R.M. Archer

I write under a pseudonym. To begin with it was just because I thought it sounded cooler and more fantastical than my real name, lol. And initials are pretty popular among speculative fiction authors (fantasy authors in particular). But as a woman it’s nice because I won’t have to worry about deciding whether or not to change the name I write by…[Read more]

@kathleenramm

I wish I’d known how to properly format dialogue and split up paragraphs. Some of my stories, even up until just six or seven years ago (which… actually sounds like a lot longer when I count the years XD), are really difficult to follow (or just plain cringey) because my paragraphs are a disaster and my dialogue is formatted improperly.

NO! The YA section needs more clean, quality stories. YA fiction is so, so, so important, because YA is where readers are trying to find out where they fit, and what to think, and what is important. They’re shaping their worldviews, and while our books won’t be the only voices shaping that (nor even the strongest, most likely), fiction is…[Read more]

Wait, what? You’re younger than me? I for sure thought you were 20-ish. XD

The thought of quitting has crossed my mind a couple of times. I have a tendency to look at my writing, or at my list of unfinished (and unstarted) projects, or whatever the case may be and think that I’m not really very good at the whole writing thing; I’m better at…[Read more]

@kathleenramm

Prose. Plots are still a struggle, and themes and characters are both a lot better but still a little hit-or-miss. My prose is still a little bare sometimes, but it’s at least much less stilted than it was then, lol.

@kathleen

A LOT of things, lol. The characters were all one-dimensional, the plot meandered, it was theme-less, the villain was incredibly non-threatening (especially for being a demon), my prose was lousy…

I was only about… 15 when I was working on it? Which doesn’t necessitate that it was awful, lol, but I’ve grown a lot with my writing in…[Read more]

Hm… This question is tough for me to answer because I don’t often work on stories for a long time and then completely scrap them. If I work on something for a while, it means there’s something to the story that keeps my attention for an extended period of time, and even if the story is largely unsalvageable, I’ll still keep it around in case I…[Read more]

I’ve recently started rereading it after a few years, so I’ll probably have a better answer after I finish it again, but I did like the characters. I especially liked Oscar, Peet, and Tink in the first book, and I could somewhat connect with Janner since he’s an oldest sibling and works around books. And I liked several of the settings, like the…[Read more]

I don’t have a whole lot to contribute currently because this is an issue I’ve been trying to figure out myself, but I’m very interested to read the discussion and I might weigh in later!

Shortest: Not counting short stories, since I can write at least one of those in a single day, the project that took the least time for me was the novel I wrote the first time I officially participated in NaNoWriMo. I wrote around 53k in 23 days. I have no plans to do anything with that novel because it’s kind of terrible and there are very few…[Read more]

How exciting! Congratulations!

@not-so-secret-assassin

The first book reads like a bedtime story. It’s not the deepest. It’s not necessarily high-quality literature. But it’s fun and it kicks things off. (And I personally enjoyed the footnotes; I found the writing style amusing.)

The second book I don’t remember real well except that I wasn’t a big fan of it, but it’s a…[Read more]

Writing has helped me to understand theology and the character of God better. Not only as I reflect His creativity and sovereignty through sub-creation (obviously on a far inferior scale, and fallibly), but also as I strive to reflect truth in my stories. I’ve had to hammer out my beliefs on a number of topics as they’ve come up in my stories and…[Read more]

You’re so welcome! I’m glad they were helpful! I had a fair bit of Pinterest clean-up to do when I started using it for blogging, too. XD But I’ve found it to be worth it! I mostly just have a lot more secret boards now than I did before, lol.

Here’s the second post: A Guide to Blogging for the Fiction Author

Ooh! This is so exciting! I’ve always thought it would be super cool for you to start blogging!

I love your introductory post. It’s beautifully honest. ^-^

I do have a couple blog posts that discuss how to get started blogging. They got eaten by the forum, so let’s see if it’ll let me post them one at a time.

Answering Your Blog Questions

I’d…[Read more]

@godlyfantasy21 This is a cool idea! ^-^

@melancholic-writer

Cool! I agree; it can be really cool to step back in time with fantasy. 🙂

That’s an interesting take on the story!

Hi there! I’m Ariel (or Archer), and I also hang out around Story Embers!

I’ll add a couple of questions to Kathleen’s:

1. What’s your favorite element of your fantasy world?

2. What’s the defining feature of your Cinderella retelling, as opposed to other retellings (if you can share without spoilers)?

Welcome to KP!

@ribbonash

I’m glad the conversation was a blessing!

Thank you! I really appreciate that. ^-^

Exactly.

I think I would agree with that. It can definitely be helpful to consider age when deciding what to include or not, what tone to go with or avoid, etc. as you’re thinking through a new idea.

I can see younger teens avoiding the YA section.…[Read more]