FANTASY FAQ

So one of the wonders of doing a hybrid publishing thing (aka Indie but not self published) is getting to have ARC ebooks to send out. A.R.C (advanced reader copies) are typically sent out for free 3-6 months before the book release, so we're right in the sweet spot.

If you are interested in a YA SFF novel that's like queer gothic ATLA meets Percy Jackson, this is right up your alley! Read the book for free, and leave a review on Goodreads (or Instagram or Storygraph) / wherever you leave book reviews. Ratings/reviews on Amazon are also much appreciated, all ideally by Jan/Feb 2026. The book is a little over 110,000 words (so a decently long fanfiction).

I have people I'm hoping / planning to send to as well, but I thought I might as well come to the almost 100 of you here first as a Big thank you for following and being interested in the book. If anyone would like to read the first chapter first before agreeing to an ARC, feel free to let me know here / in the form itself, and I'll get back to you!

Here are some of the reviews the book has received so far:

BOOK BLURB:

Ally Hatten is tired of waiting to be believed in.  As the Infran of Life, she's supposed to be one of Alvoskia’s eight admired reincarnated protectors—if she still had her powers. When the Infran Claiming ceremony comes to call, it seems she’ll be left behind. Again.  But when war is brought to her doorstep, all of the Infrans are thrust into a world of deceptive politics on a ticking time limit: two weeks to travel to the enemy capitol and negotiate a peace treaty, or war will threaten their world like never before… whether they’re ready for it or not.  Joined by her embittered twin, Jamie, the Infran of Death, and her friend / one-sided rival — the sweet-hearted Infran of Fire, Flames, a prodigy with a rare skill not seen for centuries — all three of them have demons to face in the city of Serkdan, with danger lurking around every corner.  To stop the war before it begins, Jamie must confront the monster who raised her, and Flames the shadows of a past she can’t quite burn to ashes. And perhaps, Ally can finally find the secret to unlocking her powers, if the last Infran who was dormant like her isn’t the monster everyone says he is.  Haunted by the Infran who went off the rails, and struggling to find her place in a world that seems determined to shut her out of it, Ally and the Infrans must rise to the challenges set before them, or risk losing the only family they have left: each other.

As many of you know, I am an American who lives and studies in London. I thought I’d make a little general rules list about aspects of UK culture which I feel are misrepresented quite often when I read fiction written by someone who’s never experienced life here. So here it goes, every American fiction writers’ incomplete yet somewhat sufficient guide to writing fiction based in the UK.

KNOW YOUR SUPERMARKETS. Tesco isn’t the only one. Tesco and Sainsbury’s are the two most popular, like Safeway, Albertson’s, or Kroger. M&S and Waitrose are where the posh white people shop. Everything is over-priced; the American equivalent would be Whole Foods (which the UK has but is not nearly as common). Then there’s Morrison’s and Co-Op which are both good but not as popular as Tesco or Sainsbury’s. And then you have the discount supermarkets like Lidl and Aldi, where everything is off-branded so the prices are lower. And of course there’s ASDA which is Wal-Mart only smaller and not as terrifying.

In the UK, pants = underwear. I thought this would be quite known but I still see the mistake all the time? Jeans and trousers, folks!

Accents are hugely different from one another. First you have to learn the distinction between Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Northern Irish, and English. Then from there you have all the regional accents. And accents are classed and racialised as well. A middle class white person raised in West London is going to have a completely different accent from a working class PoC raised in East London, even though they may live within 15 miles of each other. If you want to really impress readers, study different types of accents and incorporate them into your dialogue, it makes things much more interesting (think Hagrid from Harry Potter).

Pubs are also classed. There are old white working class pubs that don’t do food (besides maybe crisp packets), are always showing greyhound or horse racing, and still smell of cigarette smoke. Only locals go here, and they usually go pretty much every night. Like the Winchester from Shaun of the Dead. And then you have the hipster pubs, which are expensive and do fancy food. The people working at these pubs usually look pretty cool—dyed hair, piercings, that stuff—but there probably aren’t any ‘regulars’ who come there every day. 

Wetherspoon’s is the backbone of society. Wetherspoon’s (or Spoons) is a chain pub that’s pretty much in every damn post code. It’s cheap as shit and beloved by many. You can get a huge cocktail pitcher for under £10, and you can guarantee you’ll get wasted pretty quickly cause they’re full of sugar and have a high alcohol content.

Drinking culture in general is quite different from the US. People start drinking at about age 15/16, and it’s legal to drink at 18. Kids drink WKD (which is like Mike’s Hard Lemonade I think??? I’ve never actually had it but it seems like it’s on the same tier), Smirnoff Ice, Malibu, and cheap fruity wine (Echo Falls, Hardy’s, Blossom Hill, Kumala, and Gallo Family are the usual brands).

Drunk food consists of: fried chicken, chips (+cheese, salt and vinegar, gravy, or curry, depending on the region), kebabs, pizza from a shop with bad graphic design, microwaveable burgers. You can also get delivery from a lot of restaurants, and they bring it right to your house. Indian, pizza, and Chinese are the most common.

Speaking of food, it’s hard to find good Mexican food in the UK. There’s Wahaca but it’s spendy as it’s a sit-down restaurant and it kind of only exists in touristy and gentrified areas. You won’t have any luck finding cheap, authentic street tacos the way you would in Southern California. There also isn’t really any fast food Mexican (although there are a handful of Taco Bells splattered around the country). I’m sure there are some trendy areas which are bringing in Mexican street food in London, but let’s be real, it’s probably not authentic and is also probably stupidly over-priced. I’m getting off topic, sorry.

Nando’s is also the backbone of society. They do grilled chicken there, ranging from mild (but still seasoned) to burn your tonsils off spicy. There’s stuff for vegetarians too, like portobello mushroom and halloumi (a type of cheese you grill—it’s amazing and difficult to find in the US without spending an obscene amount of money) wraps which are incredible. Nando’s is usually packed and they play really fun Spanish/Portuguese/South African music which is really fun when you’re drunk and in the toilets. 10/10, perfect for a cheeky night out with the lads. The kind of place Gryffindors probably love (I’m sorry I keep using Harry Potter references)

You don’t ‘sign for the check’ in the UK. Almost every credit/debit card in the UK has a chip, and you put it in the chip and pin machine, type in your pin, and voila! You’ve paid! It’s actually much more secure than signing, honestly, the amount of times I’ve just scribbled my signature in a US shop and they’ve accepted it without even checking is appalling. 

Public transport is actually good in most cities. Buses are common everywhere, and bigger cities like Manchester, London, Birmingham, Glasgow, etc all have some sort of mass rail system, whether that’s a subway, tram, lightrail, whatever. Also nearly everywhere (even the tiny villages!) at least has a train station. It may be tiny as shit and trains may not go through very often, but they do exist.

All schools have uniforms.

Infant school = preschool, primary school = elementary school, secondary school = middle school/half of high school, further education (6th Form) = second half of high school, uni = college. The first two and last one are pretty self explanatory. At 16, you take your GCSEs, and after that, you’re not required to continue school, but many go to further education and take A Levels, which are like the pre-requisite for uni (although you can get into uni without A Levels, this is quite rare). Most take 2-3 subjects for A-Levels, but I think you can take more if you have a death wish (kind of like AP classes for us Americans). Here’s a good link for people who want to know more about the UK education system: https://www.internationalstudent.com/study_uk/education_system/

No one says “What’s up?” Instead, it’s “Alright?” which is confusing at first, but you get used to it. An example greeting between two friends: ‘Hey mate, alright?’ ‘Yeah, you alright?’ And that’s it. 

Religion is different. I actually know very little about religion so I can’t offer a whole lot of insight on this, but I’ve had a lot of people tell me it’s very different. If anyone wants to have their input here, that would be lovely!

Houses don’t have yards, they have gardens. This is mostly just a terminology thing to be honest. 

Speaking of terminology, use ‘pavement’ instead of ‘sidewalk’. Obviously people aren’t stupid, they’ll know what you mean if you say sidewalk, but still, gotta stay authentic for the plot.

House layouts in general are very different. Houses are either terraced (town houses in the US), semi-detached (duplex in the US), or detached (typical US house). Terraced are most common in big cities, and most houses are made of brick. Take some time to research different architecture styles (Victorian, Edwardian, Georgian, 60s), the differences between them become quite apparent when you do a bit of looking. 

 There are also a variety of apartment/flat styles. Old period properties are often divided up into flats, and there are also purpose-built blocks of flats, which is like a US apartment complex. There are also luxury flats, which I think we call condominiums in the US. They’re all really modern and have lots of glass.

Since the entire country is so damn tiny, long roadtrips aren’t really a thing. It’s more like, you drive somewhere to go camping, like Cornwall or Devon (basically Florida for British people).

Holidays to warm places are quite common. South of France, Greece, Portugal, and Spain and some of the usual destinations. You usually fly to these places on budget flights like Easy Jet or Ryan Air, unless you’re rich, then you probably take British Airways.

Stop signs don’t exist. No, I’m serious. If the intersection (or crossroads) is big enough, there’ll be traffic lights or a roundabout. But other than that, you just have to be careful. Which is generally okay, because people in the UK can actually drive.

No one refers to a section of street as a block. Cities in the UK aren’t really set up in a grid the way US cities are. Streets are kind of weird and curvy and don’t make sense, so saying ‘it’s two blocks that way!’ doesn’t really work. Instead, write about distance in terms of vague relation: ‘It’s just up that road a bit, past the M&S, then left at the The King’s Head pub’.

London, in general, is a fucking huge city. You can’t walk across the whole thing in a day. Hell, you can barely drive across the whole thing in a day. Big Ben and Tower Bridge are 2.5 miles apart from each other. I know, it was a shocker for me too when I first got here! Take a look at a map of London and you’ll see what I mean. It is possible to do most of Westminster in a day, but that would be a very full day and you wouldn’t get to really see anything in-depth. And most people live very far away from these landmarks. So keep that in mind next time you have a character who lives in London saying they can hear Big Ben chime from their flat. That character must have a lot of money.

- Cards nowadays are mostly contactless and don’t even need you to enter a pin if the amount is under 25 quid. Also, keep in mind that if you’re writing fic set in late 90s-early 00s, then signing the receipt was what we did back then when paying by card.

- The ‘alright’ confused me so much when I first moved to the UK. I kept worrying I looked ill. 

- Houses in the south tend to be painted in bright colours (well, at least Brighton and Portsmouth where I lived). Midlands and North it’s mostly brick. Living in a detached house means you earn good money. Semi-detached is usually affordable by a couple with two decent salaries.

- Accents are everything. They reveal where you were raised as well as your class. People will comment on or otherwise make note of your accent. In the first episode of Misfits, the very first thing the characters do when they meet each other is to talk/take the piss off the others’ accent.

GCSEs are run on the 9-1 system, which no one really understands yet. I’ve had people tell me they hope I get a 1, which would be the worst possible marks. If you get a 3 or lower in maths and English, you have to resit the exam. There are rumours of a 10 being possible within 5 years and everyone hates that. I’m taking 11, but I have friends doing 9 and friends doing 13.

9=A**

8=A*

7=A

6=B

5=C

4=D

Schools in England use regions. So if you live just outside the good school’s territory, then you can’t go it to. Many people in England buy apartments that they don’t use, just to get their kids to go to the good schools. (it’s quite a big issue actually). And they don’t have grammar schools.

If your characters have different accents, they mightn’t understand each other. When I talk to people with a strong Belfast accent, I have no clue what they’re saying. And we’re from the same country.

You can say footpath instead of pavement. I don’t think anyone said this: One pound = a quid. 10 pound note is a tenner, 5 pound note is a fiver but a 20 pound note is not a twenty-er. Pretty much everyone says banter (i.e a good time) “It was great banter”. in N.I. we also say craic (said like crack) which means the pretty much the same thing, but you can also say “What’s the craic?” to mean, “What’s up?”

If you’re writing parents talking to their kids about exams, the kids will say “A-Levels” the parent will call them “O-Levels” because the system changed.

My school only let people with 20(ish) points at GCSE do four A-levels and you needs 12 points to get back in at A-Level. To get back for the second year we needed at least 3 Cs.

In reference to OP’s school names, I have never heard anyone say fucking “infant school”. We say “Nursery School” or “Nursery” for short.

I can be in a different country in 3 hours by driving and 45 minutes by flying. Because everything is closer together, unless your character is travelling from the country to London, their daily commute won’t take longer than half an hour. My commute to school takes 30 minutes depending on traffic and the bus driver. Driving to London can and will take at least an hour. Maybe even longer.

We make up words. In Northern Ireland, a normal conversation could include: “Oi, where’re youse’uns going?” which translates as: “Hey where are you lot going?” Youse is plural of you and “uns” is “ones”. Idk why we put “uns” on the end, but we do. Scotland does similar stuff, but I don’t know enough about their slang.

For example my school is bang in the middle of a small village town. As such a fair amount of the people there speak in what we’d deem today as ‘standard english’. However that being said, around said village is a ton of poorer, larger towns which often sound more ‘chavy’ (a common slang term for working class).

Moreover, individual schools will have their own slang attached to it so don’t be afraid to make up some slang and dot that on on top of general british slang. For example, for 5 years at secondary I went to a school in a large town - accent wise it was common to drop the ‘t’s’ and ‘g’s’ so I find myself doing that a lot and slang wise we’d have little dumb things like ‘ladies drop your weapons’ to signify a slut drop (don’t ask me why I just went along with it). Whereas at the school I’m at now that I moved to for sixth form, obviously as said before it’s in a different place so not only are the accents different (e.g out of pretty much all my friends and classes I’m often deemed to speak the most ‘chavy’) but the slang is different so if I don’t like something I find myself saying it’s ‘wack’ whereas before I’d have said ‘its peak’ or something like that.

Also, when a British person talks about “Asians” (or British Asians), they mean people of South Asian descent (i.e. Indians, Pakistanis, etc), rather than East Asian descent like in the US and Australia. South Asians are the largest ethnic minority in Britain (5% of the UK’s population), whereas East Asians are incredibly rare over here (and tend to refer to themselves as “British Chinese” – there are even fewer people of Japanese or Korean descent here than there are (Hong Kong) Chinese, who make up 0.5% of the population). 

The acronym “BAME” gets used for non-white people over here, and stands for “Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic”, where “Asian” means South Asian, and “Minority Ethnic” includes all other minority ethnicities – such as Chinese, Turkish, Middle Eastern, etc. Hispanic/Mexican/Latino people are so rare it’s unlikely you’ll meet any, even in the big cities. 

And yes, we are ruder. Like the Australians, it’s not unheard of to call someone a “cunt” in a joking way (although it’s usually used as an insult, and is not a gendered slur over here like it is in the US). 

London is very very racially diverse, but outside of the cities, the UK really isn’t. My husband grew up in a part of the English countryside that’s like 99% white (probably even 100% white). Whenever we visit, I am literally the only brown face there. 

Also, I feel like gay culture in London is quite different to what Tumblr often portrays LGBT culture as? Homophobia still exists, like it does everywhere, but in my experience, many gay and lesbian people in London are quite openly gay/lesbian – whether that’s out and about or at work or whatever. 

Foreign holidays are reasonably common. The vast majority of Brits will have been abroad (i.e. outside the UK) at least once in their lives, even if it’s just to Europe (and in Britain, we think of “Europe” as the mainland part of the continent where they don’t speak English as a first language. Americans tend to refer to Brits as “Europeans”, but we generally don’t tend to see ourselves as Europeans ourselves… although the Brexit vote in 2016 changed some of that in some people’s minds).

1) give them maximum level autism special interest style insanity about exactly one niche subject (ex. laois dungeon meshi, maomao apothecary diaries)

I see this a lot, no one has actual names, or any reference for names, that are legit Native American, varying among the tribes, for their characters.

Babynames.com and shit like that will give you names made up by white people.

However, I’ve got your solution.

Native-Languages  is a good website to turn to for knowledge on a lot of native things, including native names. If you’re unsure about the names you’ve picked, they even have a list of made up names here!

“They felt sick.” — Vague. “They threw up.” — Sometimes, but not always.

Illness isn’t a switch you flip. Fever and nausea creep, spike, ebb, lie to you, then come back worse. They live in the body first, and that’s where your writing should live too.

Below, I've written a lil' cheat sheet for you. Reblog so you can come back later.

It’s not about darkness. It’s about a precise use of habits and small things, their behaviour both when acting the villain and not.

1. Give them a contradiction.

Villains are scariest when they’re almost human. It's alot harder to harm, or even kill, when you can the part of them that is kind.

“He always apologised before hurting someone.”

2. Let them think they’re right.

No moustache twirling ('mustache twirling villain' is often used as a pejorative to describe poor antagonists/bad guys, usually they in comedy) — just conviction. Their ideals and values should stem from something important to them. Doesn't have to be important or make to others, just them.

“I’m not saving the world. I’m correcting it.”

3. Give them a normal habit that becomes unsettling.

• humming off-key

• straightening objects mid-argument

• collecting people’s abandoned pens (this was something I got from primary school where I watched someone collect them and i thought it was evil they were stealing pens😭)

4. Make their kindness selective.

Kind to dogs. Cruel to friends.

Kind to children. Absent to their own.

This really adds to their character and backstory, even if you don't elaborate or tell it.

5. Make their presence change a room.

Not with theatrics — with tone.

“The laughter thinned when he stepped inside.”

Making antagonists who aren’t evil (but still hurt you emotionally)

Some of the best antagonists are just… people.

1. Give them the same goal as the hero — different methods.

Hero wants peace.

Antagonist wants peace.

Hero uses unity; antagonist uses control.

2. Let the antagonist be right sometimes.

That stings.

3. Make the hero almost agree with them.

“You’re not wrong,” she admitted. “But you’re not right either.”

4. Show glimpses of softness.

“He tucked the child’s drawing into his coat.”

5. Let them break their own rules.

Instant complexity, villains change the rules to fit their momentary desires and whims.

(Edit: ive written this up from a book that ive been filling with writing tips and tricks from classes, im putting here a few pages from it

So I get it, I need to change how I format things 😭)

And you can expand them to see rank, number of babies, and percentage of babies and add a second name to compare. (in 1973 four percent of babies were named Jennifer! 1 in 25!!!)

on Fiction University: Be wary of going too far and turning a good sentence (or scene) into an overwritten mess.  The term “purple prose” has been around as long as I’ve been writing, and chances are you’ve heard it too. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, purple or flowery prose is so filled with adjectives and adverbs, similes and metaphors, that it screams “Hey look! I’m fancy writing” and…

(Left) This is a traditional Somali ship known as a beden. Traditionally, the planks are sewn together with coconut fiber instead of hammered with nails. Did you know ancient Somalia had a maritime empire?

(Right) Galway hooker, from Galway Ireland. The original cloth sails were treated with a solution made from treebark to protect them from rot, which just so happened to turn the sails their iconic rusty red color, and modern synthetic sailcloth is dyed to imitate this.

(Left) Viking boats (amongst others) were built with the planks overlapping (clinker) instead of being flush (carvel) this provides flexibility for the boat to bend instead of break in rough seas but still maintains strength.

(Right) a Māori waka taua (decorated war canoe). This particular one is Ngā Toki, and it previously held the world record for longest canoe at 123 feet long and 6 1/2 wide).

Four more that I know less about:

(Left) Haida dugout canoe.

(Right) Vietnamese Ghe Nang.

(Left) An Unangax baidarka.

(Image source)

In 1975, the first journey of Hōkūleʻa (named for the North Star) from Hawai‘i to Tahiti was the beginning of a revival of Polynesian wayfinding. You can read more about it here on the Polynesian Voyaging Society website. Hōkūleʻa is now in the middle of another worldwide voyage to bring attention to the importance of the oceans and human responsibility to care for them. And she is so beautiful!

I want to emphasize that this is not the only way to understand plot structure. There are so many different ways of approaching and explaining plot, and this is a pretty rigid structure that's meant to apply to feature-length movies. So this is not the be-all-end-all of what a plot should be--but it can be a very useful way to understand plots, because once you know these terms, you really start seeing them everywhere.

I've taken the liberty of condensing his explanations into a summary. Snyder spends an entire chapter of his book explaining each of these, so if you want the full in-depth explanations, I recommend trying to get your hands on Save The Cat.

Also, as a disclaimer, this isn't my system, although I find it's often useful. If you have issues with it, take it up with Blake Snyder, not me.

The Blake Snyder Beat Sheet (note: numbers marked are approximately what page these should land on, in a 110-page screenplay. That is, it's there to help you understand the intended pacing. With this, it can be helpful to remember that in traditional screenplays, one page = one minute.)

Opening Image (1): The first impression of what a story is. Its tone, its mood, its scope. This image shows us the world we are being dropped into, and helps us get an immediate sense of the status quo, as well as the journey we're about to take.

Theme Stated (5): The main theme of the story is brought up directly here. This theme is the deeper universal feeling or concept that the rest of the story will be centered around.

Set-up (1-10): This is where we set up all the problems of the movie that need to be addressed by the end. Yes, all of them.

Catalyst (12): The catalyst moment challenges the main character's status quo, forcing them into new territory. Their world is shaken by something happening, and now they have to figure out how to deal with this thing that they were wholly unprepared for.

Debate (12-25): Will the hero rise to the challenge that the catalyst proposes, or will they go home and hide under their bed? A question must be posed in this section, a question that the character will wrestle with, until eventually, the character will choose to rise to the challenge. Maybe reluctantly, but they will choose to take action. Which leads us to...

Break into Two (25): The hero has chosen to leave their normal status quo behind and foray into a new, upside down situation--one that proposes the opposite of what their normal status quo stood for.

B Story (30): Often (but not always) the love story. The B Story "carries the theme of the movie," giving us a break from the external plot to really explore the main theme in a more tender, calm, overt way. New supporting characters are introduced here. We will continue to cut back to the B Story at times throughout the rest of the story, interweaving it with our main plot.

Fun and Games (30-55): Delivers on the promise of the premise. Essentially riffing off of the main conceit of the movie, showing off how fun it is. In superhero movies, there's often a training montage in here somewhere. In rom-coms, this is often the point where you just get to sit back and enjoy the sparkling chemistry of the two leads. As Blake Snyder puts it, "we take a break from the stakes of the story and see what the idea is about" (emphasis mine). The heroes are truckin' along, letting their dynamics (and the situations they get into) shine.

Midpoint (55): The halfway point of the plot. This is either a false victory (the hero wins! ...but do they really?) or a false defeat (the hero loses! ...but they'll realize the true strength and grit and potential allies they have once the dust clears). ...But most importantly, the stakes are raised during the midpoint. Whether it's a false victory or a false defeat, we've been shaken out of our fun and games section, and we've realized we really need to get serious. In fact, the bad guy has come back in a more insidious way than we previously thought.

Bad Guys Close In (55-75): The bad guys are organizing, drawing together a plan, getting ready to take their throne and set their plans in motion. Meanwhile, the heroes start to crumble. If they had a false victory, the cracks of that victory show themselves. If they rallied and tried to come back from a defeat, they're going to find that it's a lot more challenging than they thought. By the end of this section, the heroes have fallen apart, internal dissent driving them apart, while the bad guys seem on the track to winning.

All Is Lost (75): The hero is in shambles. They've lost. Their world has crumbled around them, and now they're in total despair. There is often a symbolic or literal death in this section (the "whiff of death"), in order to showcase just how despairing things have gotten... and also because for the hero to find the true solution, their old way of thinking has to die first. And that's what this section is about: every illusion and coping mechanism the hero has been clinging to has been ripped away from them, so that they have to face the cold hard truth.

Dark Night of the Soul (75-85): Happens inside the All Is Lost section. The moment when the hero truly hits rock bottom, and we get to see it. They can't just be having a bad day, it truly needs to be a Dark Night of the Soul, where the hero can do nothing but despair, because they don't know what else to do. But then...

Break into Three (85): The hero realizes the solution! Thanks to what the hero learned in their conversations about theme in the B Story, and thanks to being forced to finally face the truth in their All Is Lost moment, everything comes together. The hero knows what they must do. The external story and the internal story now meet and intertwine--the world of synthesis is at hand.

Finale (85-110): Act three. This is where the hero applies all the lessons they learned and save the day--more than save the day, they change their world from the old-world status quo to a new world of synthesis, merging concepts from their original mindset with the upside-down mindset of act two to create a more nuanced, truthful outlook. The bad guys are defeated in ascending order (henchmen first, then final boss). The A story and the B story is resolved, thanks to what the hero has learned about themself.

Short story a little too short? Not to worry! Just follow these quick tips to expand a short first draft.