I would say, Oh, as well, that it, it sort of depends a bit. I think a lot of the people who doing the edit S they go, they also use the editing as a bit of procrastination tool. So it was like, yeah, I don't quite know where two right. Two I'll keep editing my previous chapters. So we don't really move ahead. And if that's the case that, and I think it's an issue.

Jesper (24m 18s):
Yes. And then you, you need to, you need to press forward because as you also said, I'm also usually advocating. It's more important to get to the end of the draft and it is to make it sound nice. So as you go, yup. But when I say that, I also have to say that for some people, it is just incredibly annoying to know that there was a spelling error on page 45 and they almost can't get it out of their head. So if, if, if it really annoys you that much, then you know, correct those small spelling errors as you go, if you really can't see past it, that that's better than getting annoyed about it.

Kristina (24m 53s):
And I think as you write more books, your process changes as you go because your strengths change and your interests change and the technology changes. And so you don't need to get stuck in one way. You try one, if it doesn't work for you to try something else and don't be afraid to try something else.

Jesper (25m 12s):
Yeah. And I think it also ties back into how much you're actually plotting that novel in advanced, because a as you alluded to before, if you really know everything that needs to happen already, then basically Autumn, and Aye, we can sort of edit it as you go. I can write the draft first chapter, and then she can edit it while I write chapter too. And that's possible because we know exactly what's going to happen. And, and we have been around the Bush enough to know how to do it. And so, but yeah, I think, I think as well that it is something that evolves over time, but, but it is just, and if you don't get too, the end of the first draft before eight years have passed, well, I guess that's okay.

Jesper (25m 52s):
But on the other hand, it's not going to help you at least earn any income from WRITING. If it takes me that long to do it. So you also need to sort of push yourself forward

Kristina (26m 1s):
And that's hard, you know, they're, at some point you have to let somebody else read your story in that first time you do that. It's really difficult. It's a, it's a kind of a frightening moment because you've spent, you know, maybe at least a year on it, and then someone else is going to have comments after they spend a few hours reading it. Right. The hard moment

Jesper (26m 20s):
It is, it is very hard. I still remember when I gave my first first book too, a critique partner. And he was just like, no, let's just, Oh my God, I spend so much time a lot of them. And he just said, no, this doesn't work.

Kristina (26m 36s):
I know it's hard. And, and as an editor, you have to be very careful with writers to make sure I point out here, the places that your really good to you, you know, they're our strengths here. And here's why I'm saying maybe you want to change something that its from an editor prospective, it's really important not to demotivate a writer and make them feel like they're not good at writing a story because everybody can be. And it just takes a bit of hard work in some time.

Jesper (27m 2s):
Yeah. And don't you think as well, that one of the problems or challenges we have, he is also, I mean of course you can take like, what is it called an MFA or whatever is called a, you know, a degree in Writing. But even without a degree in the only way you learn how to write is by writing it, it's not like a carpenter who will go to carpenter school and he'll be at Prentice for a while and then he will know how to do carpeting. It's not like that with writing. Right? Of course. In some sense, in what way you could say that it is like that because you keep riding and, and you get editing and then you get better, but it is different in the way that it's not like you go to a school and then you get some grades and, and you will know if you are good or bad is we spent two years writing something and then you put it, you give it to the Editor who knows what they are doing.

Jesper (27m 48s):
And then you could hear the hard truth. Right? So yeah, it is, it is tough, but I fully agree with you that it's important as well. On one hand, of course I would expect from an editor who knows what they're doing and who are good at it, that they also know how to give feedback and a good manner. So you don't scare people off because it's a vulnerable process. Right. But on the other hand, if you want a, if you want to seriously get into writing and also write to for commercial purposes to earn money from it, you also have to take it, you know, because if the end of that might be nice and professional in the way that the word things, but the review is on Amazon or not, but I'm just going to slam here.

Jesper (28m 32s):
So it's do you just have to learn it?

Kristina (28m 35s):
Yup. It's true. You do, you know, I just went through a process. I had 13 editors edit the same manuscript and it's a manuscript that I wrote with some holes in as a bit of a test. And it was very interesting to see that the breadth of the way people pointed out issues and right, most of the editors caught all the same issues and, and there were sort of the w the one end of super positive feedback that's.

Kristina (29m 10s):
So while you're dealing with the issues, you've felt good about, Oh, that works great. You know, you feel really good to the other end of that didn't work because you have whatever reason. And that was quite hard when you think ouch, that's just too hard. And as a, if that had been my experience as a new Author is quite frightening, right? So that's not good vs. The other ones who is super important to point out why something works and that an author is particularly good at whatever, you know, maybe entry hooks or whatever it is.

Kristina (29m 40s):
So it was kind of an interesting experiment to go through, to see how that many people would edit the exact same story.

Jesper (29m 50s):
Yeah. And they're is, well, at least as good to hear that they sort of caught the same things. And then of course, to feedback element, it's more like the, how do you treat other humans and in terms of giving them feedback and that's, I mean, I've, I've worked in management for many, many, many years and it's, it's one of the things you have to learn. You're, you know, if you have an employee who's not performing it, it doesn't help to shout them in the face. Right. It's much better. If you can find a motivational way of telling them that, that there's things that we could do in a bit smarter way, they will also help you and then help them along the way, rather than putting them down.

Kristina (30m 24s):
And, and I love it when you could see an author grow and change in their story, it just keeps getting better in its it's really fun when that happens. Yeah.

Jesper (30m 33s):
But I'm curious as well. Kristina so when you were say, when you just said Anne Author growth, because I'm also curious, have you a process for editing changed over time? You know, editor to editor is also grow in their skills of editing. So it, is there something that you do differently nowadays compared to what you used to do when editing, right.

Kristina (30m 52s):
Yeah. So when I used to edit it, I mean I would read a story and go through it and ms. Word and, you know, edit based on the knowledge in my head. And now I use my own product story coach because all of this story elements or are there and it makes me look at every scene for the writer and go, okay, what's the conflict in this scene? What's the tension in this scene? What's the backstory. Is there a flashback you can't get away with? You know, you read to see anything, Oh, it was pretty good to move on or you can find a lot more.

Kristina (31m 25s):
And when you're looking at key story elements to see, are they in every seen and you can get really in depth feedback. And now when I write a summary letter to an editor or to write, or it will be somewhere around 5,000 words, have high level comments for their story. And then I do for every scene Aye I have notes on that particular scene of what worked or it needs improvement. And then I Mark up all the story elements and give them a nice big check Mark, if it's awesome.

Kristina (31m 59s):
And they did a great, or I get a specific feedback too, you know, maybe I can't figure out what the purpose of a scene is. And so I'll put a note. I don't know what the purpose is sometimes when you read the whole book and go, Oh, I got the purpose of, of that sea now. But when you first read it, you can't quite figure it out. And so for example, if I say a book has 70 scenes and you know, 15 of them, I don't know what the purpose is that tells me the writer's a little bit lost and it gives me a way to really focus and be specific and say, you know, you have 17 scenes and 15 of them don't have a purpose.

Kristina (32m 34s):
So we need to work on that piece of, of why that is in there and what we want to do it.

Jesper (32m 41s):
Yeah. Touch. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. I was just why you were saying that it was just thinking about how it must be you sometimes as well when your editing fantasy novels. Because one of the really tricky part that I, I guess may, well, maybe we have it in common with cipher authors, but in general, the FANTASY and see if I, at least we always have to walk that really careful balance between the info dumping versus a given the information through the narrative. But you also have to give some information just like here it is, this is explain it now.

Jesper (33m 16s):
And hopefully the only in one sense, and so that it's a quick and done an over with, but it is an incredibly difficult line to walk some times

Kristina (33m 24s):
It is because you do need the information there. And then of course the talented Author is put out a lot of that information. They can give through action by what the character touches or feels or a CS. You know, I can do it through the point of view description so that they're feeling something while they're seeing something. And, and that makes it a little bit, umm, it's more engaging for that for the reader. And then, you know, it has an author when you've got it, you just have to say

Jesper (33m 54s):
Right.

Kristina (33m 55s):
Something very specific about the setting or some magic capability or whatever Because I just have to say it and as long as you know that and when you place it in, you want to make it as smooth as possible.

Jesper (34m 6s):
Yeah. But do you see, so when you were working with a lot of different editors, do you see that it's Editor or you also have their own view on how is too much info dumping, for example, versus when that this is, this is okay. OK. Because at least when I, if I look at written fantasy novels, even from some of the very, very popular Fantasy, Author am not going to name any names yet, but I have red fantasy novels as a well written by, you know, massive global best seller authors.

Jesper (34m 43s):
And I don't quite like it. It's just not, not my cup of tea. And I have a feeling that I think that this is very much, I fully agree with the fact I should back up and say, I fully agree with the fact that there is a right way on a long way, to some extent and doing it. You, you can't feel the one and a half page with info dumping about a culture, just because you want to tell the reader about it. That's not, that's not what I'm saying here for what our more thing is that I think there is a in, in terms of how to do it they're is sort of have a degree in or how much is too much versus how much is too little.

Jesper (35m 18s):
That kind of thing might be a bit on a personal preference, but I don't know what your view is because you can edit it hundreds and hundreds of novels. So, but yeah. How many of you that

Kristina (35m 29s):
I'll give a tip to writers? If you use beta readers, it's a specific question you can ask or a beta readers. But so first from an editors point of view, what, what I tell Editor is the second you start to skim, there's something wrong. And if you think it's the info dump thing, because there's too much there and you are starting to skim through it, you got to Mark that and then look at that and go, why am I skimming here? Well, maybe it's because there's too much information on this new city setting and there's no character interaction with that setting.

Kristina (36m 3s):
It's just a two and a half page description of some Citi and you don't know why it relates to the plot or the character. So skimming is a big tip to, to an editor to, to right away go, Oh, okay, what's happening here in this story. And the other thing for info dump two little. If that's an editor, you get confused calling not enough information in there and the writer could put more in and you know, editors read very carefully and they pay attention to story.

Kristina (36m 34s):
And so if an editor gets confused, the writer should listen to that and should go, okay. I confuse the editor and they don't know what's happening here or they don't understand why this was possible. He needs to pay attention to it because they are reading very carefully. Now also as an editor have to caution that if you start to skim, make sure it's not just because you're tired and you've been editing for too long. So, you know, an hour is good. And then after that, for me personally, I've got a step up and do something else because then I can't pay attention as hard as I'm paying attention when I'm fresh.

Kristina (37m 8s):
And so skimming doesn't automatically mean there's to much of an info them. It could just mean like tired, but its it's a big trigger. And what I wanted to say for, for readers, when you have beta readers, sometimes especially if they're friends and family, they don't wanna tell you what they don't like. But if you just ask them, please just Mark. Every place you start to skim, you can't hurt my feelings. I just need to know this. You can then as a writer, look at that and go, huh, is that an, an, an info dump or is this boring? What's going on here? And if you have two or three beta readers who are at the same passage as their skimming than, you know, for sure there's something wrong with it.

Jesper (37m 45s):
Yeah. I quite liked that approach that you were mentioning there. Kristina and I must say, because what I normally say is that if you add, at least if you are starting out, I normally caution authors are very, very much on using beta readers because in my view is a hundred times better to either hide the higher and Editor who knows what they are doing and who can help you or find a critique partner who also know what they're doing and listen to one person. Because especially when you're starting out, you're getting, let's say the 30 beta readers and they will give you 30 different points that they like or dislike.

Jesper (38m 19s):
And they will also be contradictory to each other. So when you were starting out, it's more confusing than helpful because you don't know either what it's right or wrong. So you were hoping that you are going to get 30 pieces of feedback that is all aligned and will help you understand. Oh, okay. I see. And then you can move out for it. That's not the reality of it. You're going to get 30 strange topics popping off all over the place and it's not helpful at all. So, but I like the approach about it. If you only say what you just said, you know, just highlight that the places where, where your eyes are glazing over the text or something, or at least that's helpful.

Kristina (38m 52s):
Yeah. Or your confused as to the other one. And I also asked my beta readers when you put the book down because you don't read at one setting, Please just mark, "I put the book down". Don't tell me why. Like, you know, you put it down because you wanted to have dinner or it doesn't matter. Do you want to see the break points where a beta readers are putting your book down? Because it means that it wasn't quite enough to get them to that next scene. And again, if you have multiple ones that pick the same spot that gives you something to look at and evaluate yourself as a writer, without relying on biased information from your beta reader.

Kristina (39m 24s):
So I wrote a blog a while back and I'm trying to think of what else I put in there, but very specific questions to beta readers of what you want from them. And then they do a great job for you because they're not afraid to hurt your feelings. Cause you've asked specifically, I need to know these things.

Jesper (39m 42s):
Yeah. Yeah. And, but not normally, at least when you're starting out, I, I really prefer to work with an edit who knows it because editor's know what they're doing and, and you can listen to them. And as you also said, they are very methodical. And if they pay attention to all the details and is like, normally I say, you know, we, we basically approve 90% of what the Editor comes back to us when they are editing our novels, because normally they are right. And know what they're doing,

Kristina (40m 9s):
But not always right. That's the other caution that I try and tell, even everybody I end up, I say, you know, to the writer that they are the artist and it is there a story in my job was to make them think about their story, but not dictate what they should do or not do with it. Right? No, absolutely. No, you won't hurt my feelings as an editor. If you just go, Nope. Not making that change and stand up your self as a writer. That it's your story. Right. And the editors, one person in the world giving you an opinion on it.

Jesper (40m 40s):
Yes, indeed. I agree with that. But under the same, at the same time, it also has to be set that the person giving you opinion on it is somebody who has edited hundreds of novels. Right. So it's, it, it's, it's different from a beater reader or a family member who thinks something.

Kristina (40m 54s):
Right. Of course it is. And you should take it seriously in think hard about why you're saying no, that, and that's why hopefully you hired an editor because they know what they're doing and you want their feedback on it. But you know, it's, it's also okay. To be a believer in your own story.

Jesper (41m 14s):
Oh yeah, for sure. I fully agree with that, but I'm wondering maybe I'm if, if this is possible for Christina, but I am going to ask it anyways, but I'm thinking, wow, we covered a lot of ground here. And I think there's a lot of good input for listeners, but I'm thinking, would it be possible if you, if I told you that you only give three concrete and tangible advice that our listeners could take away from this podcast episode and go and implement in their own editing process, like right here and right now, what would you be able to give us free things?

Kristina (41m 47s):
In fact, I'm very opinionated on that have, so this works. If you were, if you write the stories from multiple points of view, my first recommendation is to go and look at who has the point of view for every seen and what's their goal for that scene? Because if they don't have a goal, they are not doing anything. And so you should go through every single scene. Count up. Your point of view is how many do you have, does your protagonist have the most point of views?

Kristina (42m 21s):
Does, do you have too many points of view, have one character only in, it should be in a different point of view. So study your point of views and use it to your best. So every scene look at it and ask yourself, is this the best point of view for the seen, and I've actually found authors who have changed the protagonist because most of their point of view scenes where from a different character and they are actually writing somebody else's story. And then it became a great story because they flipped it on that one piece. Right? Right. And the goal is very important. They have to have a goal and the goal has to relate to the story.

Kristina (42m 55s):
So it can't be a goal to get a cup of coffee. It has to be some goal that relates to the story. And there's a consequence that your reader is going to care if they achieve that goal or not. So that's my number one thing for you when you're looking at your, when your first looking at your character's go and get your point of view straight. And then the second thing I recommend is look at the purpose of each scene, ask yourself why is it in this story?

Kristina (43m 26s):
The same question does the purpose of the scene relate to the overall story. So that same as goes for character. And you want to look at each scene and if one scene has to many purposes in it, are you trying to do too much? You might want to split it into two, quiet it down a little bit. So look for scenes that are bit chaotic, where there's to many reasons for it to be in this story, it could just be overwhelming too, the reader. So that's the number two. And number three is choosing the location of each scene.

Kristina (43m 59s):
And the important thing there is to ask yourself, what's the emotional impact you want either that character or the reader to feel. And so, for example, if you pick a couple sitting on a Hill and there's a thunderstorm off on the distance, that could be quite romantic. So maybe that's the feeling you want their, but what if that couples on a sailboat in the middle of the ocean, it's not so romantic anymore. It's frightening. And quite often in an a, in a newer storey or an early draft.

Kristina (44m 30s):
And I'll see that This, it's just in somebody home or this scene takes, plays in a coffee shop are in a car or some very standard thing. And so my, my pushback to the reader is what do you want your character to feel? Do you want them frightened? Well, what's in your story where you could place them in a location where they are frightened more than if they're in their home and their family is there and it's not frightening at all for them. So those are my three. So I'll just backtrack on that. It's, who's got the point of view and what's their goal it's kind of to, but I'm really that into one, the purpose of the scene.

Kristina (45m 4s):
And what's the emotional impact you want either the characters or your reader to feel

Jesper (45m 12s):
This was so excellent. Kristina I, I have thank you so much for coming on the podcast today and talk about all this stuff and give all these are excellent advice for us. Author's here. So if listeners want to learn more about you and what you do with Fictionary and all that stuff, well, where can they find you?

Kristina (45m 36s):
Yes. Or a website is fictionary.ceo. So not.com is.ceo. And if you're a writer than you want to look at our storyteller side of things, and if you're an editor, then it story coach. So I mean, everything about us is, is on the website. I'm we have obviously an email list where we have a really great ebook that we wrote all about the editing journey. And we wrote it together with pro WRITING ADE and with the editing company called first editing, who does professional editing.

Kristina (46m 10s):
And so the three companies got together and we wrote this book on one or all the different phases of editing a novel when to do them, when to do self at it, when and why you might want to hire a professional and how they will help you. So it's, it's a really great book. If you, if you're looking for just learning what our, all the different types of editing, so what structural, what substantive what's copy editing what's proofreading, et cetera, and how to use it in your own stuff.

Jesper (46m 41s):
Okay. That's that's really good. If, and Kristina, if you send me the links to different things, then I we'll make sure that your listener to put them in the show notes. So you can just to go and check it out from, from their, so thank you so much again for coming on today. Kristina

Kristina (46m 56s):
Thank you for having me. It was such a pleasure. I love talking about stories,

Jesper (47m 1s):
All right. So next week Autumn is back and we are going to go back to the beginning and actually talk about story ideas.

Narrator (47m 13s):
If you like what you've just heard, there's a few things you can do to SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join Autumn and Jesper on Patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy for as little as a dollar a month. You'll get awesome rewards and keep The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast going to stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 78 – What Does it Mean to Be a 'Writer?'

What really is a "writer?"

Jesper and Autumn run the gamut in this episode to break down the myth, history, and perception of what being a writer really means. Throw in some great quotes from famous authors, and you have a fun mix that will get you pondering what you call yourself ... and why it is - or isn't - a big deal in the first place!

It's true! Pre-orders are LIVE for Story Idea, Plot Development, and Plot Development Step by Step! You can secure your copy for release day of August 3rd through the links below!

Story Idea: A Method to Develop a Book Idea at https://books2read.com/StoryIdeas

Plot Development: An Outlining Method for Fiction at https://books2read.com/Plot-Development 

Plot Development Step by Step: Exercises for Planning Your Book at https://books2read.com/PlottingWorkbook 

Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday.

SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST!

Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review.

Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy. For as little as a dollar a month, you’ll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going.

Read the full transcript below. (Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion).

Narrator (2s):
You're listening to The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast in today's publishing landscape. You can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need a literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from Writing Join two best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them now onto the show with your hosts. Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt

Jesper (30s):
Hello I am Jesper

Autumn (31s):
and I'm Autumn

Jesper (34s):
Episode 78 of the Am Writing Fantasy podcast. And today we are going to talk with him about what it means to be a writer. And I know that's going to require a bit of elaboration, but I will get back to that a bit later. Yes. I'm still looking forward to it and believe it or not, this will impress you. I did research for this one.

Autumn (57s):
Did you? I did writing work. Why? Because I didn't want to go outside. No. Aye. Because I wanted it. I like facts. I love history. I like, you know, things or things. You said the repeat themselves and we don't usually appreciate it. Cause we don't realize that if you don't know you're history, you realize that's repeating. So we did some digging on this one. I can't wait to share it. I usually just with all these episodes, maybe we shouldn't tell people that it's all right. I don't mind being notorious for, you know, showing up and doing a presentation with no preparation.

Autumn (1m 32s):
I just I'm waiting for the day that someone calls me, sees me in the audience and calls me up and asked me to do a whole hour on something. I'm like, Oh geez. I should never have said I do this all the time. Right?

Jesper (1m 43s):
Yeah. And actually I will say it depends on if it was me. It would depend on what they would want me to speak about. But I do think that certain topics I could probably work in an hour. The, it depends on what it is though.

Autumn (1m 53s):
Yesper talk about maps one hour ago. You would be all site, but yes. So how are things on your side or the Atlantic this week? No, it's good.

Jesper (2m 6s):
It's a good, eh, we are trying to get ready for some of occasion, obviously. So a sort of, a lot of things going, I mean, it's still like more than a month away, but were just trying, I'm trying to get everything wrapped up also for our stuff. So it's been actually just the few days ago where, Oh, well, yeah, that's a point of this recording. Of course not. When this episode released this, because that's the wonders of the podcast. And today we always have to be careful with the timing of when we mentioned things because we are prerecording some stuff here.

Jesper (2m 40s):
Yes. But at least at the point of recording this just a few days ago, I sent out an email to our Am Writing Fantasy lists recruiting what we call typos layers four, not one but three. Yes. You have that right. Three different non fiction books for authors though. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, it is crazy. Oh, come on. You're

Autumn (3m 0s):
Sending out the emails. I sent you the file's to put it up the pre-orders today. So it feels like this is really half a day.

Jesper (3m 8s):
Yeah. I am so excited that it is happening. So there are three of them. So just to mention, there is the first one is Plot Development And Outlining Method four Fiction and Plot Development Step by Step So that there was one that is the actual plodding book that we talked about so much. And then the other step by step one is the associated what books. And then we also have Story Idea Book and Method to develop a book Idea so it's basically like creating a whole premise, which we'll talk about later on in a, in a future episode or more on a, more about in a future episode, I meant to say, but that is three books that we are trying to launch right.

Jesper (3m 47s):
Leading up to summer holiday. So I don't know if we're a bit crazy here, but a lot

Autumn (3m 52s):
Considering everything we have going on. I know we're crazy, but it feels so good to be getting these things. So finally, after talking about them for so long, finally bringing them out. So

Jesper (4m 4s):
Yeah. And honestly, I can't, I can't wait to release these. Yes. So they, they are for the listener here. They are going to be out on the 13th of August. Ah, but you can actually, if I do all my time traveling, correct here with podcasting, you should be able to preorder them already now and we'll place the Link's in the show notes so that you can actually go and preorder them if you are interested in these books, which of course you're home. We hope you are.

Jesper (4m 34s):
But other than that, I just also wanted to mention a Autumn that I finally found a time to go back and listen to episode 75 when you have Kirsten Oliphant on. Yeah. That was a great episode. Yeah.

Autumn (4m 45s):
Yeah. She was a wonderful, wonderful guest. I really appreciate her time and her tips on pen names. And when you really need to launch a different author platform for what you're writing, writing in multiple genres. Yeah. And I can't believe she, she honestly said that she reads a book a day. She did say that I want to go back going really. I just really let that sink in. I don't understand. I mean, Hello, she has a lot of kids at the house with as well. Yeah. I mean, I don't know, maybe there, I don't want to assume that their kids' books, but she did say maybe she was saying she, maybe she went to say she reads a book.

Autumn (5m 24s):
She reads every day. Not she is. So she would make sure she reads everyday. Not a whole book.

Jesper (5m 30s):
All right. I know. Okay. But yeah, I think she said she ran a whole book at day, but yeah, that's a pretty damn amazing. Oh, well done it. That's true. Yeah. Yeah.

Autumn (5m 40s):
Very good speed reader. That would be amazing. I could read that fast. I would probably read a little bit more because I task oriented. I get so wrapped up in things that I have a hard time switching to something else. So once I get to a good book and you're getting into like that new and getting really close to the climax. So that's back two thirds basically of the novel. That's it I'm hooked. That's all I'm doing. I'm not making dinner. I'm not Writing I'm not working on our courses. Nothing. I'm just reading. So I'm on a reading diet until we get some of this stuff done.

Autumn (6m 13s):
Alright. Yeah. I have to the opposite problem. It takes to me so long to read the book. Like sometimes I have to remind myself when I go back. What happened last time? I can't see. I'm so bad at it. Usually, you know, I read when I go to bed in the evening and when I go to bed, I'm so tired. I really don't have the energy to read. So I'd just fall asleep. I'm really good at falling asleep. You know, I can fall asleep within a minute or so. Yeah. So yeah, I don't get much reading done. And that was going to say with, and they're a task into, to do list with a vacation coming up.

Autumn (6m 46s):
I mean, I've already got to be keeping you up late tonight, the record, this podcast. So we can relax when we'd go on vacation, then I hope so. Ah, you better? Yeah. So will you also keeping busy? So how are you on your end or a very good, well, at the time we are recording this things are crazy. I'm in the United States' and I wish I could time travel to see if things are going to get any better when this is really you. So I'm just hoping they do, but it is kind of crazy over here and a little scary at the moment.

Autumn (7m 18s):
And yeah, I mean, I'm just trying to keep my head down and stay busy, but you know, at least in personal things, I've got a little bit of writing done. I've been doing some cover design, which is always fun. I'm getting our formatting books done. So things are progressing very well. My garden is growing. My husband has been working on 105 year old canvas frame, Cedar canoe, and he just put the canvass in the top coat on it today. And now it gets to cure for four weeks before.

Autumn (7m 49s):
Are you going painted? So its kinda cool to watch him and restore a hundred, five year old canoe is really something special. And why, where did you find that use? We actually paid a little bit too much for it. Cause we thought it was him. We bought it. It, we thought it was in better shape and its become a project that he's enjoying immensely, but it's Oh my God, this is not something you do because you have some, you know, your, your saving and skimping money. It's not a cheap enterprise, but, and he's doing very well and he's not usually the woodworker in the family.

Autumn (8m 22s):
I am. So I'm very impressed. We go on the internet with The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast Oh, so we have a lot, lot, lot, lots, lots of interesting potent right in Fantasy Facebook. Hey, we were just going crazy over there. It is. Which I love its been so busy and I have actually managed again in a couple of times this week, so that's good. But yeah, it's such a vibrant, exciting group.

Autumn (8m 54s):
Yeah. I noticed how it, Chris was very

Jesper (8m 56s):
Helpful and he pointed out how publishing too Apple books. It no longer requires a Mack. So you just need an iCloud on iTunes connect account and then you can publish directly to Apple books. That's a pretty nice. That is cool.

Autumn (9m 11s):
Yeah. Pretty cool. That's a very, that doesn't surprise me about Apple. I mean, come on a, use a Mac and I can open any file you send me, but I have the files I want to send you I've come to translate so you can open them on your PC. Yeah,

Jesper (9m 25s):
Yeah. That's a bit annoying, but yeah, but Chris also mentioned by the way that the Google books appears to be open to anyone. That's what he said. And I have heard this as, as well in other places. So I think its absolutely correct. Yeah, it think so. But of course you and I are and we got in a long time ago, so I'm not sure if it works on it, but I guess for those listening, who haven't yet published their books on Google, you can go and check it out now and you should be able to create an account I think.

Jesper (9m 55s):
And then afterwards, you know, hit Autumn and I up on Twitter or leave a comment on this episode and let us know if it works. Yeah. I'm really curious. Yeah, that should have a book.

Autumn (10m 4s):
I was, are they still have so far to go in the dashboard? So I will warn folks if your going over there, it is not the same as Amazon's managed for us or anything else, but it does work and it is nice. You know, I want to change the price on a book. You have to go in and go in to this file and there's just like, you can't just see what the price is on. The main screen kind of would be

Jesper (10m 26s):
To be useful. But anyway, yeah, that's not the best. I mean by that and you have to download a sales report in Excel, you cannot manipulate it on the screen and stuff, but it's not that bad, but it's just a bit, maybe a bit more old fashioned than they would speak. Yeah.

Autumn (10m 43s):
Yeah. It's all right. Yeah, it works. So yeah. Let us know if it is working an open to everyone, that's kind of a huge step for Google and I guess if enough people do it, maybe they'll, you know, tweak it a little bit more. So that'd be excellent. I once gave them the feedback that they should have bought pronoun when that, when that site closed down. So probably which they had. Yeah, I can see.

Jesper (11m 6s):
Yeah. But Jason also mentioned by the way that he has written 40,000 words in the last 10 days, so that's awesome. Congratulations, Jason. Yeah, that is fantastic. Congratulations. That's always exciting to see the authors writing and doing well or a thousand words in 10 days. That's pretty good. That's a good milestone. That is awesome. Yeah. Yeah. So I really liked how lively and helpful to the Facebook group is. So if you haven't joined it yet and you are listening here, then what are you waiting for? Join us in over to the group section of Facebook and simply search for Am Writing Fantasy and you will find us and we will let you in.

Jesper (11m 43s):
Yes.

Autumn (11m 44s):
Yeah. And it's fun because it's, it's everything from supportive to asking a fun questions like Hector who had written, you know, what spells would you give your antagonist that isn't to overpowered? So it's everything from pulling apart tropes to question's to support, to celebrating things. So I love it over there. So you actually initially came up with this topic Autumn so perhaps you can set the scene a bit.

Autumn (12m 15s):
What are we talking about here? We're talking about that idea that all a real Writer and real in quotation marks are a real Writer does, is write. And so this kind of comes up from, you know, lots of beams and things, online threads that you'll see where someone goes up to a famous author and says how much you know, Story I do you have to imagine this, how much do you see time? Do you spend writing every day to become such an amazing famous author?

Autumn (12m 47s):
And they go, Oh, well I write from nine to noon in the morning. And then from one til five 30, I marketing and the person that's a good question goes, Oh, Oh, you are not a real Writer and walks away. So that sort of where this comes from, it's this idea that a real, Writer a real writer write it's a real writer has a publisher. It's a real writer. Is this, this certain rigid thing that spends only time WRITING, it's a, it's a very, I feel like it's a very outdated way of viewing things to be honest.

Autumn (13m 23s):
But I, it surprises me because I think, I mean, at least every month I still hear people say that I have to admit, I think it used to be every week that I would hear people say, Oh, you know, Writing is blah, blah, blah. But there are still people who feel that if you're not Writing, you know, if you're not only writing, if your still marketing, then your not a real writer. Right? Yeah. I mean, of course there is some personal belief in this. I mean, everybody probably have their own understanding of what it means to be a writer.

Autumn (13m 55s):
And what does a writer do on doing well, eight hours of work and or whatever you wanna call it. Right. Write, I mean, we are probably, everybody probably has their own opinion about , but yeah, that's what we are gonna try to dig a bit deeper in here and try to at least share some of the, how have you seen and the, I don't know, maybe challenge you're thinking of it. I am not sure. Let's see. Oh yes. I definitely, I believe me. I think the world needs a lot more time listening to each other and sort of making assumptions and talking to dead air. So I think its just as a dun in an idea of to challenge a challenge, what you think a real writer is.

Autumn (14m 30s):
And maybe even if you hate marketing and maybe challenge or assumptions, that marketing is a part of Writing. So I tried, I, like I said, I did some digging in history of files to bring up some ideas for today. Okay. Let's hear it. Alright. Well I wanted to go, as I said, I think history itself, a lot of people don't realize that history repeats itself because we think now is like everything we forgotten, like I've was joking with my husband today.

Autumn (15m 2s):
I looked back at February when the room, my built in my cabin was snow in some debris and I look at it down, it's a room and I'm like, really? That was only a few months ago. So it's so easy to forget, but I looked up the history of self publishing. And what do you think is the earliest example of self publishing? I would say it's

Jesper (15m 28s):
Well I, I would say it's probably, I don't, I don't know any names of the authors or whatever, but I think it would be half to do something to do with somebody in a way we all times by buying a, a PR you know, getting his own book printed on a press and paying for it himself. Yes. That would be good.

Autumn (15m 51s):
We have a definition that would say that the definition of self publishing and so yes. So when Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, that was 1440. And so yeah, some people say that it's the history of self publishing, but honestly the Chinese were using movable type way before that. So technically it's older even then that, and I mean, technically you, you can go back to it when people are writing scrolls, that would be self publishing. And the earliest evidence of that is 3,100 BC.

Autumn (16m 22s):
So a technically it depends on how much you want to go into it. So we're not gonna do a history lesson But yeah. So how did they do Amazon? App's in 1300 BC. Oh, I don't think it was him as well as he could have been. It was in the Amazon, right? Yeah.

Jesper (16m 42s):
But he would be somebody that says sitting out in the treats shop or shouting about it. Okay. The book is out. Yeah,

Autumn (16m 48s):
Yeah. That's right. Dunn. Yeah. You read it now. Hot off the lift. But so what are some, it was a time period and it was pretty big. So in the 18 hundreds, self publishing was actually very typical and they call it a vanity publishing. So where do you think vanity? Why do they use the term vanity for publishing?

Jesper (17m 11s):
Aye. I could be wrong on this, but I think that it has to do with is because the, well, the author has a bit of a hit, you know, that they want their own works published and no, at least the connotation it has today is that self publishing some times is called a bandage publishing because it's a bit like it's not, isn't it a really good publishing. It is just like somebody who wanted to put this out into the world. They probably tried to get in a, a, a traditional publishing house to publish it, which they wouldn't because it wasn't good enough.

Jesper (17m 44s):
So they went ahead and published it on their own. That's a bit of the stigma it has today, at least that

Autumn (17m 50s):
I don't know if that's way originated from as well. I need a little child little thing. Yes. Gold star for you. That is correct because it's considered vanity publishing because the author was vain and we want it to be published even though they've had been rejected, but that is a stigma. Even back then, that isn't necessarily true. Some people maybe they couldn't get published, but the thing about women writers, they were, they just couldn't even own property. They couldn't even talk to publishers unless they had a male relative. And this was even in England.

Autumn (18m 21s):
So some of them were paying to have books published and using a pen names or anonymous was very famous, basically meant AU is written by a woman. And so there is a lot of authors who were vanity publishing because they had no other means, but they're books were good because come on, you've got a guest, at least a couple people who, or a self published, just like, Oh, you could pick an author, the author and the author of a historic, you can choose a modern one Plato Oh, you know, I didn't go back that far.

Autumn (19m 7s):
It's not fair. I self published something. I bet he did too. I'm sure the Greeks were really into self publishing and we just don't appreciate it. But some of my favorites, I couldn't believe this. John Locke was self published, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Martin Luther, Marcel Proust, some of the, what are some of the works that they published it that way. I see, Oh, I'm not even going to go into him. But how about some really good ones? What Whitman, the leaves of grass, in fact, well, Whitman is considered the first one who discovered Author branding.

Autumn (19m 44s):
He sold the leaves of grass based on his rather notorious lifestyle and who he was. So yeah, I didn't actually realize that he was so scandalous. That was kind of fun to read. It's a very salicious. I now have a new appreciation for the leaves of grass and you have to read it again. But two, the paragons that I could not believe are self published where Emily Dickinson and Jane Rustin, Jean Oxton, I mean, she is considered, she is second to Shakespeare in sales and notoriety and she self published in her lifetime.

Autumn (20m 25s):
So that kind of says something about what self publishing is. So it's self publishing has been around a long time. So that's only part of this question though. The question is, you know, what does it mean to be a writer? So these authors were self published. What I could not uncover and unbury unfortunately is how much time these Author spent. You know, it was shaking the Busch and telling people about their works, how they went about selling them.

Autumn (20m 54s):
However Jane Austin. It really was her brother, Henry and her sister Kassandra, who were shouting about our work here. She was very lucky that way to have very strong family support. And she tried very hard to not let people know. First. She tried to have to let people know it was written by a woman and then that kind of leaked out and she just signed her books. They were titled by a lady, but she did get to meet with the Prince Regent, who was a huge fan. So she did do some meetings and things like that. I think later in life, there was a few book signings, but other people, like I mentioned, well, what he was, he was of the brand and he was out all the time selling these books.

Autumn (21m 34s):
In fact, he basically published the leaves of grass in 18 different versions. He just kept adding on it and putting stuff together. That was his book. It was only, it was his only book, you know? And you just went on selling it and he sold it based on who he was. And people just wanted it because he was like, Oh, you wrote this. Oh my goodness. I want you to read us. So I just found, it's so fascinating to read through some of this history of some of these paragons, you know, people, we never would be like reading, I'm reading this and finding out, but you know, Emerson, you know, actually Benjamin Franklin, I self published.

Autumn (22m 12s):
A lot of these people published and they would do adverts in the local paper. They would do book signings. They would go to the societal dinner's and bring their book and be like, well, you know, I wrote this so you can do a little reading and the polite society rooms and try to get people to spread the word. I mean, this is, this was the earliest social media of going to these dinners and spreading the word about there books. And these are people that we just think, Oh, it's Dean Austin. Of course, of course she did well, but Nope, she, she had to shake the Busch.

Autumn (22m 45s):
So I'll think of this stuff up from somewhere. Yeah. You all start from somewhere until you get to be known. So I did really find this fascinating that there is a huge history of being not only self published, but Writer is having to do a lot more and a lot of heavy lifting than just writing. Yeah, absolutely. But I'll also even, even in the modern day, for example, you know, a JK Rowling, self-publishers her eBooks versions of Harry Potter, but I actually didn't know that's the, I didn't bring up to modern.

Autumn (23m 18s):
That's exciting. Yeah. So, so, so she didn't want to sign a waiver to REITs for the iBooks because it owns so much money. So, so she holds help hold onto those rights herself for her. And she's self publish is the Harry Potter books and books. And then she sign the contract a For, you know, paperback in hot back and whatnot ride. So that's an excellent, she owns the rights herself. So I'm self published. That is fantastic. And I wonder if she owns the IP assume there's audio

Jesper (23m 46s):
Books, there has to be audio works. So here we have hotter. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Are, there is a, I think that's with a publishing house, but I'm not an a 100% share on that, but I think it is considering, I am sure she would have had the money to hire somebody, but considering how difficult and time consuming of a process, they can do whatever she wants. Yeah. I think she is one of the richest woman in the world. So I think she was doing fine in those days. Yeah. Yeah, indeed. Okay. Well actually I also find found the quote that I was thinking about four for this podcast episode here.

Jesper (24m 18s):
So I was thinking too, maybe just shared and then follow on with a bit of my thoughts, because if it goes into this entire topic here, excellent. So this is a quote from Ray Bradbury. So it goes like this quote, if you simply define a rider as someone who is WRITING clarity says In, you are truly a rider when you are writing. And if you don't write regularly, don't pretend to give yourself that title start writing more for me, they key is.

Jesper (24m 53s):
Yeah. And then yeah. End of the quote, write. And then what I want you to say is that for me, the key is in that word regularly because I can agree to that pot. I mean, if you want to, if you want to be an author, that also means that you have to put your butt in the seat and ride at the end of the day, we only authors if we write stuff. So I would say, you know, only writing his writing marketing is not Writing social media is not writing.

Jesper (25m 25s):
Only writing is writing. However, that does not mean that none of those other activities isn't a part of being an author is. And I think for me, that's where the distinction lies because you also have to do marketing. You also have to do social media and all those other things. So as you set in the beginning of the episode would have been the beginning of the section Autumn when somebody was asking, so how much do you write? And then if the answer was well, our right in the morning and I do marketing in the afternoon, and then people would say, well, then you're not a writer.

Jesper (26m 0s):
I think it comes from stuff like this. You know, that there was this kind of thinking that well, writers only write. And if you do anything else, then you not a proper right. Or maybe there's a bit of thinking as well that, well, if your a proper righty, your publisher will do all those other things for you. But nowadays in 2020 property says actually expect the authors to due to marketing as well. They do not, if your a Stephen King or something, then he will get whatever he wants. But for everybody else, even those who are those who have traditional publishing contracts, the puppet is that they will not really allocate any funding or attention to watch marketing.

Jesper (26m 39s):
They actually expect the author to do it. So that's why I also set up at the top that

Autumn (26m 45s):
I think it's a bit of an old fashioned outdated view on things this whole, this whole conversation, you know, it's, I don't know. I find it a bit weird that unless you ride eight hours a day and do nothing else, then you're not a right. I don't, I can't quite follow the logic day. And I probably can't, if we go 10 or 20 years back than maybe I understand now in 2020 now I don't get it. I agree. And I think that's a really good distinction is like Yeah writers writing is Writing and you're a writer if you're actively writing or at least trying to write every day, or are you have a scheduled in your reading, but an author, it incorporates a lot more.

Autumn (27m 26s):
And that's even book signings. I mean, we know someone who, you know, their publisher sends them off to some of these book fairs and stuff. That's not Writing, that's being front and center. Even if the publisher is paying your entrance fee, which is always nice instead of having to do it out of your Author business. But it, again, sometimes you go what you do, these book signings, your handing out cards and stuff. As you go and share, you've got a grocery store until when to ask what you do. And you say, you're a writer and you told them about your books and they're you go?

Autumn (27m 57s):
It doesn't matter if you have a publisher not, but I agree a lot of publishers these days do expect you to have done it. And a lot of publishers like to pick up authors and writers who have been doing it. So that's why there's a lot of hybrid authors that use days where they Be, they started out as a self publishing and they are doing such a good job at getting themselves known in an in demand that publisher thinks, Oh, you are a safe bet. So I'm going to skip, are you up? And you are going to keep doing what you're doing, but now we're going to handle the book sales and maybe some of that advertising or are paying for the expenses for you to go to these big, big book, fair is and booking you out two signings and things.

Autumn (28m 36s):
Now, I mean, this is just good business, right? Yeah. I mean, if, if you are running a business and you are the head of publishing at a big publishing house, who do you want to sign? And you want to take a chance on an Author. You never heard about And who has no media, a social media following on anything, or do you wanna pick the one where you can see that they have a lot of following a lot of people, you know, talking about them and probably buying the books, which of course is as a publisher, you want know what at that point in time, but you have a pretty strong indication if you see what they're doing on the internet, right. Or whether or not it looks like they have a lot of following.

Autumn (29m 9s):
And so who do you go with? Of course, you'd pick the one with the following, right. Because you know, well this guy, he or her, yes, they can, they can publish their way. They can promote their own book. I'm going to say, and, and they can make a cell. And that's what do you want? Yeah, that's a publishing house. I mean, right. And there are some benefits. I mean, some the publishing house is they have some great NS with libraries, like the bookstore, as you see it airport's and things like that as well. That's actually kind of hard to get into as an Indy published author. Yeah. I think that's probably the only thing to be honest.

Autumn (29m 41s):
Autumn

Jesper (29m 43s):
I say, I, I, going through, at this point in time, I'm recording the, a free course are that we are going to put up later in the year. And actually I was just going through with the other day, one of the modules, when I talk about self publishing and stuff like that. And one of the things I actually set there is that the only thing that traditional publisher can do that we can not do with self publishers, I am getting into bookstores and libraries in effective manner. That's the only thing that they can do, but there is nothing else that they can do at, we can not do as well.

Jesper (30m 14s):
And probably if we want to better, I agree. I, I, I think, yeah, yeah. And editing might be some slight different that that's probably something where I would say that they can do it well, and it's not that we couldn't do exactly the same thing. I think that the thing is just at when the traditional publishing houses do their editing, they go through like 10 rounds of editing or something. It's very rare that you find a traditional published book with a single type of way that it can happen, but its very rare and it is because it's a, they've gone over, over and over and over and over again.

Jesper (30m 47s):
And then of course, as self published authors, we could also, we could do the same thing. I mean we could hire 10 different proof reading editor's and then go through one by one by one by one. And hopefully by the end you will, you we'll have gotten rid of any tables. So if you want two, you could go through that labral in the process a as well. But at least that part, I think that they usually do better in the traditional publishing houses that we do. But when it comes to marketing, getting professional covers, at least if we know who to contact and get them to decide for us and even, even editing as well, you know, all, all those things we can do just as well as they can.

Jesper (31m 25s):
Yeah. I do you think they have the advantage of many different eyes on one thing? Yes. Yes they do. But I definitely, I definitely think there's a split there though, because sometimes you're dealing with lots of people who might give contrary advice and then you have someone who might be really pushing hard for Writing to market. And I have heard stories of authors being really conflicted with getting an offer, have a wonderful, it sounds like a really good deal. You'll be able to a real publisher, but you, no, they want to switch this character and they want to do this and probably still very good book, but that's really hard if you're coming from a creative, I love being in charge of all my creative input.

Jesper (32m 5s):
So yeah that's yeah. As our one guest Hollie had mentioned about her in her writing partner, Angelina in Delina, they are, they were creating the world together, but they were both writing their own stories because they both a little to controlling what else to share the same book in the same character. It was thought that was kind of a durable it's very honest. Hi. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Well that's not always a, you know, you need to find some, but if your, what writing something together with somebody else, you need to find somebody who you, you aware of writing a new way of thinking and your way of working matches well with right?

Jesper (32m 44s):
So otherwise you kind of get sort of conflicts about things. So it's a, well, we actually talked about that in the past episode about finding a, somebody to write with. So go and search for that if your interested, but you said something earlier on that, a trigger something in me because I'm, there's also this whole debate about the, what is the difference between a writer and an author. And I did find, I did find some definitions. This is not me making it up.

Jesper (33m 14s):
This is some stuff I found on that.

Autumn (33m 16s):
The internet, which is always this. Yeah, exactly. Then Janette is always telling this truth, no matter what do you know? It Autumn that it's the way it is. All right. Never lies and everything you read is true. And you know what? I believe everything can say

Jesper (33m 29s):
Yes, but I found this ah, this way of wording it. Ah, and I thought it was just shared because then I want, you want us to talk a bit about what we think about it afterwards? So it goes like this, that some say that a writer is someone who writes a book, an article or whatever. Why not? An author is one who originates the idea of the Plot all the content of that it's been what is being written and both of those can of course be at the same person.

Jesper (34m 2s):
And then there are others who say that right, is our people who write Y all those authors who are those who have published their work and are earning money from it. So that sort of two different ways of

Autumn (34m 15s):
Distinguishing between being a rider and being an Author. Okay. I hadn't heard that first one before and it doesn't really resonate well with me, but the second one to me is, is more true. I Writer is someone who is REITs is writing. I mean, you could be a writer if your doing blogs and other things, a you're a journalist, you're a writer, but an author is definitely someone who has, you have given birth and produced a novel. And suddenly C's, you know, they've done the editing, they've done the covers.

Autumn (34m 47s):
Now they see, they had to do ads. They were doing the social media is more of a business idea. Even if they have a publisher, whether or not they have a publisher, they are an author B. It was like becoming a parent. Your not a mom until you give birth. So with the child. But do you know what my view on this? Is that, is that Yeah. Why do we care? It's a good one. Why does it matter? What is a Writer versus what, I mean, if you tie start typing it in, in Google law, in, in a, in your web browser, it'll automatically populate.

Autumn (35m 23s):
What is the difference between a writer and an author? Just like we can ask, why have we are debating what the differences are? It makes absolutely zero difference. It's very true. I think it's human nature to want categorize things and be able to define things as part of our little curiosity about, you know, understanding the world by putting labels in words, on things. But it does that make a difference at the end of the day, really?

Jesper (35m 53s):
Alan is like, I really feel like we need to break free of this line of thinking because I really don't think it matters at all. And the other part is that

Autumn (36m 3s):
Yeah,

Jesper (36m 4s):
A fair bit that some people might be checking out these definitions because maybe they feel a bit too insecure. So then they want, they don't want to end up saying, well, I, you know, if somebody asked, why do, what do you do to, I say, I'm a Writer or do I say Author? What is the difference between the two? And I definitely shouldn't say I'm an author if I haven't published books. So maybe I need to say I'm a writer. And so you blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And on and on and on there's self goes. It's just like, I don't like it.

Jesper (36m 35s):
You know, get rid of that stuff. It doesn't matter if you want to say you're right. If you want to say an author or whatever, say whatever you feel comfortable with, but I just don't think in it, if it matters at all, I don't think it as well that it matters what people, other people they're the people or the person who received that answer. How did you receive that answer? It doesn't matter either. Now. Maybe they feel like, well, Writer, Author maybe those data, we didn't even think about it. Some people we'll be thinking about it and they will be the ones we talked about at, at the top, where, well, are you writing it hours a day?

Jesper (37m 12s):
And if the answer is no

Autumn (37m 16s):
Not good enough for those standard. No, I think no, an honest answer of, Hey, what are you doing? I'm writing a book that kind of, you know, call me whatever you want. Why do you feel comfortable with, yeah, it that's fine. I agree. I think the ideas, like you said, put your butt in the chair. If your, if you want to do this, but your in the chair and actually REIT, and don't worry at what people call you or define you because some people are going to call you are a writer, so I'm gonna call you Author so we will call you a HACC, but its just do it and you know, do it cause you love it or because it's a drive within you and that's really the important part.

Autumn (37m 53s):
And yeah, you might, if you go on to publish a book, you're going to find out that there's a lot more to Writing. Whether you are publishing through a publisher or self publishing, you're going to find out there's quite a lot more to it than just, you know, hitting done. And it's suddenly magically out their and selling. There's a lot more shaking. I always think of a word, little worker bees doing their working bee dance to saying I am getting my work done. So yeah, you're gonna, you're going to find that as part of your life too.

Jesper (38m 24s):
Yeah, that's true. I mean, for me it's like, if you need permission from anybody as a listener, you have my permission permission from now on you can call yourself a writer, an author, the muster of the universe of whatever you want. I don't care. I don't care if I mean, it doesn't matter if you've published anything or if you have that pup, is there anything, if you want to call yourself a writer or an author? I do. So I think that the only thing that matters, as I said earlier on is that you right on a regular basis, whether you are published on it or not, it doesn't really matter if you're right on a regular basis and you, if you're committed to death in my view, then you are a writer.

Jesper (39m 2s):
I like it. I, I agree with it. And I think that's where we should definitely end on that note that, yes, it's good to call yourself a writer, call yourself an author. Don't don't deny yourself that if that is what you're doing and that is what's in your heart. Yeah. I have a, I actually find just one more quick, which I think we can finish off with that. Both did our homework for this one. I'm so proud. It's amazing. Isn't it? When you put in the effort, something happens.

Jesper (39m 33s):
He's amazing. But this one, it's a firm Ursula, Kayla Quint and I, I quite like it to so are you ready? All right. Yes, absolutely. From Ursula. Okay. You may have gathered from all of this that I am not encouraging people to try to be writers. Well, I can't, you hate to see a nice young person run up to the edge of the cliff and jump off on the other hand. It is awfully nice to know that some other people are just as knotty and just as determined to jump off the cliffs as you are, you just hope they realize what they are in for at the quote.

Jesper (40m 15s):
Oh, I love it. I that's why I love isn't that amazing? That does amazing. And that is perfect. So yes, I am so glad. I'm glad for the internet some days, because I've met so many people just as crazy, if not a little bit crazier, which is hard to do than me. So yeah. Yeah. And I like the, I liked the core message in In at least a way I read or hear that quote. It's also that if you wanna be a writer, there is a million things that you could do that will earn you an income at a thousand times faster in a thousand times easier.

Jesper (40m 52s):
So if you really want to be a writer and you have to be a bit naughty, you really want to go through with this. So, you know, as she says, she just hope that they realized what they're in for For and I think that is such a good message. You know, that tried to go in and if your listening to podcast like this one, you are going in, open-minded all ready. So that is great. You are already enlightened. As you enter on this journey, by listening to podcasts are reading block post or whatever, or you may be doing a learning about WRITING.

Jesper (41m 24s):
But I like the core message of that, that you can tell people that this should be right. As you know, if they wanna be writers, they want to be right as, and then hopefully they just know

Autumn (41m 34s):
What's gonna hit them. It was a very good message. And I agree, you know, any bunch of people who, it doesn't mind having characters, talking in their head and the spouses and significant others of all of those people who talked to the partners about the people who are talking in their heads and don't end up in the lunatic asylum. It's good. It's all right. So next Monday and if all goes well, Autumn will take a break and I will have a great interview line up for you about self editing.

Narrator (42m 9s):
If you like, what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST please tell a fellow Author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join Autumn in Yesper on patrion.com/am Writing Fantasy for as little as a dollar a month. You'll get awesome rewards and keep The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast going to stay safe out there and see you next Monday.