I'll be answering questions on Monday August 15th between 3pm to 11pm GMT +1

Hey there! I’m Rhianna Pratchett (@rhipratchett) an amphibious writer working in videogames, comics, film, TV, short stories and pretty much everything that isn’t full novels. Okay, let’s tackle games first - I’ve worked in the games industry for 18 years. Originally, as a games journalist and then moving over to development 16 years ago. I’ve worked on franchise titles such as Tomb Raider and Rise of the Tomb Raider, original IPs (Mirror’s Edge, Heavenly Sword, Viking: Battle for Asgard and the entire Overlord series) and indie/mobile games such as Beatbuddy, Rival Kingdoms, and the currently in development, Lost Words (@LostWordsGame.) I’ve also been a support writer for titles like Prince of Persia PS3, Bioshock Infinite and Risen.

I’ve spoken about writing for games at: GDC, DICE, BAFTA, TedX, Reboot, Nordic Game, Animex, London Screenwriting Festival, Hay Festival, EIGF, Develop and many other places.

I’ve also been working in comics since 2008. Starting by burrowing my way in from games to write DC’s Mirror’s Edge (6-part miniseries) and then moving on to write for Dark Horse (Tomb Raider, Thief: Tales from the City and Tomb Raider: The Beginning.) I crafted an origin story for Red Sonja’s chain-mail bikini in #3 of Legends of Red Sonja (Dynamite) and I’m contributing a story to Marvel’s upcoming Attack on Titan Anthology.

I adapted Janet Paisley’s novel, Warrior Daughter, for screen, with funding from the BFI and Creative Scotland. I’m also adapting Wee Free Men with The Jim Henson Company and another (secret) adaptation with Film4. I contributed the short story, Creation Screen, to the gaming-themed anthology, Press Start to Play (Penguin Random House)

I also have a multitude of other film, game and TV projects bubbling away in various stages of development. Like most writers, I like hard liquor and soft cats.

AMA!

Rhi

So this may be considered controversial, but what are your thoughts on authors using AI to help with character and novel outlines? I tried an app to help summarize a few of my characters' personalities better and I tested it to help summarize my novel plot better. It did a decent job, but I did put in what I wanted it to include.

I also suck at describing scenery and it did help give me a few ideas of how better to describe the school my MC will be attending. Overall, I think it’s okay to use it for the planning phase of your novel, but I’m not using it to create my chapters or write the story for me.

Edit: Thanks for everyone’s opinion! I understand where everyone is coming from and can see both sides. I do want to make it clear that I have no intentions of using AI to write my story full or anything like that. I have just used it to help me plot my character outlines better and help with describing a building in better detail.

I don't know if I deserve to post this, since I haven't been active on the sub lately, but.....I've signed with an agent!! I'm excited to finally change my flair from "Querying" to "Agented."

I've queried about 50 agents with my YA space opera. I had a lot of requests for the full, but in the end most of them came back and said "I love the characters and story, but I don't think I can sell this." But last month, Jessica Reino emailed me saying she wanted to do "The Call." She's enthusiastic and ambitious, and I'm excited to see what we can do together.

Hey everyone! Just wanted to share something I’ve been working on in case it’s up your alley—my debut YA novel, Step-Dracula, is coming out independently next year.

I just revealed the official cover, and I’m more than happy with how it turned out. It captures the exact Fear Street–inspired vibe I grew up loving. The artwork was created by a Reddit-commissioned artist, Floofaeth, who completely nailed the vision.

Step-Dracula originally started as a screenplay that found relative success on the festival circuit, and adapting it into a YA novel has been a huge (but fun) undertaking.

Look for it digitally fall 2026!

Hi all!

Writing a full-fledged fantasy novel is for the mad, but sanity never suited me.

Now that I have little else to do than wait in agony for my editor’s feedback, I reflected on my writing journey up until this point. Balancing a full-time job with a kid etc. has been a rollercoaster and a balance of priorities.

Does anyone recognize themselves in my realizations? There have been more than 4 but I stuck to the main ones 😅

Interested to hear yours!

Hey all,

My book's birthday was yesterday, and I wanted to let you all know. I'm very proud, and very very glad I stuck through with writing even when it looked like I was wasting my time.

My journey to publication was long and filled with setbacks.

For real. Here's the journey so far:

2010: Decided to stop talking about being a writer and actually start writing something for real.

2011: Finished first manuscript. It was crap. Over 100 generic agent rejections.

2012: Finished 2nd manuscript. It was crap. Over 100 generic agent rejections.

2013: Finished 3rd manuscript. It wasn't crap. Didn't really query it because I knew.

2014: Finished 4th manuscript. It was good, agents liked it, but said it wasn't a genre they could sell.

2014: Finished 5th manuscript, queried, got an agent on December 12th, 2014.

2015: Agent began submissions process in June.

2015/2016: 20+ rejections from every big 5 YA imprint save one.

December, 2016: Putnam makes an offer after receiving my R&R.

December, 2018: My book, Strange Days, is finally on the shelves.

And now I'm a published author of a book about which I'm very proud.

Thanks for all the help, support, and great conversations along the way.

Costa

I just wanted to thank this sub (despite it being incredibly dead) for inspiring me every day and to push me through the trenches. These past two years have been ROUGH, but light really does exist at the end of the tunnel.

Thank you so much <3

Hello, lovely people! I've recently discovered the joys of Notion and I wanted to share a few writerly templates.

• https://www.rebeccamix.com/notion-templates - She has some very cute and colorful templates that encourage me to really commit to my WIP daily. (Side note: I also really like Rebecca's short fiction.)

• https://www.notion.so/New-Novel-Template-129e46e837214a04addc5eef663ed8e4 - made by u/lixah (thanks for the awesome template), I used this one for NaNoWriMo.

If anyone knows of any other Notion templates for writers, I would love to know. Happy writing, folks.

Just a helpful resource for the dope writers out there who want too be inclusive in their writings and avoid defaulting whiteness in your stories and describe poc in a less cliché way.

That feeling is so common for me to the point that I expect to dislike any published YA book I read. I'm not sure if I've just "outgrown" the genre, or if it's a common sentiment...

The thing is, I write YA, and the fact I can't seem to like published YA books tells me that maybe what I'm writing is not YA after all, even though it hits all of YA's most common attributes. (Or maybe I'm just too self-absorbed and overly confident about my work idk). That's why I'm asking you guys here on this sub. Are you overly critical of every YA book you read like I am, or should I just re-examine my reading list (and my own writing!).

Okay so hear me out guys.
This might sound a bit stupid ngl.

When I try writing a story, and every time I type "the boy stood there" or "the girl looked away," it just sounds... off.

Like either it's a children's book, or the characters are stuck in puberty forever. Do you get me?

Calling them a "man" or "woman" feels too mature or formal, especially if they’re teens. And I don’t want to keep using names in every single line either.

So what am I supposed to do here? What do you all do here?

EDIT 1

I’m talking about the moments before you switch to pronouns. What do you call them then?
Like when I want to introduce the character.

Take for example.
A girl standing on the side of a road.
How do I introduce her when my character doesnt know her name or anything. I cant just jump straight to She.

EDIT 2

Hey Guyss

I just wanted to take a moment to genuinely thank you all.
This was a very constructive and helpful discussion. You all were very helpful.

After reading all the comments I have made few points which I’ve listed below.
Here’s a quick recap of what I gathered:

When introducing a character whose name you don't know yet:

1. Use light description:

   • “A tall girl with scraped knees”

   • “The boy with stormy eyes and a leather jacket”

   • “A lanky teen with his hands buried in his hoodie pockets”

2. Lean into POV voice:

3. What would your narrator notice first? Age? Vibe? Clothes?

4. Use contextually appropriate epithets (sparingly):

   • “The stranger”

   • “The kid”

   • “The newcomer”

   • But if you overuse it, you risk sounding like bad fanfic.

5. Just say ‘she/he/they’:

6. Especially in deep POV, yes, you can start with “she.”

7. Compare to a known character (if you’re in someone’s POV):

8. Example: “She looked about my sister’s age — fifteen, maybe sixteen — with eyes like she’d seen too much too fast.”

9. Use unique traits to give a nickname if no name is coming:“

10. Shoe-Hands,” “Red Hoodie,” “Smudged Glasses” — this can help temporarily.

Thank you again for being such an amazing community.
Let me know if there is something else I can add

Bonus question: something you want to see more of in YA genre. Can be anything at all, from minor details to significant plot points, character traits, characters in general, etc etc

For myself, I’m tired of the idea that young adults can do whatever they want, as there never seems to be a parental figure in the pages anyway. Definitely not the childhood I had or most POC kids, so I was never able to relate to teens who were out all night like it was nothing. College students are granted more freedom, so that would be more understandable I believe.

Something that I do wish I could see more of are self aware MCs that don’t miss out social cues that the audience are aware of, real-life consequences to actions, just a realistic edge. Not everything has to be realistic of course, otherwise there would be no novel, but something to ground readers with a relatable element.

I’m about to release my first self-published book (finally!), and I’m realizing the writing part was actually the easiest step for me. Marketing though, feels like a whole different challenge 😅

I noticed Fiverr has a bunch of gigs for book promotion, press releases, influencer shoutouts, and even email campaigns. Some look legit and promosing, others… not so much.

Has anyone here actually had luck using Fiverr for promoting their book? I’m not expecting miracles, but even a small boost in visibility would help. Would love to hear what worked (or didn’t) for you.

I started writing middlegrade 3 years ago and yesterday I finally got my work in front of 3 readers in that audience and they loved it and begged for more! I’m just extremely proud of my hard work and wanted to share with the community! I know it’s not YA, but there’s not a good MG community here. Thanks for all the help from all my redo it buddies along the way! Next step querying!!!

I just had my first beta reader finish it. She seemingly really liked it (but I paid her through fiverr, so not sure it counts). There's some things I'd like to redo. The story is the book I wished I had read growing up, so I'm quite happy with it.

But now what?

It is YA LGBT with a heavy sports theme, if that matters.

I simply don't know what to do next. It's taken me ~2 years to actually compete, so I haven't given a great deal of thought of what to do once I was satisfied with the product. /endrant

Hi all, I'm thrilled to be doing an AMA here today! My most recent book, Uprooted, is coming out in paperback next week (http://www.naominovik.com/2014/09/pre-order-uprooted-by-naomi-novik/) and League of Dragons, the final Temeraire book, comes out in June.

My personal one-line summary is "author, fangirl, coder, geek". I started writing fanfic way back in 1994 and did it as a hobby while working on my compsci degree and computer games. I became a pro writer with the first Temeraire novel in 2004, and now I code as a hobby (mostly on the Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works, which I founded along with several other fans back in 2007 to preserve the work and protect the rights of fan creators.)

Ask me anything! I'll be dropping in throughout the US work day to answer.

Edited to Add: Well, this article has blown up rather a lot since I posted it! I want to reiterate what I say below: although this article was inspired by a particular press (and, to a lesser extent, two others, one of which has since closed) that I feel are particularly bad deals for an author, this article is about questions and issues an author should raise, and NOT to decry any particular small press. There ABSOLUTELY are some very valid small presses, and some that violate the list below are still quite valid as well--this article is meant to inform you, the author, as to what rights are valuable, what questions should be asked, etc. Also, this article is specifically about fiction presses--nonfiction are a totally different game, and I'm not informed on that at all. An ignorant author is not good for either party--this article's intent is to make sure that the author is NOT ignorant as to what rights are important and what warning signs exist, and then to make an INFORMED decision--with the small press or elsewhere. Choose what's best for you, as an author--but make an INFORMED decision.

We've recently had some discussion about small presses, and since then, one particular small press has come up rather a lot in a private list serv I'm a member of, and so I decided to share some thoughts here.

First and foremost: not all small presses are bad. I know of some that have launched very successful careers. I know of some that are excellent in niche markets. Just as with Big 6 or self-publishing, there are some small presses that are quite good and are the right option for an author's work.

But let's talk for a moment about the ones that aren't good.

WHAT TO AVOID

• A small press with little credentials. Everyone starts somewhere, but if a small press has none of the following, avoid:

  • Experience in the publication world (i.e. career-salary editorial work, degree in graphic design, successful books previously published with the publishing group)

  • Agent-accepted queries. Many small presses take unsolicited queries, but if they refuse to work with agents at all, that's a huge warning sign

  • Professionalism. Social media is great! But if your small press publisher or editor is on social media, representing the company, do you want them to be anything other than professional? If they start Twitter-bashing wars and/or spout ideas that are fallacies, avoid. If they solicit manuscript submissions through Facebook (i.e., pitch your book on the FB wall rather than a formal submission process), avoid.

• Look for the standards of online presence.

  • Does their website have a lot of typos? That's not a good sign--they're treating their own business poorly, how will they treat your book?

  • Is their website user-friendly? Using something that's flash-based, for example, shows that they're not aware of today's media market. Many cellphone users can't use a flash-based site, and they load poorly.

  • How does the publisher sell books online? Do they ONLY have their website and online distributers, or is there a presence in other online areas?

• Examine the quality of produced work. Before you even think about signing with a publisher, purchase at least two books. One in ebook form, one traditionally published.

  • Is the ebook properly formatted? Is there a linked table of contents? Is the material readable and presented professionally?

  • Is the hard copy reasonably priced? Hardback books should be around $10-15 online, and paperbacks should be around $8 to remain competitive.

  • Is the cover art professional looking? Small publishers have to prove that they're worth more than self-publishing to the author, so if the coverart looks less than professional, they're losing sales. Cover art should be designed by a professional, not "home made."

  • Does the cover art look good online--does it have a presence that is visible in the small preview window?

  • Does the cover art wrap around the book in the hard cover copy? A sign of cheap cover art is no art on the spine, standard font on the back, and the back with just a color and text.

  • Is the hard copy a standard size?

• Examine what the publisher can provide for the author. If the publisher is more focused on what YOU can provide in terms of marketing and production than what THEY can provide, RUN.

  • Do they have any marketing outside of the online world?

  • Do they have any distribution to traditional bookstores?

  • Do they provide you with more than just bookmarks?

  • Do they have ARC distribution? And a targeted idea of what to do with ARCs?

  • Do they have the ability to promote your work in a bigger way than you yourself could? You can buy an ad on Facebook or GoodReads, you can design bookmarks. If they're not doing more than that, why bother publishing with them?

• LOOK AT THE CONTRACT CAREFULLY. In the small press I've been discussing with my friends, the contract is VERY sketch. Here's some of the things we noted:

  • No advance. You should be getting SOMETHING for your time and effort up front. Otherwise...why not self-publish? How to spot this: if the publisher says they'll pay you in a percentage with no mention of an advance, then they're basically putting all the risk on you and you're not getting an advance. (Edited to add: This does depend on the press--just make sure you know what you're getting paid and if it's worth it to you.)

  • Only payments after profit. If the payment scheme is: no one gets paid (cover designer, editor, author) until we make a profit, this is not good. A publisher needs to take some risk and PAY for the product it's producing. Otherwise...self publish.

  • Snatching up all rights. Why does a small publisher with limited distribution demand world rights? Film rights? Because they're greedy. It's a disservice to the author, and DO NOT accept that. It's one thing if a publisher with world contacts wants world rights. But Joe Schmoe Publisher out of her basement has no means to act on world rights.

  • No rights reversions. You need to be able to publish your backlist.

  • No print publication guarantee: make sure you know before you sign the contract if you'll get that or not.

  • A slow editorial plan. If the publisher is saying up front that it may take a year or more to edit your book (not produce--edit), then that's a warning sign. You're low on their priority, or they're not organized, or they're shooting for quantity and not quality and signing too many authors.

  • Not incorporation; the business isn't an LLC. While this isn't necessary to run a business, it's definitely a warning sign. You want to work with a business, not a person.

SCAMS DO NOT ALWAYS LOOK LIKE SCAMS

In the small press I've been talking about,

• Deals have been announced by this publisher in Publisher's Weekly

• Some contracts have been accepted with agents

• The publisher has a very strong social media presence

All of these things make this publisher look valid. And, frankly, it's NOT a scam. The publisher isn't tricking authors--it's just that the publisher is providing ATROCIOUSLY BAD services for ATROCIOUSLY BAD terms. But the authors are agreeing to this, signing the contracts...and pissing away their books, in my opinion. None of the press's published works are doing better than the average self-published novel, and the author is seeing a microscopic portion of profits (as opposed to self-publishing and keeping all income). It's not a scam...but it's a bad deal. DO NOT just think that because a small press has agent ties or media presence that they are worth your novel.

MY BEST ADVICE: Figure out what you want for your book early on. Have a good small press niche you want to work with? Aim for that. Want guaranteed mass market distribution and a chance to hit bestseller lists? Aim for traditional publication with a bigger press. Want complete control and all the profits? Self publish. But figure out what you want now, and don't settle for less. It's better to shelve a novel than to throw it away on a lesser form of your dream.

REMEMBER: Anyone can call herself a publisher. Doesn't mean she has the quality, experience, or knowledge to followthrough. Publication isn't a prize to be won--you want to be published well. When is comes to publication, desperation is the #1 thing that can lead a writer astray. Don't sell yourself short. Use the rule of thumb /u/SaundraMitchell posted in the comments: They need to be able to do better for you than you can do for yourself.

ETA: a few more points. If you think of any, let me know in the comments and I'll add it here.