Knowing Your Genre, Part 3: Magical Realism

Magical Realism is one of the hardest genres to define in fiction. It's both speculative and literary, and it involves elements that no one can quite pinpoint. When asked about magical realism, agents and editors will give an answer that resembles something along the lines of "it's a book where something magical becomes ordinary". The…

Knowing Your Genre, Part 2: Science Fiction

Hi everyone, and welcome to the second blog post on the series on Genres I'm doing. Last week I talked about fantasy subgenres, and this week my sole focus is science fiction. For those who are still kinda confused, there's a difference between Fantasy and Science-Fiction. People often lump them together, as if it's one…

Knowing Your Genre, Part One: Fantasy

Hello everyone! With PitchWars almost in the corner and everyone getting ready for submission, it's time we all have everything set -- there's always time for last minute revisions and changing your queries, but don't stress it out. After posting my wishlist, there was a particular question that I got asked a couple of times:…

Your Experience is Not Universal: and that’s okay

There's been a constant discussion on twitter about writing and who gets to write what. As for contemporary, there's always been that unspoken rule about #ownvoices -- someone writing from their own experience will have better knowledge of the subject, and thus will know what they are talking about, and it'll be written with better…

Calling Out Problematic Books

From time to time, we see this come up in book twitter. A book is flagged as problematic, or has some content that we have an issue with. First of all, this is NORMAL. Not every book is going to be perfect. I dare say we are all problematic from time to time, and make…

Discussing Identity, and when it’s not Enough

The other day I read a convo on twitter that made me really think about how we often see ourselves, and how we can hurt someone else when we are hurting. It revolved around the new Blade Runner trailer, and the fact that there are no visible POC on it. Often in sci-fi movies the…

The Sexualization of Teen characters in YA Romance (and why it needs to end)

Sit down because this is one reeeeeally long post. Recently I was talking to a friend about something that deeply bothered me in book blurbs - the use of the word "sexy". Often, I see it used in erotic books - which are totally fine! - but still feel weird. What troubles me is the…

Going Deep into POV

This is something all writers wonder at some point in our story. Choosing which POV will be used is something hard, especially because it's the lens through which we'll see the story pass. POV - short for point of view - is one of the most important elements within a story. Why? Because it shapes…

Feedback with a pinch of salt

I've raved about the importance of finding the right CPs and beta readers before, and I'll say this again. It's really important to keep this in mind. NOT ALL FEEDBACK WILL BE RIGHT FOR YOUR BOOK. Repeat with me: NOT ALL FEEDBACK WILL BE RIGHT FOR YOUR BOOK. This is really important to remember. I…

How I Got My Agent

Just writing the title of this post kind of gave me all the excitment again. This is the dream post for every writer, right? Everyone wants to write one of these, and I devour them happily from all other writers. There's nothing like seeing the reward for hard work, and I always wanted to write…