It’s a common misconception that a great idea makes a great story. The truth is that most great stories come down to execution. A great idea with poor execution rarely works, but a great writer can breathe new life into even the most tired tropes.
Like any writer, I have my own treasure trove of ideas that might end up in a story…someday. But why horde them? Instead, I’m opening the vault and setting them free.
Feel free to use these ideas as a writing prompt, or come up with your own twist and reply in the comments.
The Holy App
Caleb Ortiz-Levin made a career through the boom and bust cycles of Silicon Valley. Increasingly desperate bids to sell cryptocurrency, the metaverse, and everything AI. And what did he have to show for it? Only a few billion dollars.
Everyone was shocked when he stepped away from business.
He climbed remote mountains to study at isolated monasteries. He obtained three theological degrees. He brought his cadre of spiritual advisors to every gold plate charity dinner and political fundraiser. He spent six months not speaking. He interviewed the Pope and the Dalai Lama in the New Yorker.
Caleb wasn’t a fool. He knew how he was viewed: just another rich tech bro going down some obsessive rabbit hole. He didn’t mind. It just meant that he would be on the cutting edge of the next big thing: personalized religion.
People were increasingly desperate for meaning in a meaningless world. Why settle for an ethical system written on stone tablets in the bronze age? Why accept a cosmogony developed by shepherds before the invention of telescopes?
The app was downloaded a hundred million times in the first week. It made it easy to register a new religion, set up a hierarchy, and ordain your own priests. All with AI auto-complete, recorded indelibly on the blockchain. People began to wonder how the old religions survived without push notifications and subscription fees.
The two Churches of Satan, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and Hatsune Miku vied for the most adherents in the weekly rankings. The pope denounced it as a tool of the devil. Oddly, this only caused a spike in downloads. Within a year, all the major religions were on the app too.
When Caleb went on the podcast circuit, he was asked one question more than any other: “What do you believe?”
The first time I started regularly reading books aloud in adulthood was shortly after my first son was born. Books for the under-three crowd aren’t exactly high literature, but that’s okay. Babies aren’t discerning consumers, and I wasn’t an amazing narrator.
Still, it was clearly valuable. My oldest could turn the pages and recite his favorite books from memory long before he could actually read any words. All of our children have become voracious readers, and that literacy is an asset in school and life. Plus…you know…it’s fun to read.
My oldest child is now a high schooler, and no longer interested in me reading aloud to him. My youngest is also losing interest, although he still listens occasionally, when we find a book that piques his interest. For now, my middle child is the one who asks me to read to her. She’s a smart middle-schooler, and we mostly read adult sci-fi novels. It’s a gift to be able to share the books that I enjoyed at that age, and revisit them through her eyes.
I know those days are numbered. I suppose I’ll miss it when I no longer have someone asking me to read to them.
Reading fiction aloud for 30-60 minutes most evenings has made me much better at it. I know to shift my tone to better separate external and internal dialogue. I know to adjust my voice to differentiate between two characters in conversation. I know how much space is needed to create a scene break. Sometimes I even know when I’ve gone too far with the bad accents and silly voices.
I’m no professional narrator, but I’ve improved through 15 years of practice.
Audiobooks
I recently made a conscious effort to start “reading” audiobooks. They’re going through something of a renaissance. Enabled by the same streaming and on-demand technology that has upended movies and radio, audiobooks have also helped fill a sizable hole in publisher profits left by the rise of e-books and precipitous decline of physical (and especially hardcover) sales.
Audiobooks also happen to fit well into our current culture, where it often feels hard to sit down and dedicate time to reading, but there are still plenty of opportunities to connect a phone to the car radio during commutes, or put something on the headphones while doing laundry or mowing.
For me, including audiobooks in my reading diet has at least doubled the number of pages I consume. Maybe more. It has given me more opportunities to try new authors without adding to my overfull bookshelves.
I’ve also been slowly noticing the ways that listening to a story alters the way I perceive it. I have a harder time keeping track of different characters and remembering their names. It’s much harder to skip back a chapter and reread something for context.
Stories, Spoken
When humanity was young, storytellers were part historian, part wizard, part priest. Stories were a way for us to make sense of a confusing and malevolent world, to preserve knowledge and wisdom, and to build a shared worldview. For thousands of years, all stories were spoken.
Even in modern times, when the world is more literate than it has ever been before; even as a writer who most values the written word, there is clearly some special power in a story, spoken aloud.
Writing Advice
Some oft-quoted advice for writers suggests the value in reading your work in progress out loud.
“It will help you find the parts of your prose that sound off.”
“It will help you hear the rhythm of your words.”
“It will help you find your characters’ voices.”
“It will help you find your own voice.”
Like most writing advice, I think these pearls of wisdom will work well for some and not for others.
My opinion these days is considerably broader. As a writer, I think there’s value in consuming many kinds of stories in many different forms and formats, just as there’s value in writing drabbles, flash, novellas, novels, and series, composed by pen or typewriter or computer, or even dictation.
I think writing fiction is an activity where generalists and jacks of all trades excel. We open ourselves up to the world and gather as much as we can, so we can sift it for notes of truth to sprinkle on the page.
And I think we’d be remiss if we didn’t at least dabble in the original medium of stories, the only one that has persisted since before humans were recognizable as human: the spoken word.
I am mainly a fiction writer. I put a considerable amount of effort into it. I worry about the quality, and I’m constantly striving to be better. I don’t often write poetry, and I don’t consider myself a poet. Since I finished school, I don’t think I’ve ever sat down with the intent to write a poem. So when I write poems, it’s usually an accident. Some small phrase or stanza pops into my head, and the rest of the thing follows.
This poem came as a response to some of the pessimism around modern politics and the sky-is-falling, world-is-ending rhetoric. Not political ideology, just a passing feeling. I don’t have the expertise to judge whether it’s any good, but it might as well go out into the world instead of rotting on my hard drive. Enjoy!
Another Song, Another Kiss
They say it’s getting worse. Look how people talk, How they behave.
Look at politics. We live in different worlds. (Nobody has ever said Politics is getting better)
And if you don’t believe it's all falling apart, If you don’t live in fear, Or you dare to hope, You’re a fool, or worse: complicit.
But they forgot the feeling: The first time hearing Your favorite song, The first time kissing Someone you love
The future is not all bad. There are more good things in store. Tomorrow has a surprise for you And you’ll never guess.
I suspect, in a vacuum, I would not pick up a book labeled Murderbot Diaries. It sounds like a combination of military SF parody and introspective John Green-esque YA fiction. Having read the first installment, the title comes off as tongue-in-cheek and less abrasively cheesy.
This is one of those cases where “word of mouth” unequivocally led to a sale. The book has been recommended to me by friends, acquaintances, podcasts, and blogs which would usually all have very different tastes. My interest was piqued by broad support across normally unaligned quadrants.
Who is this Killer Robot?
I can see why so many people like Murderbot. He is a protagonist for our times.
In another universe, he might have the makings of a charismatic action hero: a humanoid, partly organic robot with armor; built-in weapons; the ability to repair from near death; and extensive experience in private security.
In the universe of All Systems Red, he just wants to slack off, avoid talking to anyone, and watch his favorite shows.
Many robot narratives are either as emotionless as possible or essentially indistinguishable from a human narrative. Murderbot finds a middle-ground. He has emotions and can certainly get caught up in the moment, but he is also aware that he is more affected by the storylines of his shows than by the actual interactions between himself and the crew who has purchased his company contract for security services.
He needs his space, both physically and emotionally. He’s more comfortable talking to the crew with his opaque helmet on; more comfortable seeing them through the security cameras; and happy to spend his time alone in the tiny security room, or even tinier repair bay.
The company that owns Murderbot and sells his services to the highest bidder is an amoral edifice of shitty space capitalism. They worry about the welfare of the people Murderbot is hired to protect because they will suffer financial penalties for injuries and deaths. They care about Murderbot because he would be expensive to replace.
Murderbot himself has more theoretical autonomy than he should. He has hacked his own modules and only feigns following orders enough to not get caught. He also has actual morals, even if they often butt up against his limited emotional range and social anxiety.
Many readers identify with Murderbot because he reflects marginalized identities. He is aromantic, asexual, and exhibits behaviors and feelings familiar to many neurodivergent people. He is also a small character in a big world. He uses his very limited freedom to seek little comforts that help block out an indifferent and cruel universe, at least for a little while. He cannot possibly imagine leading a rebellion or overthrowing evil, but he appreciates when someone does it on TV.
I suspect many of us feel the same way when we flip on our favorite show these days.
Quick Hits and Remixes
I am a big fan of the return of novellas. When I was young I read huge fantasy tomes and played 100-hour JRPGs. Now that I’m older and cherish my precious free time, I quite like a book or game that I can finish comfortably in a day or two.
Novellas also lend themselves wonderfully to series like this. Much like a weekly TV show, each entry can provide a concise arc while building characterization and setting on top of the previous entries.
I’m also appreciative of the fresh familiarity of Murderbot. It’s hard to point to any particular element of the story that is a purely original take. The action-adventure, the robot learning how to be more human, and the mildly dystopic libertarian space future have all been explored elsewhere. However, Martha Wells puts those puzzle pieces together in a way that feels fun and strangely parallel to our current moment in time.
It’s a common misconception that a great idea makes a great story. The truth is that most great stories come down to execution. A great idea with poor execution rarely works, but a great writer can breathe new life into even the most tired tropes.
Like any writer, I have my own treasure trove of ideas that might end up in a story…someday. But why horde them? Instead, I’m opening the vault and setting them free.
Feel free to use these ideas as a writing prompt, or come up with your own twist and reply in the comments.
Voices of the Dead
The professors were all thrilled when Dr. Landau agreed to join our little jungle expedition. They didn’t want to reveal their findings in writing, but they had to say enough to catch her interest.
I met her at the landing strip, and she wasted no time. As she stepped out of the plane, she asked me, “What’s all this about the parrots?”
“They’re speaking a dead language,” I told her. It sounded silly when I said it. “But the dig sites are all pristine. No potsherds. No hand axes. No bones or remnants of fire pits.”
She soon gave up questioning me, and we hiked to the camp, hardly speaking. We listened to the banter of long-dead voices, croaked from bird to bird in the treetops.
She was quick to confront my superiors.
“What kind of catastrophe can wipe out all traces of a civilization except their language?” she asked the professors. Of course, they had no answer. We had pondered it for twenty sleepless nights.
I once held those withered, bookish men in high esteem, but they were afraid to tell her our final secret. And who am I to judge them? I didn’t tell her either. She had to find out herself, alone in her tent as twilight fell on the misty jungle.
At night, the parrots stop echoing the words of the dead. After the sun goes down, the birds only recount their final, terrified screams.
After focusing intensely on submitting short stories in 2024, I have to admit, I fell off hard in 2025. However, I haven’t been completely dormant. I’ve been writing a little and submitting a little, so I figured it’s about time for an update.
The Joy of Simultaneous Submissions
I have two stories out on submission right now, and both have been rejected a few times, mostly by big pro markets.
I submit to these big markets first, simply because an acceptance will come with a bigger check and more prestige. It would be fun to have my name on a cover that has been graced with genre greats; the magazines that I read when I was young.
Am I confident that my stories are a high enough caliber for those markets? No, but judging the quality of fiction is such a personal, opinionated thing, and doubly so when you’re the one who wrote it. So why not? It’s worth a shot.
The big magazines and websites can afford to be picky and demanding. They often have months-long slush pile backlogs, and don’t allow multiple or simultaneous submissions. Once you’ve submitted, your story could be in limbo for a quarter, six months, sometimes even longer. All for that <1% chance at a big acceptance.
The stories I have out right now are past all that. They had their shot. Now I’m submitting to lower-paying and less well-known markets. There are three reasons why this is nice.
There are a lot of them! Even in the face of limited reading windows, narrow topics/genres, and themed issues, most stories have at least a couple reasonable places to submit in a given month.
They have smaller slush piles, and that often equates to higher acceptance rates and faster responses.
Many of them accept simultaneous submissions, which means you can send a story to several places at once.
So even though I only have two stories I’m currently submitting, I’ve been able to make 11 submissions, which isn’t too bad.
Timing the Market
Another thing I’ve noticed is that there seem to be a lot of markets that open for submissions in the summer, and close at the end of July or August. There are reading windows all year round, but there are also these larger trends. December and January seem to be the worst times to submit, with so many people out on holiday in the US and Europe.
I still check the Duotrope themed submissions calendar and publishing news pages fairly frequently. Their “Fiction publishers that have recently opened to submissions” list is a great way to track reading windows without trying to keep tabs on all the markets in your genres. The theme deadlines list is easy to glance through to see if anything matches any of the stories that I’m currently shopping around.
Drafts and Critiques
I’m still very behind on my rough drafts and critiques. I wrote a couple stories this year, and I’m now sitting on four that are somewhere between “technically complete” and “needs a final polish.”
The downside of using Critters for critique is that I’m not very good at keeping up my three(ish) critiques per month, so when I have stories I want to submit, I tend to have to do a couple months of critiques to get caught back up. However, with my finished stories out on submission, I really have no excuse. Aside from revision being the toughest part of the job.
The rest of August is going to be busy. I have a family vacation planned for the end of the month, and the kids are back in school the week after.
I’ve set myself a lofty goal of trying to get all four stories edited before the end of the year. That works out to almost one story per month. Doesn’t sound too implausible…until you compare it to my track record for the year so far.
That’s all the news that’s fit to print. How is your summer writing going? Let me know in the comments.
Apparently some of the longest-running genre fiction magazines still in print were bought up by a single entity at the start of the year: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Unfortunately, print magazines feel like a relic of the past, and even though sci-fi/fantasy has managed better than most fiction markets, it’s a tough business to be in.
There is some hope, as the group that now owns these magazines at least claims to be in it for the love of the fiction and the community, and not just to leech the remaining value like most private equity. Still, simply combining several similar magazines under one operation probably isn’t enough to keep things profitable. It appears that part of the strategy will be to try to leverage stories and IPs beyond magazines. This is at the heart of recent contract controversies, with the company using some pretty broad legal language.
Twenty years ago, when I was first getting serious about writing, these magazines were the most prestigious places a sci-fi/fantasy author could place their story. They are now sadly diminished, but some of that prestige still lingers. Let’s hope that they can find ways to keep the lights on without taking advantage of their writers and tarnishing the reputations that made them so beloved.
The New York Times calls Jemisin “The most celebrated science fiction and fantasy writer of her generation.” She has repeatedly won every major sci-fi/fantasy award, and when she’s not winning, she’s usually nominated. In short, I’ve heard great things about Jemisin for a while now, but I’ve never read her work. The Killing Moon was published in 2012, so I’m a couple decades late to the party.
I’ve been listening to a lot of audio books lately, and I’ve taken it as an opportunity to fill in some of these major gaps in my genre knowledge. I knew nothing about this book going in, I just saw it on Libro.fm while searching for something new to listen to on my commute.
The Killing Moon takes place in an Egyptian-inspired secondary world, a desert land with a loose pantheon of gods shared across nations. The technology is in the neighborhood of bronze or iron age, with the swords, spears, and armor a fantasy reader would expect.
There is magic in this world, specifically dream magic—narcomancy—attributed to the power of the goddess Hananja. But this is not a world where the gods are close. If they do exist, they are distant and do not meddle.
The story follows master Ehiru and apprentice Nijiri, gatherers who use narcomancy to collect magical energy from souls and guide them to the afterlife. This magical killing, sanctioned by the state of Gujaareh, is usually a gift reserved for the willing but sometimes used as a form of capital punishment for those deemed corrupt.
The pair are assigned to chase down Sunandi, a foreign ambassador accused of corruption. But they soon discover themselves embroiled in a conspiracy that goes to the highest levels of their order, and to the prince of Gujaareh himself. It threatens to reveal long-buried secrets about the near-mythological founding of their country, the religious order surrounding Hananja, and the true nature of narcomancy.
Settings and Sentiment
About a third of the way into The Killing Moon, I found myself struggling. I wasn’t feeling that compulsion to continue that usually accompanies a fantastic book. With all of the hype around Jemisin, I was expecting to be blown away, and I found myself a little disappointed.
I have a hard time pointing to any particular issue. The writing is solid. The world is well-constructed. The plot is perhaps a little slow to get going. However, I was consuming this as an audiobook, and I’m coming to realize that is not a mode of reading that makes it easy to analyze a story in detail.
One thing I can point to is the setting. I am thoroughly burnt out on the “elves and dwarves in medieval Europe” school of fantasy, so I was hoping that the Egyptian-inspired world would prove interesting. However, aside from the names and the desert, I don’t think it made much of an impact. It’s still swords and sorcery. It’s still mighty kings and high priests and big battles and political machinations.
Jade City makes for an interesting comparison. It is also a fantasy book inspired by an underused geographical region, and another one that I read as an audiobook. Jade City imagines a world that is recently industrialized and recovering from war, akin to post-WWII Asia. It eschews the kings and kingdoms so common in fantasy, and imagines a complicated web of politics, religion, and family ties that feels more modern. It limits its scope to roughly two generations of recent history and the capital city of a small island nation. The result is a setting that feels fresh and richly detailed, and I believe that’s in large part because it’s not trying to cover a thousand years and an entire world, as so many fantasy stories do.
Another frustration I noticed is that practically every character in The Killing Moon is miserable all the time. Moments of levity or happiness are brief and far between. Everything is bad, and it’s getting worse. This is certainly an engine to drive the plot, but I found that it ground me down and made it tiring to be with these characters for an extended length of time.
There are a few twists near the end that piqued my interest and substantially improved my opinion of the book overall. I was also relieved to discover that the plot wraps up nicely, because I was expecting it to end with a cliffhanger. The Killing Moon is billed as the first book in the Dreamblood duology, but they apparently only share a setting and can be read as independent books.
(A side note, as I’m reading so much fantasy lately. I sometimes find it exhausting that the norm for this genre is huge tomes and multi-book series. If I’m trying an author to see if I like their work, I don’t want to commit to a 1500 page odyssey. Just one more way it feels like we’re still slavishly copying Tolkien. Where are all the high-quality standalone fantasy books?)
It’s Not You, It’s Me
I don’t like giving negative reviews. If I don’t like a book, I’ll often just not talk about it. I’d much rather discuss what makes good things work. I can’t help but feel that I’m heaping unnecessary negativity on The Killing Moon. I don’t think it’s a bad book. To the contrary, all of the components are here for a great book. It’s well written; it just didn’t resonate for me and I don’t entirely understand why. Maybe part of that was having my expectations calibrated by all the acclaim and awards I know Jemisin has accrued.
Oddly, this only makes me want to read another book by Jemisin. Is it this particular book that doesn’t work for me? Only one way to find out.
After some searching, I see that the Broken Earth trilogy seems to be the most recommended. It made history by winning the Hugo three years in a row, for all three books in the series. Plus, it apparently uses second person POV extensively, and that’s certainly an ambitious choice. I’ll try that next.
After my recent re-read of Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, I decided to create a revision checklist. For this list, I started with items from the book, then added some of my own based on my weaknesses and what I typically look for. I’ve split these into several categories to help focus. If you want to make your own checklist, you can split items up into whatever categories make sense to you.
There is a lot to keep track of when revising a story. Too much, in fact, to keep track of all at once. This is why it pays to make multiple revision passes, working from big to small, and working on only a few things at a time. The checklist is a convenient tool for keeping track of it all.
One checklist like this can’t cover everything. It’s just a starting point. There will be changes that are specific to each story. The “general purpose” checklist can also change with your writing style. As you rid yourself of bad habits, you may find that you don’t need to check for those things anymore. If you want to focus on something new (maybe something that comes up repeatedly in reader feedback), you can add it to the checklist.
Story
☐ Introduce important characters early ☐ Describe character physically when first introduced. ☐ Can any characters be merged? ☐ Avoid using multiple channels to show the same characterization or plot point (dialogue, action, narration, etc.)
Chapter/Scene
☐ New scene or chapter when location/timeframe/POV changes ☐ Pacing - should this feel faster or slower? ○ Adjust scene or chapter length ☐ Focus on important aspects for scene ○ Characters/characterization ○ Physical action ○ Dialogue ○ Background info ○ Tone
Dialogue
Mechanics
☐ Avoid swifties (alternatives to "said," adverbs on "said") ☐ Single attribution per character per POV/scene ☐ Avoid tagging with redundant explanations ☐ Beats (action in dialogue) ○ Do two things at once — illuminate character, reveal something ○ Punctuate an emotional shift
Character
☐ Each line fits character/shows character ☐ Dialect - word choice, cadence, grammar. No phonetics.
Misc
☐ Read aloud! ○ Read each character’s dialogue consecutively, out loud, to hear inconsistencies in voice. ☐ Avoid big soliloquies - back and forth flow ☐ Complexity - misunderstandings, indirect questions, leaving things unspoken
Details
☐ Avoid weak words - seemed, mostly, some, a little, a bit, slightly, somewhat, sort of, kind of, like, as though ☐ Avoid cliches and idioms ☐ Avoid italics and ”emphasis” quotes ☐ Avoid phrasing that draws attention to itself ☐ Avoid description in a dependent clause (accidentally simultaneous actions) ☐ Avoid repetition ☐ Use exclamation points very judiciously ☐ Use brand names judiciously ☐ Use expletives judiciously ☐ Use adjectives judiciously ☐ Replace adverbs with better verbs
Narration
☐ Bad/excessive summary or exposition. ○ Work in exposition along the way ○ Provide information at the point it becomes relevant ☐ Narration follows POV character's focus
Characters
☐ Avoid summarizing character feelings ○ Show through action/dialogue ○ Have a character react to or describe another ☐ Time spent/level of detail on character should reflect importance
Point of View
☐ Establish POV as quick as possible in a scene. ☐ Evaluate POVs ○ What info is necessary? Is an omniscient perspective necessary ○ What perspective is most interesting? ○ More distance makes perspective changes less jarring ☐ Limit interior monologue
Pacing
☐ Should this feel faster or slower? ○ More or less description ○ Sentence and paragraph lengths
Renni Browne and Dave King aren’t household names. They aren’t famous authors like Chuck Palahniuk, or Chuck Wendig, or any of your classic famous authorial Chucks. They’re editors. Their advice isn’t wild or shocking, and it doesn’t claim to make writing easy or save you the hard work. It’s just twelve fairly straightforward ideas that can be used to edit fiction and make it better. The result is one of my favorite books on writing.
This book has been on my shelf for years. I have the second edition from 2004, and the original was published a good decade before that. It’s not exactly timeless, but it’s about as close as you can get while including references to a broad swath of literature. I take it out every few years when I’m planning to do a lot of editing, which is why I recently re-read it.
Each chapter focuses on one thing: Show and Tell, Dialogue Mechanics, Interior Monologue, etc. The authors explain a few problems they look for when editing, then provide short examples from published books, workshops, and manuscripts. Each chapter finishes with a bulleted checklist that can be used for your own work. Finally, they provide a couple of exercises that you can try, if you want to use the book as a sort of self-guided class.
After the last chapter, there are two brief appendixes. The first contains the editors’ answers to the exercises. The second is a list of recommended books for writers, split out into craft, inspiration, and reference. Lastly, there is a solid index, so you can easily find that half-remembered advice without needless skimming.
This structure is something worth noting. So many books on writing are meandering or mix anecdotes, ideas, and advice in ways that make them difficult to use as tools. This book has a few anecdotes and asides, but it’s organized so that you don’t have to wade through any of that when you’re busy trying to find some specific thing that resonated. It’s worth reading the book from cover to cover, but it’s also designed in a way that allows it to be useful as a reference.
If there is a weakness in this book, it’s a focus on a modern, mainstream, “popular” writing style. The authors don’t talk much about the exceptions to the rules, or how to make strange and unusual fiction. This is not a guide that will help much if you’re writing House of Leaves, or Poison for Breakfast, or This is How You Lose the Time War.
I don’t think that’s a major failing. Self-Editing for Fiction Writers advocates for clean, concise, clear fiction. That’s a pretty good starting point for any writer. I suspect the authors would suggest that this is table stakes for fiction. If you want to do something more, something wild and crazy that breaks the rules, you will do it more effectively if you have a good grounding in the basics first. This book provides that.
Words Deferred 