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Alice Worth Series and Writing Urban Fantasy - Part 2 of 2 · Mythmakers

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  Hello and welcome to MythMakers, MythMakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy
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  creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy, my name is Julia Golding, I'm
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  an author but also a director of the Centre and today I am joined by a special guest from
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  America, Nisa Edmonds, who is well best known to me for her Alice Worth's series.
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  It's I think it's probably possibly my favourite of the series, I don't know I've enjoyed them all
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  but when so when you were contemplating the more complicated series is there a draft of it where
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  you did try it as a straight through and then we organised or did you plot it out and then write
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  yeah during the plotting phase it became pretty clear that I was gonna have to do something a little
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  bit different it just you know just as I was doing my plotting and everything I just I thought if
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  I just tell this linearly I'm just on a couple of levels like you would already know what had happened
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  to her really early on instead of it being sort of the mystery that gets revealed like oh that's
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  what happened that's where she was okay um and this is and that's how she turned out that way
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  and oh that's where you know Malcolm is and and so forth so and I just it just it just made
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  it became pretty clear really early on that I was gonna have to do something a little different
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  I'm imagining a great wall of post-it notes if you moving them around but maybe maybe you do it
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  on a on computer I don't know yeah I definitely do a lot of my plotting on paper I'm old-fashioned
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  that way I definitely I do all my writing on the computer and so forth but when it's when it's
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  the idea generation time I have each book has a notebook a journal and I write everything out
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  I feel like I think a little bit better for the idea generation because I'm a kinetic thinker
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  I like to move when I think I like to write like a long hand and I also have these lovely notebooks
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  I have this lovely shelf of notebooks where you know each book has a notebook and I can actually go
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  back and see the earliest versions the earliest ideas um the things that didn't that I had planned
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  but didn't it didn't happen um so I enjoyed that on a couple of levels you know just to be able to
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  go back and see um you know things that I had originally planned in the book and then as I was
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  writing you know as I said characters do and say things you don't expect and so you know I had a
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  plan for this to happen but it didn't happen instead this happened so it's fun for me to go back
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  and look at that do you have any tips for listeners who want to write an ebb and fantasy on how to do
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  well building um for me I can only speak to what I did you know for me I started with the the
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  characters um and then the world it's kind of developed around that because I was thinking okay I'm
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  gonna have this person my main character is gonna have magic um I know I want to have these certain
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  other creatures now what world do they inhabit how does that change our world um and in the Alice
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  series it's you know her world is very similar to ours there's just a few there's a few changes
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  it depends on how far how far you want to take it um I have um another I have a spin-off in the
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  works um I guess I can call it a spin-off it'll it'll stand by itself but um it will be said in
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  what I call the broken world uh which is a world that appears in the sixth book um heart of vengeance
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  and that world is much different than ours um so to me I think a lot of people who read urban
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  fantasy they love the world they love the worlds they love the imagination and I definitely do too
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  but you also need really real well developed people to inhabit that world so for me I started with
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  my characters and then I sort of built the world around them a world that could um that would challenge
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  them um and a world that I wanted the reader to read that and say oh that's in that's creative that's
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  imaginative that's a neat that's a neat twist on our world um the wonderful wonderful thing about
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  fantasy and science fiction too is you're only limited by your own imagination um you can you can
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  have a setting you can place your stories anywhere you want to um and have all of these wonderful
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  challenges and difficulties and wonderful backdrops for your characters to play out their dramas
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  um the only caveat to that is that your rules have to make sense um and they have to they should
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  be consistent within that world so you know you and you don't want to change them from one book to
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  the next you don't want to have things happen that that count that contradict the the foundation
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  that you've established um but other than that the not even the sky is the limit which is another
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  big reason why I love science fiction and fantasy so much um you know just you can do all you
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  can be so so creative in how you and you know in your what you know the backdrop the environment
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  that you're working in do you want to have um you know cities that move and change do you want to
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  have um you know the magic that you know that they can transport you from one place to another
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  um you know there's no limits to it I don't know if you wanted your question no no absolutely did
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  start with the character and build around I guess that's the take-home for me um so what was your
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  route to publishing like that's another thing that lots of people are interested in how to you
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  know penetrate the mysteries of getting a book out there oh for sure um well I was lucky that I
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  had I made contact with some a couple of people who had already published books and so I got
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  some really helpful advice um one of the most important bits of advice I got was to be patient um
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  and like you feel like when you finish the book you immediately want to send it out there you
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  want to you know you want to get it and and query and you want to get it out there to people who
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  might publish it and I think I'm one of my biggest pieces of advice is wait wait and revise um identify
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  some what we call beta readers which would be people who are going to read it and give you feedback
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  friends and family do not work well for that um you don't want people to read it and say this is
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  the best thing I've ever written don't change a word um you need someone who's going to give you
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  honest tough feedback because that's how it gets better um so uh and I would say you know four or
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  five of those folks have them read it give get honest feedback you don't have to change it
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  to to make it make them happy but if you have more than one person pointing something out I think
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  that's a pretty good indicator that you may need to rethink that um and see I had some really great
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  beta readers that gave me some very tough love um on that first version of part of mouse which
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  was originally entitled magic city in in in fact um and so it went through a lot of revisions
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  um because you when you start querying you want to send out the the best version of that book you
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  don't want to send out the version you just finished or even the mildly revised version it needs to be
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  its best self um and then the second bit of of advice I got that was really important was to work on
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  your query what they call the query letter but it's actually an email usually um and revise it and
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  revise it and revise it because that is the most the single most important thing you will ever write
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  you can have the world's best book but you're not sending the book to the agents or the publishers
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  you're sending your query and you've got about one to two pair short paragraphs to compel them
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  to ask for to actually see the book um if you consider that they get hundreds of those a week
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  a lot of them the agents and the publishers how how are you going to make yours really stand out
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  and get them to nibble on it um so I worked on mine I must have revised it
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  I mean dozens of times I had a people read it I actually got in on some contests and I won a
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  couple of professional critiques of my query letter um you can get in on those on Twitter is a good
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  place um to get in on those that other authors will run them as well a lot of times you'll see contests
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  where someone will be giving away a professional critique and I can't I can't stress enough how important
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  that was so once you have your book in its best form you have your query letter your base query
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  letter in its best form um you start querying publishers and agents um and you want to change
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  the letter and adapt it to each agent or publisher and if show them you you've read their website
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  it's not definitely you don't want them to know like they know but they don't want them to really
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  notice that it's a form letter like so you tweak it and you know I see that you publish so and so
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  and my book is very similar to that or something like that um and make sure to follow their instructions
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  exactly uh because every one of them will ask for something different um some of them just want
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  the query some of them want the query a one page summary and the first thousand words um
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  you know just do exactly what they say um and then I I really credit that my attention to detail
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  on all of that to getting several bites on my hook um if you will um and you know and then getting
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  a publishing contract was you know just making sure that I was I had the best query I could possibly
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  and that that first chapter sparkled like a vampire in the sun so that's my that's my advice
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  so did you get the bite fast from the publisher rather than an agent was that your
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  um I had a couple I had a couple of bites from a couple of agents and a couple of bites from
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  publishers um and I ended up deciding um at this stage in my career to go directly to a publisher
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  um without an agent and I have not regretted that um I'm very happy with my publisher my publisher
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  city all press um there are woman owned press um they specialize in urban fantasy paranormal
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  romance uh contemporary romance fantasy um and science fiction so I've been very happy with this
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  press um I'm very I'm pretty comfortable advocating for myself um as an author I do think that
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  down the road as if my career continues to develop I I will want to get an agent but at the moment
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  I'm pretty pretty content you probably have absolutely no difficulty getting an agent whatsoever
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  because my own experience was I got interest from a publisher first and then that made it so
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  much easier easier to walk in through the door of a big under agency whereas the other way around
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  might have been tricky yeah it's a big gamble on any publisher or any agents part you know to
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  to sign a debut author um and so you know I just um I evaluated you know what the offers I had in
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  front of me which I feel so so lucky every day to have had that um about ability but when I looked
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  at it all on and I did a ton of reading online um of various authors blogs and so forth trying to
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  also get advice from people who've been to who've been in this spot like what should I do
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  and at that moment in this point I felt like just going straight to the publisher I didn't need an
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  agent um at this moment but um I probably will end up getting one yeah well you've now added to
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  that um that good advice that's out there so I'm hoping people are taking notes even now attention
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  to detail do what they ask don't sort of send in a whole manuscript if they're only one a thousand
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  words that's just not gonna help the general wisdom seems to be like if you don't follow their
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  instructions they'll they'll just delete it yeah um you know you want to show to me like think
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  about what is your dream as an author like is your dream to be bestseller is it dream is it you know
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  whatever it is you following those instructions is how you make that happen if you don't if you
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  just send the same form letter with no tweaks if you if it's if it's got typos if it's got if it's
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  not perfect if or at least it's not as good as it can be you're not going to get that door open
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  you know um and I think those who who do make that happen um I mean it's a million to one you can
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  increase your odds the the more you the more work you do on the front end you know get that writing
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  sample whatever it happens to be the first chapter or the first three chapters your query letter
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  I can't stress enough get that critiqued professionally um and then every time everything you do
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  like that it just increases your chances even more and persist yes beepers I mean I definitely you
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  know I I have a contract I also got a lot of rejections um I have a spreadsheet because I am
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  I'm that sort of person I have a massive spreadsheet you know of all the places I queried um a lot
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  of them you won't hear back from you know they get hundreds of queries a week and they don't have
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  time to email you back um I also got a lot of um uh this isn't for us uh but best of luck um
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  sort a sort of emails and there were a lot of those there were a lot but only you know you only
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  lose at it if you stop and you just have to you just have to keep going because your stories have
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  an audience um continue to work on your query letter continue to work on you know your synopsis
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  your samples you know your stories will find their audience but you just have to keep at it
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  Lisa this has been a wonderful conversation I suppose we need to know what's next you've
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  trialled the fact that there's a spin-off series but what can we look forward to in for the rest
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  this year or early next um well I like I um I have eight books so far I'm currently writing what
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  I call 8.5 which is a novella um that takes a couple of the characters a couple of the supporting
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  characters and they have their own story um I have four more Alice books uh to go um that the one
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  I'm working on now mortal heart is gonna be out in november um and then I have four more Alice
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  books and alternating with those are gonna be three books featuring a character from the series named
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  Trent Lake um who is gonna have a trilogy of his own and then those two timelines will come together
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  for the final Alice book um once those are done my plan is to then move on to the broken world
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  and start that series with a character named Lucy um that uh you may have met in vengeance
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  yes absolutely she's got a lot of attitude as well I enjoyed Lucy a lot um I actually started
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  writing on the first Lucy book I'm gonna wait um until Alice is done to really go full
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  full out on that but I enjoy Lucy a lot I think she's gonna be a lot of fun her world is definitely
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  much more different from ours um and a lot of really cool fun ways so wait has dragons
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  yeah yes it has dry it has all kinds of wonderful things I'm looking forward to it um you know
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  I think it's gonna be a big contrast with Alice's world um and it's a little bit wild west um
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  yeah not literally but it's a very wild environment um you have all kinds of creatures you have
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  all kinds of issues and you've got sort of this uh uh the what they're called they're called the
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  League of Guardians and that's their job to try to maintain some kind of order in this very crazy
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  world um you also have the fun thing you also have the fun fun thing that you introduce
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  like the alter ego's of some of the characters who appear in one world there's this
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  sort of version of the many different contexts in the other which is huge fun
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  right and I want to do too much on that because I feel like you can you can kind of slip into
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  a little bit of cliches and um I remember when we first talking about the book my editor's like
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  you're not gonna make Alice fight herself right no we're not gonna do that um but definitely
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  you get to play around with it lee we we know at least a couple of you know like mirror mirror
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  world to borrow from Star Trek uh you know the mirror episodes are sparkly weird right um mirror
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  so that one's gonna be a lot of fun um and very distinctly different from Alice
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  so to complete the podcast we always end with where in all the fantasy world is best for something
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  we've done you know sort of things like the best mountains the best in the best food that kind of
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  thing uh and because there is a strong theme of well I called them a kind of magical gang as
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  a cabal which is in Alice's um well one of the big grits in Alice Alice's sort of oyster um I thought
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  we'd ask where are the best gangs in science fiction or fantasy doesn't matter which
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  magic that is a really good question um really I think I you know to put to you know for being
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  on this spot here I think I'm gonna point to the Kate Daniel series by Alona Andrews
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  and specifically um the way that she has the um the way that her world is set up she has
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  what she calls masters of the dead or they have I'm sorry Lona Andrews is a husband and wife writing
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  team um they have what they call masters of the dead they have uh people who pilot vampires
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  it's the most creative presentation of vampires I think I've ever read in any series um so they have
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  they have the vampires they have the the shifters have a very definite sort of hierarchy
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  where you have um the top is called the beast lord um and you know this is sort of each of the
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  different types of creatures has a very definite sort of um I would say coalition I guess or you
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  could call it like a gang or you could call it like a power structure and so a lot of that a lot
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  of that conflict that happens in the environment in that series is based on the conflicts between
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  um the different types of creatures and their um their structures and their hierarchies um sort of
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  pushing and shoving trying to get more power in this crazy world that they inhabit
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  yeah I love those books as well they're fantastic you're right the idea of the vampires which is
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  that you can kind of sell your like selling your body to science at the end you can sort of
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  help your family out by becoming this piloted vampire it's just wonderful it gets away from
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  many of the romanticism of the kind of gentleman vampire yeah and definitely you know the Lord Byron
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  style you know swabs sophisticated pansexual vampire is the you know is sort of the the trope that
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  I certainly lean on um as well but I love these stories where someone can take something that's
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  maybe a little bit overdone and then take it and do something completely new with it um and I
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  just love the way that you know and there's also the mercenary guild um and there's another
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  in that series as well like the night's yeah um who are incredibly just the ends justify the
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  means and extremely brutal and you know then you've got sort of the mercenary guild that that
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  Kate belonged to um for a while and it's like you've got all these different gangs all these
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  different groups like sort of jockeying for power and trying to undercut at each other and
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  it makes for just a wonderful you know you just know that you can't count on really can't count
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  on anybody um in that world except for a few people um because everyone is very much looking
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  out for themselves which makes of course it which creates a great environment for storytelling
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  which um elona andruz you know elona and gordon you will never you will never not be on your toes
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  reading anything by them because they're the worlds that they create are really outstanding
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  must be fascinating breakfast time conversations between the two of them
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  I'm not amazing I know that right what an amazing partnership um I've never
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  co-written a book with anyone I've had discussions about it um but I just it just seems like they
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  have something incredibly magical happening in that partnership um on multiple levels to create
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  these incredible stories these amazing characters it's just fantastic so I think it's it is quite a
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  difficult place to pick my favorite of all because I think there are often sort of gangs of
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  people and I suppose I'm thinking of people who work a little bit outside the law when I'm thinking
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  of that so the thing that did come to mind was in the worlds of ta white so actually I talked to
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  it very recently um but in her dragon ridden series she has a very good depiction of a world where
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  there's sort of circles of power but one of them is the sort of night market people who exist
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  have their own very strong power structures and there's also a sort of um acknowledgement that
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  they are needed in society they're sort of almost there are sometimes raids but the the gangs look
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  after a certain level of society and police it so I find that one quite a well thought through
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  gang culture um yeah so that's I think that's my pick for this well Lisa thank you so much
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  we're talking to us and do come back if you've got any new book news to share with us because
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  of enough to talk to you broken world series when it starts definitely um thank you
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  for having me my website is leesa edmonds.com um it has information on all the books it has a
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  couple of fun quizzes um there's a gift shop um there's also my writing blog which is on the
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  website so if you're curious to know more about my process um and advice for publishing it's
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  uh leesa edmonds.com slash blog and we'll include a link in the show notes so people
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  just need to scroll down and they'll be able to find you fantastic okay well thank you very much
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  well thank you it was a great honor to be on your show
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