Now, before you hear something I’m not saying, this post is in no way meant to be an attack against the concept of “Clean Fiction.” Nor is this meant to be one of those posts outlining all the ways I’ve lowered my standards or strayed from my faith by glorifying, romanticizing, or normalizing sin in my storytelling. Rather, my decision over the course of the past year or two to distance myself from the sort of “Clean Fiction” movement that has overtaken BookTok and Bookstagram is more about the fact that some of you read this headline and the opening line of the article and immediately bristled before ever hearing my heart on the matter.

Once upon a time, I was one of those who proudly bore the “Clean Fiction Author” brandmark. While I certainly wasn’t the first writer to approach storytelling with a sense of responsibility for the kind of content I include, taking such a clear and public stance was my own sort of quiet rebellion against the rapidly increasing normalization of explicit content in the literary world, particularly in Young Adult categories where such content simply doesn’t belong. Of course, as with most things polarizing, the concept of “Clean Fiction” grew into a rather substantial movement. And, as with most movements, as it grew both in popularity and infamy, the waters were quickly muddied. Nowadays, if you were to ask someone to define “Clean Fiction,” you would get as many different definitions as there are people to ask; the concept of a “Clean” story is entirely subjective, and the topic requires nuance.

Unfortunately, the Clean Fiction community does not leave much room for nuance, in my experience. For a long time I’ve felt rather… out of place within that community. In fact, even before I began to sort of withdraw from the conversation altogether, I felt awkward weighing in on the topic when so many of my peers within the community have viewed my books as “not clean.” I’ve often gotten the feeling that peers and colleagues have had this kind of “I wouldn’t touch Brian’s books with a ten foot pole” mentality. All because I go places that many “Clean Fiction” writers wouldn’t dare; I write about drug addiction, alcoholism, domestic violence, sexual trauma, religious trauma, poverty, gang violence, racism, fatherlessness, premarital sex, suicide, self-destruction, and more. Things that are hard and uncomfortable and painful and ugly. Things that can’t be sanitized, watered down, or sugarcoated. And even while I avoid using profanity and avoid explicit depictions of sexual activity and violence, for many “Clean Fiction” readers even the inference or implication of these things has been enough to turn them away for good. And they’ve not always been kind about it; some have even gone as far as to attack my character and faith.

(Now, this is a good time to say that I have found a lot of support within the community as well from those who don’t object to the way I tell my stories; however, they also generally have their own struggles with “Clean Fiction” and the sense that they don’t entirely fit within that mold, even if they do broadly ascribe to the concept of inexplicit storytelling.)

Don’t get me wrong; the desire to write wholesome stories, or to tell stories in a way that honors that which is pure and lovely, or to write books that are safe for young readers to consume is a noble one.

My issue is not with this idea that books written for the young reader or the Christian generally ought to avoid explicit content; my issue is with how we define what is and is not explicit, and what that communicates to readers.

As a little bit of background, when I was thirteen years old, I accidentally stumbled across explicit material on the internet. What resulted was a years-long battle with self-image and self-worth that culminated in a season of such severe depression that it drove me to self-harm. It would have driven me to suicide were it not for the voice of my parents in my life and the gentle, faithful leadership of a Good Shepherd. Now, I’ve always been an avid reader, but I had this problem for most of my life: none of the characters I read about in my good Christian Books were like me. They faced struggles and endured hardships, yes, but almost always external and almost always in such a way that it left them “untainted.” It was almost as though Christian authors were afraid to write about characters whose inner lives were deeply darkened by sin or trauma.

I cringe every time I see a “Clean Fiction” author or book reviewer comment on how disappointed they are that a Christian author like myself included premarital sex in their book. Not explicit, not glorified, just present as part of the character’s story and arc. Because what does this sort of response communicate to readers? That if you have premarital sex or struggle with lust, then you don’t matter? That they should hide in shame? That yours isn’t a story worth being told? That you’re too far gone, untouchable, unwanted, unclean, and undeserving of love or respect or grace?

For me, it wasn’t until my late teens when I discovered that the secular industry was writing the kind of books I wanted—needed—to read. I devoured books like Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower, John Green’s Looking for Alaska, Amber Smith’s The Way I Used to Be, and Jennifer Niven’s All the Bright Places because, for the first time, I saw a little bit of myself within them. The problem then became that books like these lacked that redemptive element intrinsic to Christian storytelling.

I don’t want other young men like myself to struggle to find Christian stories with characters whose journeys resemble their own to the point that they turn to the secular world to feel a sense of compassion, understanding, and relatability. I want them to be able to read about characters who struggle with lust, addiction, poverty, trauma, depression, and self-harm within the redemptive framework of a Christian worldview. I want someone to pick up Mammoth or Devilfish and find a little bit of themselves in the story and realize that their sexual past, or their addiction, or the abuses they’ve endured do not define them and it does not have to be the end of their story.

I understand that everyone has their preferences, their convictions, their standards, their opinions, and so on. We all have that internal line that we don’t let people or media cross, and it’s different for each of us. Sometimes it’s a matter of emotional sensitivity and sometimes it’s simple discomfort. Whatever your reasons for saying “this is the line I won’t cross” they are perfectly valid, but they are subjective. And it, for me, has become a problem that advocates of “Clean Fiction” don’t recognize the subjectivity of their movement, forging the definition of “Clean” into a staunch and immovable standard while expanding the definition of “Explicit” to be far too broad and all-encompassing.

No longer does “Explicit” simply mean graphic depictions of sex or graphic profanity/vulgarity; now it has come to include any reference to anything that someone might find distasteful. A character in one of my books could pop painkillers as part of his story arc to show him going from traumatized addict to a character on his way to redemption and inner healing, and a “Clean” reader would consider that Unclean and inappropriate. (Yes, it’s happened.)

The problem of “Clean Fiction” seems to be that we view the very description of sin or trauma as revelry rather than revelation.

The Pharisees brought an adulteress woman before Jesus hoping that He would stone her for her sin. (John 8) Jesus shocked them all by turning their own accusation back against them—“Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” And what’s amazing is that even after having rebuked the Pharisees, Jesus could have stoned the woman because He was he who is without sin. Jesus was and is the only One qualified to condemn, and He still chose grace.

His grace toward this woman was not revelry in her adultery; it was revelation of her deep need.

His grace was not permissiveness of sin; it was liberation from its power.

Even so, when I write a story where a character who struggles with self-worth and wakes up in bed with a man she does not love to highlight her brokenness at the start of her character’s journey, it is not revelry; it is revelation. It is the unveiling of a character’s deep need at the start of their journey.

And, somehow, this sort of storytelling is not welcome in the “Clean Fiction” community. Heaven forbid we show the prodigal before he returns to the house of his father.

What are we so afraid of?

I don’t think I could begin to tell you what the root cause of all of this is. It’s a multi-faceted issue to be sure. I understand people who write and read Clean Fiction. I won’t begrudge anyone for having standards about what media they will and won’t consume; I have my own set of standards and convictions.

But I’m not going to sit here as a writer, terrified to write a story that deals with the issues plaguing our generation. I want too badly to reach a generation.

So, why are we—and by “we” I mean Christians in particular—afraid to talk about sexuality? Drugs? Alcohol? LGBTQ issues? Mental illness? Trauma? Racism? Why is it that I can manage to write an entire, gut-wrenching novel about issues like these without saying $#!t once and readers will still call my work “disappointing coming from someone who calls himself a Christian”? Why is it that I can manage to write an entire character arc about a guy who hates himself so much that he sleeps around just to numb the pain without describing the sex in detail once and readers will still say my work “indulges in things a Christian shouldn’t”?

I don’t know what people are afraid of—maybe it’s puritanical nonsense, maybe it’s the misguided belief that if we don’t talk about this issues, then they’ll just go away. Whatever it is, it’s troubling. And it breaks my heart that somewhere out there, a young man is struggling with his sexuality and he’s being pushed further beneath the crushing tide of shame because the people around him are afraid to talk about it; their silence, to him, is proof that he is worthless, unwanted, and unlovable. Somewhere out there, a young woman is battling depression because she made the kind of mistake that people like her aren’t supposed to make; their silence, to her, is evidence that she is unclean, dirty, and undesirable.

And so, with little else I can say, I’m breaking up with the idea of “Clean Fiction” altogether. Until we can approach it with nuance, until we stop broadening the definition of “explicit” to the point that anything uncomfortable is considered unclean, and until we stop narrowing the definition of “clean” to the point that we cannot tell real, human stories… I no longer fit the mold.

Subscribe now

“Your friends have all moved on.”

“You’re a has-been and a wannabe at the same time.”

“You can’t do this anymore. You don’t have what it takes.”

“The critics are right, and so are the haters.”

“You’ll never go far.”

“You’ll never be enough.”

“Your books aren’t Christian enough.”

“Your books are too Christian.”

“No one cares.”

I’d like to say I’m an expert and ignoring the lies, or that I never struggle with imposter syndrome, or that I don’t care what people think one bit.

But I’d be lying.

Granted, some days—most days—are good. I’m just over here writing and doing my thing and enjoying my life.

But then there comes a day where one of my posts doesn’t do well, or where I realize I haven’t talked with a writer friend in a while, or where I realize someone that used to support my writing journey randomly unfollowed me without a word.

And that’s when it all hits me.

A tumble, a tangle, a torrent of lies that I wish were as easily dismissed as they are believed.

And the problem is that I care. I care what people think of me, of my books. I want to make people happy. I want my books to be well-loved. I want to produce something of value for people to enjoy. I want to be everyone’s friend. I want to be a writer worth reading. I want to build a community.

But social media is such a void, and every post or story or effort is the shout it swallows.

And suddenly this whole writing journey can feel very lonely.

And empty.

And isolated.

Because everyone, including me, is living their life, doing their thing, walking their paths. Sometimes we intersect with each other; sometimes we go it alone. And it’s the going it alone part that hurts; that’s when the lies come.

In the space between a book newly published and a book not yet written, when the excitement and the hype dies down and it seems like I’ve slipped into irrelevancy.

“Everyone loved your last book, but they won’t stick around for this one.”

And so, the lies breed doubt.

“What if this is a mistake? What if this book doesn’t do as well as the last one? Maybe I should just quit. Give up. Move on. Maybe I’ve outlived my usefulness. Maybe no one wants what I have to offer.”

I doubt whether I can write at all. Or, if I can, I doubt whether what I have to say is worth saying. And I doubt my place in this literary world. And I doubt my book’s place on reader’s shelves, and I can almost imagine that every copy I’ve ever sold has been discarded or donated or sold at the bottom of a thrift sale box.

Time has moved on without me. History has forgotten my books already, and the printing presses haven’t even cooled. The industry has left me behind, and so have all my friends.

So it seems.

There’s no easy answer. No quick fix or satisfying resolution to the lies and the doubts and the fears that rise up just before the dawn of a new story.

All I can do is sit in it, let it wash me away like it’s a flood and I’m debris until I land someplace solid, someplace stable. And wait until the waters recede and the fear slithers into the soil and the doubt drains away. When that happens—because it always happens—that’s when I remember that I may well lose all the things I’m afraid to lose.

But I’ll never lose myself.

Subscribe now

I bring you a good ol’ fashioned publishing update for Devilfish! Specifically, that I’m currently accepting applications for the Street Team as well as participants in the Cover Reveal (September 29th) for those who don’t feel like they can be part of the full street team campaign! But first… a little bit about Devilfish for those late to the party.

Devilfish is the first book in a Tomb Raider meets Atlantis modern pirate adventure series that follows four strangers brought together by a storm and thrust into a quest for a mythical lost city.

Devilfish is a direct spinoff of my YA Fossil-hunting Adventure series, The Mammoth Adventures, but it follows a new cast of characters and is more on the New Adult / Adult side. And while it is a spinoff of Mammoth, it was written to be able to be read independently as well for those who haven’t read Mammoth!

New England towns, transatlantic voyages, pirate legends, grave-robbing escapades, new friendships, ghost ships, mysterious omens, small town rivals, secret pirate lairs, sea monsters, deep sea diving, ocean typhoons, old money mansions, dark and stormy nights

In a coastal New England town founded more than a century ago by pirates and haunted by ghostly secrets, four strangers are thrust into a modern-day hunt for a mythical lost city rumored to hold the power of Hell itself. Lucy, Cooper, Sophie, and Miguel embark on the voyage of a lifetime—one that will take them from Mariner’s Cove to the treacherous waters of the Arctic, the rugged coastline of Greenland, the rocky shores of Portugal, the tropics of Thailand, and the shark-infested waters of the South China Sea.

I believe in this story and what it’s meant to me, and I’m looking for readers who’ll believe in it with me—and who’ll help spread the word!

The coolest perk of being a street team member? This totally awesome, exclusive cover for the paperback ARC.

Now, you may have heard a little bit about my adventures with cover design. Well, this isn’t the final cover (that will be revealed on 9/29). While this design was in the running, I opted for something else in the end, but I wasn’t entirely ready to part with this design. Since I was already planning on doing physical ARCs for street team members, this was a great way to give this cover design (designed by yours truly) its moment in the sun!

So, if you’re into the novelty of, well, a novelty cover… let that entice you to join the street team!

So, what all does this entail?

It’s been a while since I’ve done a street team, and I want to give Devilfish the greatest possible chance at success, which means forming a successful street team. And while it will be pretty much entirely honor system, I have created a pretty thorough points system that turns various marketing/word-of-mouth activities into actual points that street team members can redeem in exchange for physical and digital rewards (like the final copies of the published book, either paperback or hardcover).

How do you get involved?

Well, there’s two ways! One, you can either sign up to be part of the whole Street Team Campaign (running from Cover Reveal 9/29 to Release Day 1/19) or you can participate in just the Cover Reveal!

For the Street Team Application, complete the Google Form here.

For the Cover Reveal Team, complete the Google Form here.

And if you’re considering participating in anyway, please know I so appreciate you and your support! Devilfish has been a labor of love and such a privilege to write, and I can’t wait to share more with you!

wist·ful

[ˈwis(t)f(ə)l]

having or showing a feeling of vague or regretful longing:

All my days I spend in the
                               habitation of my mind;
   and when married to
                            my fervent imagination, 
      and my predilection
                         for reckless daydreaming, 
         and my gravitational tendency 
                      toward nostalgia at any cost, 
            there are born vague, mournful longings
                   about a great many things
                that are no longer mine.

Vague, mournful longings for the Oregon coast 
                               and the cool rain that tumbles
   from gray, dreary skies;
                           the cotton fog that rolls 
      through forested hills 
                         and bleeds onto backwoods roads; 
         the fragrance of damp moss that grows
                      in the ridges of tree bark 
            and emerald pine needles
                   that permeate the frigid air
                of a town I left long ago.

Longings for the Autumn colors
                               and the bickering wind
   that comes to secret away all the leaves
                            and other signs of life as it once was;
      for the bittersweetness of smoke
                         that billows from pillars of brick;
         and for the damming of the streams of time
                      long enough for me to savor this passing life
            before it is gone for good
                   and I am left with only the memory of the colors
                and not the colors themselves.

And longings for the quiet stillness
                               of sweet, simple childhood
   before the advent of shadows
                            that lurked along the edge of every memory,
      and sorrows draped like cobwebs in the corners
                         of rooms once inhabited, now vacant with age;
         for the laughter of a life
                      that never knew worry, or fear, or regret,
            and a time when I was a stranger
                   to all of my heart's
                unwelcome companions.

I am wistful and full
   of vague and mournful longings
      for moments I no longer possess,
         and yet I will try forever
             to persuade them into
                returning to me;
                   even if only
                      for a season.

© Wistful, or Vague and Mournful Longings, 2026, Brian McBride

Subscribe now

A handful of beta readers have already submitted their feedback for Devilfish, the first in my planned four-book modern pirate adventure series, and the reception to the story has been largely positive! Thank goodness! Given some of the themes I explore in Devilfish and its tonal shift from its predecessor Mammoth, I had some internalized fears that the story wouldn’t land with readers or would fail to meet expectations. But, thus far and to my great relief, beta readers have affirmed that I’m headed in the right direction.

Of course, there have also been a fair share of helpful critiques, which I love! I had hoped to be further along in the pre-release stage of things, but I keep telling myself there’s no rush. While I feel that internal pressure to get this book out into the world because it’s been a year and a half since I’ve released anything, I don’t want to rush Devilfish; it’s the kind of story that I want to have a timeless sort of quality and a deep, lasting impact on readers, and that’s something that should not be rushed.

So, I’m taking my time. I’m reflecting on the critiques my beta readers have provided. Things like: the pacing of the first half was perfect while the latter half felt a little rushed because of the action-packed climax, or I understand this character’s motivation to do what they do, but I need a little more background on why it’s so important, or the setting feels lived-in but not necessarily cozy, or I sympathize with this character’s struggle but I worry it’s a little too much on-page detail.

These are just some examples of the bigger picture feedback I’ve received, and all are valid! I’m sure this is too much information for most people, but I kind of what to take you through my process and approach to some of these revisions because I believe it may help to reveal my heart for the story to readers who are considering adding Devilfish to their TBR.

The Pacing

A couple of readers communicated that the pacing in the first half of the book was perfect; the story took its time and the readers enjoyed feeling like they could settle into the world and the characters’ minds. The second half of the story picks up the pace a little bit leading into the climax to where some readers felt like, even taking into consideration the fact that it’s an Adventure novel and that it’s intended to have a cliffhanger ending to lead into the sequel, the ending felt a little rushed.

The irony is that by about the 75% mark, I was worried readers would feel like the story was too slow. So I decided to amp things up a bit. Now, I still want the climax to feel fast-paced, and it will still end on a bit of a cliffhanger. But I don’t want it to feel rushed.

Adventure readers want high-stakes, action-packed climaxes. But they don’t want to feel suddenly jolted out of the characters’ minds. They want to feel settled and present within the characters’ perspectives while the events are unfolding around them. They also want to feel a bit more resolution between the characters themselves and the relationships they’re forging with one another.

And I actually love this feedback because this means that the slower pacing and the allowing the story to take its time and unfold naturally and giving readers the chance to get settled into the world and the characters’ minds is working; I had intended to make Devilfish feel a bit slower and more thoughtful than Mammoth given that it’s more New Adult / Adult rather than Young Adult, but I wasn’t sure how readers would respond and now I feel confident that my approach was the right one. As I neared the end, I had begun to worry that the story had become too wordy given that Draft One ended at 105,000 words and draft two at 114,000. However, I feel reassured that my planned revisions, which will inevitably increase the word count by between 5,000-10,000 words, are the right approach.

That said, I estimate the addition of 4 chapters—one from each characters’ perspective—that will bridge the midpoint of the story to the climax of the story a bit more thoughtfully. Additionally, those chapters will include scenes that I believe will make readers feel more connected to the characters and like they are a part of the bonds that are being forged.

Character Motivations

I share this as a Note before, but one beta reader pointed out that they understood that one character felt the pressing need to help provide for his family even at his own expense. However, the beta reader felt like the severity of the family’s situation was not fully communicated.

This is an easy fix! (We love easy fixes!) Funny enough, this character dynamic didn’t materialize until the second draft. It was a change I had incorporated because I was dissatisfied with the character’s original family dynamic and felt it was a bit two-dimensional. The change landed with beta readers, but they want a more fleshed-out understanding of the background in order to better understand the character’s motivations and the drastic decisions they have to make.

My plan will be to go back to this character’s first couple chapters to make sure that the character reflects for a moment on the why behind his decisions.

The Setting

My goal for Devilfish, just as with Mammoth, was that the setting would feel lived-in and cozy. Some beta readers communicated that it definitely felt lived-in; however, because of the story’s heavier themes some of them didn’t necessarily get cozy vibes from the story while others did. I think this is something that has the potential to be entirely subjective and vary from reader to reader. Personally, if I watch a movie or show or read a book that deals with heavier themes that cause me to feel more emotionally connected to a character, that gives me cozy vibes. But other readers won’t get those same vibes or get them in the same way. And that’s okay. I can’t change the story’s themes.

But what I can do is make the setting come more alive. And this is actually something I’ve been reflecting on even prior to receiving beta reader feedback. Some of this will be assisted with the additional four chapters I’ll be adding to bridge the midpoint to the climax as those chapters will be a bit more intimate and cozy anyway, but they will focus on the secondary setting (the journey’s destination).

I have a plan for how I want to enhance the story’s primary setting, which is Mariner’s Cove, New England. And it has nothing to do with more description and everything to do with ambience and side characters.

Firstly, I feel I should clarify. Given that it’s part of the back-cover synopsis, it’s no spoiler to say that a ghost ship shows up on the coast of Mariner’s Cove. However, in the story as it is now, the arrival of the ghost ship only really affects the main characters. It’s also no secret that a body shows up on the shore, but, again, the only people really affected by this are the main characters and the relevant law enforcement. And both of these things—the ghost ship and the death—are connected to the lore around Mariner’s Cove, which happens to be a town founded by pirates in the 1800s. So, you’d think these events would have a stronger effect on the townspeople, right?

This is what I want to explore just a bit more in order to make the setting come alive. What rumors begin to circulate as a result? Who else spotted the ghost ship? How do the town’s legends start to take on new life because of these legends? To an extent, Mariner’s Cove should feel like a character in its own right. This is part of what makes settings cozy—they feel alive. Like Middle-earth or Stars Hollow or Forks or Mammoth—these settings are cozy because they’re practically characters themselves. This is the treatment I want to give Mariner’s Cove as well. This, I believe, is part of what will give readers (and the characters) a sense of rootedness to the world no matter the twists and turns the story will take; because it creates a sense of home and belonging for both reader and character to always return to.

Thematic Content

The last key piece of beta reader feedback I received is a bit of a sensitive subject. Now, it’s no secret that I write about some touchy themes—abuse, trauma, addiction, etc… But I always aim to do so in a way that isn’t gratuitous or explicit. Because of this, many of Mammoth’s readers have been parents and their teens. It was truly an adventure for the whole family. Now, because Devilfish is a bit on the heavier, moodier side and follows a more adult cast of characters with a sharpened focus on some of these social issues, some beta readers felt like one chapter in particular was just a bit too detailed. Granted, there was nothing explicit or open-door, but these readers felt some of the details (kissing while in bed, for example) edged a little too close for their comfort. Meanwhile, other readers had no qualms at all and felt the scene was written very tactfully.

This is where I personally struggle. I am a big fan of character development. But I have no interest in writing characters who start out good and end up, well, more good. My desire is to write characters who start out deeply flawed, deeply wounded, deeply broken, deeply sinful, and deeply human who are then drawn taken on a journey toward healing, hope, restoration, and redemption. I write adventure stories, yes, but they are more than quests for lost treasures or lost cities; they are quests to seek and find that which is lost in us. And if the stakes must be high, the way must be hard, and the reward must be great in order for an adventure story to be truly worth it, then the emotional stakes must also be high, and the emotional journey must also be difficult, and the emotional reward must also be great.

This is my approach, anyway. However, I do not want to dishonor God with what I write, and I do not want to dishonor my readers. And while I understand that everyone’s idea of what is acceptable or “clean” is entirely subjective, I can also trust my readers to pick up on the implications and insinuations of a character’s actions without having to spell it out for them with so much detail.

Now, I’ve already rewritten the chapter in question. Deleting the scene is not an option when this character’s starting point is vital to their overall character arc, so I revised the scene a bit. Refined it, more like. The same events happen, but I’ve framed them differently and have chosen to rely more on subtext than specific description.

This is partly because I don’t want to compromise the character’s likability in the eyes of readers. They need to be likable enough that readers want to follow along with them through their struggles with self-worth and sin and see them triumph and redeem themselves rather than so unlikable that readers would rather set the book aside than suffer through the character’s mistakes. This is also because I know that I have a lot of younger teen readers who will likely carry over from Mammoth to Devilfish, and I feel a sense of responsibility for being a good steward of my stories so that the stories I tell edify rather than poison in any way.

It is certainly a tricky balance to strike, but this is why I’m so grateful for beta readers who provide such key feedback. And I’m excited for how this feedback will empower me to further develop Devilfish into the kind of story I want it to be.

Pre-Release Plan

All that said, I wanted to share a little bit about my plan heading into the Fall. For reasons I’ll keep to myself, I ended up cancelling with the company I had originally hired to design the cover for Devilfish. And with some feedback from some cover designer and illustrator friends, I set out to design my own covers for Devilfish and the rest of the series. They are still a work in progress. However, I am thrilled with how they’re coming along! I am waiting on a couple other pieces of key art as well, which will be implemented in the pre-release campaign.

My loose, penciled-in plan for the release is that at the end of August, I will begin recruiting for two teams: a Street Team (a month’s long campaign effort with lots of opportunities for rewards) and a Cover Reveal team (for those who don’t want to be involved in the whole campaign but want to help reveal the cover. And I hope to reveal the cover of Devilfish at the end of September. Simultaneously, I will open pre-orders on my website. (I will not be doing Kickstarter)

The pre-order campaign will run from Cover Reveal Day in late September to Release Day in (optimistically) January.

The biggest perk that Street Team members will receive is paperback arcs with an exclusive cover design to be used for marketing purposes and their own advance read-throughs. I’ve never done this before and have always wanted to, so I’m super excited to be able to do this for Devilfish! I will also make digital ARCs available to non-street team members during the months of the pre-order campaign.

I have big plans for Devilfish. While it is a spinoff of Mammoth, I hope to bring in a whole new audience as well, which is partly why I’ve written Devilfish in such a way as to be able to be read independently of its predecessor. I truly believe this book can go places I haven’t yet dreamed of, and I’m excited for what’s to come! If you’ve read to this point, hopefully that means you’re excited also!

Now, it’s time for me to get back to work!

Subscribe now

As a Christian myself and as a pastor who writes fiction wherein characters are often on a redemption journey but who also doesn’t write fiction intended to be preachy, I want to grow in this way with Devilfish. Simply put, I believe there must be a way to communicate elements of the faith without sounding cliche, or to produce a redemptive story without it sounding like a sermon. Great literary fiction has often included philosophical pondering—even the classics featured characters wrestling with faith, humanity, sin, and mortality and managed to do so in a way that resonated with us for decades and even centuries.

I do not want to write a redemptive story and leave God out of it simply for the sake of appealing to the general market or for fear of offending secular sensibilities. But I also do not want to write a Christian story and alienate the secular or the prodigal audience by resorting to the common tropes and cliches that only the dutiful religious person can loosely relate to. There is grief and there is tragedy and there is despair and there is depravity, and all of these things ought to be laid out before God both in our lives and in our fiction.

This was my challenge to myself with Devilfish, and below are some prompts around which I will free-write and then later incorporate into the story, either in the first book of the series or one of its sequels.

Prompt One: the voice of God

An entire host of voices had marched like bitter adversaries across the battleground of her inner life—cruelty and contempt and indifference rose with militant malice to cut down the fortifications of her mind, every thought overshadowed by looming accusation and enforced solitude. To deny the voices their power was rebellion. To depose them of their sovereignty was insurrection. She had been only a child; she had not meant to start a war. And yet she could recall that throughout her life and from out of the darkness and the crush of the war that waged within and around her, another voice rang out. Warm and embracing, steady and filled with the kind of passion that had nurtured a defiant sort of hope within her heart. Even when she succumbed to the voices of temptation or of terror, this one voice blew like a cooling wind over the scorched fields of her life. She was desperate to know its source, desperate to know the noble land from which it called. And so, she clung to life and to hope and to the certainty that, no matter the warring din of despair, all battles eventually ended.

Prompt Two: the nearness of God

He knew God in the way that he knew the stars—dim and faraway. Yet others spoke of God as though He were the sun, warm and brilliant to the eye and close enough to be affected by its gravity. But there were places where even the sun’s light could not reach—deep, fathomless chasms in the soul where dwelt the lonely, the forsaken, the abandoned. Solitary places where the warmth of the sun was little more than myth, or where the light of day was passing legend alone. For the sun to descend to the lowest deep where light did not abide would be a betrayal of its very nature. Yet history told of a miracle within the myth: that this God had robed Himself in the feeble nature of broken humanity. The sun itself, having plunged into the pitch, had come like an inferno to consume the night. To the mind of man, it was weakness, humiliation. And to the soul of man, it was a fire that would not be put out; were he to turn his face toward the sun, he would be reduced to nothing.

Prompt Three: the nature of God

The old, brick church, though it held for many the assurance of sanctuary, was to him a den of rabid wolves. As a boy, he had sat in wooden pews beside men who played the role of sheep for one another, but he knew the monster that lurked beneath the stretched surface of their pallid skin. Often, they spoke of a shepherd God; more often, still, they engorged themselves on the flock. He had not escaped unscathed from their fold, and he never quite felt far enough from their reach. Like wolves, they hounded his steps, his very thoughts. They prowled at the shadowed precipice of his soul, where it had been split between who he was and who he desired to be, ready to be loosed that they may ravage him entirely. Though he had distanced himself from the old, brick church, some things lingered like pinprick stars against the bleak backdrop of his mind—questions that had not been answered, curiosities that had not been satiated. Here was this God who was so unlike His people. They spoke of Him as though He walked among them. They had ascribed to Him many names. They considered Him a healer, a defender. Strong tower, they called Him, and he would have run into its refuge were he given the chance. If not only to escape the wolves’ pursuit, then to discover for himself the kind of man, when all other men had proven monstrous, who was this God.

Prompt Four: the faithfulness of God

Her life was a book half-written, a story she would tell with no one left to read it. Every turn of the page drove her further and further from her own history. Chapters and scenes replayed themselves within her mind, but even they had begun to fade. The laugher had dimmed. Joy and hope had waned. Sharpened into focus were sorrow and remorse and all the things left unsaid. Moments gathered like ink in the well to be inscribed upon the waiting page. Memories she could not articulate or define, though she felt their impression like the press of a pen upon her soul. Words spoken by those she had loved and who had loved her in return. “It’s time to come in out of the cold,” he used to tell her, beckoning her to better things. She had seen in his smile-lined eyes the told stories of wonders and miracles and myths salvaged from history’s waste. She had found in his warm embrace the revelation of love, of endurance, and of all good things. Now, he was gone and it seemed all those things had departed with him. And in losing them, she had lost herself—ink in the well and the waiting page. Yet somewhere, hidden in the words she desired to say, was a hand at work besides her own. Written between the lines of her soul, another story being told; one that had never gone unwritten. There, in her grandfather’s eyes and her grandmother’s smile and the friendships she’d gained and the ones she’d lost, she saw just a glimpse of the sure hand of a devoted author. For now, it was enough.

All text © Devilfish by Brian McBride, 2026.

Subscribe now

Before I get into the fun updates about my latest adventure novel or the fantasy trilogy I’m thinking about setting on a continent inspired by revolutionary-era America, make sure you subscribe to get updates delivered straight to your inbox! And if you choose to become a Paid Subscriber, you’ll get access to exclusive content on my Substack site such as a full index of “What I’m Writing.”

Subscribe now

Now, with that out of the way, I’m super excited to share what I’ve been working on and where things are at!

Read more

I get it. I initially opened my Substack in January, didn’t post my first article until May, and didn’t start spending time consistently on Substack until July. But now, there’s no going back for me. I’ve spent eight years building a platform on Instagram that I hold very dear. I’ve not even broken 6,000 followers yet even after all that time. My reels do modestly well. And I have a wonderful community over there. None of my issues with Instagram actually have to do with the Bookstagram or Writergram communities at all; rather, it’s that the app and the algorithm itself have become this black hole where creativity and dreams go to die.

You spend hours putting together a carousel post—because that’s what the algorithm demands. Worse, you spend hours recording and re-recording yourself talking to your camera for the sake of reels, because short-form videos are the only way they tell you you’ll make it in that world, right? You’re tired of your posts getting lost in the algorithm. And the people who follow you are tired of missing your content. You’re tired of the comparison and insecurity—Joe’s reel got a million views while yours got only a thousand; Sally’s page has reached 100,000 followers while you’re stuck at 100. You’re running a race you never wanted to enter in the first place just to get to a finish line that never seems to come any closer.

Subscribe now

And the algorithm? It changes daily. One minute it favors carousel posts while the next it favors reels. Worse, it favors reels that are exactly 7 seconds long one day, then shadow bans them the next day if they’re not 3 minutes. You’re over it, and I don’t blame you. And while I have no intention of going scorched earth and deleting my Instagram, I have found a solution that works for me and might work for you, too.

Substack.

It wasn’t until recently that I realized that I’d had Substack wrong this entire time. I really thought it was nothing more than a glorified newsletter platform, and considering I’ve always been terrible at staying consistent with newsletters, I pretty much dismissed it. My time was better spent elsewhere, right? Wrong.

As writers who hope to connect with readers all over the world, we simply cannot keep all our eggs in one basket; nor should we want to and especially if we write in multiple genres. Because different readers congregate on different platforms.

Romantasy is huge on TikTok right now. This is how so many popular romantasy fiction writers have made it big in the last few years. The genre sells like hot cakes, and its readers congregate primarily on TikTok. It’s the perfect place for new romantasy authors to find an audience, and if they do really well, they’ll be catapulted toward relative, viral success. (The sustainability of viral success is a topic for another time.)

Meanwhile, epic/high fantasy and science fiction do really well on Instagram. I’ve watched so many author friends soar from hundreds of followers to hundreds of thousands. There’s a new wave of Brandon Sandersons and Pierce Browns fighting their way to the surface of the algorithm on Instagram regularly—worldbuilding and the promise of large scale magic with global and even cosmic implications sells to a whole host of Instagram readers while other genres—mystery, pulp fiction, and even horror/thriller—don’t do nearly as well.

So, what do these two apps and their bestselling genres have in common? They’re apps that prioritize visual content paired with stories that can be sold with solid visuals—dragons, fae, castles, monsters, aliens, hell-divers, spren, etc… Meanwhile, some stories are better sold based on the merit of the words that compose them alone—the promise of a mystery or the foreboding sense of a coming scare—rather than visual content.

And that’s part of what, I believe, makes Substack so different.

Where TikTok and Instagram force authors to have to visually sell their story, Substack, in my opinion, has a greater appreciation for the story itself. Now, I’ve not been at this whole Substack thing for very long, but already I can tell that the way readers approach this platform is very different than other social media platforms. People are truly here to connect, to read, and to grow. I see countless Notes in my feed from Substack users remarking on just how friendly and inviting and gracious their fellow Stackers are. Contrast that with the constant flow of trolls, haters, and very loud critics on other social media app, and it makes sense why opening Substack feels like such a breath of fresh air.

Not only that, but while posting to Instagram feels like clamoring for attention in a fight against an algorithm hell-bent on drowning you beneath a host of sponsored ads and funny animal reels (no matter how hard you try to curate your algorithm to a specific topic), posting to Substack genuinely feels like you’re growing something for yourself.

Don’t get me wrong—I love visuals and I have so many photos and videos on my Instagram page that I still enjoy to this day, viral or no. But there are times when I just don’t have it in me to record a video. Or sit on Photoshop for an hour designing a graphic. I’m a writer; not a marketing executive or a graphic designer or a broadcaster. And that’s what I’ve come to appreciate most about Substack.

Substack is for the writers.

Whether you’re a journalist, an essayist, a poet, a novelist, a songwriter, a blogger, or just someone with a lot of words in you just itching for a place to let them out, Substack not only prioritizes your words (the primary posting features are Articles and Notes—not reels or carousel posts), it actually respects them.

Have an original idea or a interesting thought? Substack will push it out there.

Wrote a poem? Substack will show it to fellow poets.

Working on a novel? So are half of Substack’s users.

No trolls, bots, or haters.

No messy algorithm.

Just a place for you to tell your story—or any story at all.

And the best part about growth around here?

Every follow is exciting.

Because Substack’s system works so differently than other platforms, there isn’t much of a concept of virality around here. Which means there’s not much of a comparison game. Which means that every new subscriber—whether it’s your first, tenth, or hundredth—feels like adding a new member to your community. Because for someone to subscribe to you in the first place, that’s them saying they want what you have to say delivered straight to their mailboxes. (That’s where the whole Newsletter system comes into play.)

All these little aspects of this website work together to make Substack a place where, for the first time in a long time, I can connect with readers and keep them updated on my writing and share my own random thoughts without feeling like I’m just caught in the hamster wheel of comparison and competition, of algorithm and virality.

Here, it’s no longer a numbers game. Here, it’s all about the words you write. And for writers like me, that’s what makes it so fun.

Subscribe now

For my last exercise in prose, I chose to work with themes and motifs: tempest, devils, monsters, etc…

This time, I am going to write descriptive paragraphs based on a series of prompts in an effort to make various settings within the book more immersive and enamoring. These are raw and unedited. And maybe a little pretentious or flowery. But, honestly, I could do with some flowery. Storytelling used to be beautiful, full of art and expression and poetry. Now, so much of it has been tremendously commercialized.

I don’t want Devilfish to be “just another adventure novel.” I want it to be beautiful, captivating, enrapturing, and thoughtful. So, the goal is to free-write these paragraphs/scenes and then find a home for them in the third draft of my novel when I return to edits post-beta phase. (Some of them may be saved for the sequel.)

Prompt One: the Atlantic coast at midnight

Silvery moonlight streamed in rivers from the indigo ether, pooling upon the arched backs of cresting waves and vanishing into the white foam at their breaking. Crowned by the windswept trunks of defiant pines, rugged cliff faces gaped out at the sea in mournful indignation. There was a breeze also; a bitter bluster dragging its nimble fingers across the shimmering facet of the sea, collecting salt and dispersing it across the starlit sky. In the trees that skirted the city there was a sort of playfulness, a jousting of the boughs and a parrying of the branches while in their hollows the night’s creatures began to stir: the hoot of an owl, the bark of a fox. While all the world slept, another began to stir and would again withdraw beneath the veil of midnight at the dawning of the day.

Prompt Two: the sunrise over a New England city

Dawn arced across the cobalt sky; sailing arrows of amber and scarlet flung from the stars and sent to vanquish the empire of night. A fire sparked first upon the horizon and spread, then, like a blazing inferno to the waiting shoreline. The face of the city was set against the sun; every shadow dispersed and every dark dream dispelled as all creation roused and stirred. Songbirds resumed their daily watch and began their clarion call—“Revolution!” they cried, each new morning at the winter’s brink ripe with the anticipation and hope of a sudden turn toward spring.

Prompt Three: a dark and stormy night at Adler Mansion

Thunder rolled like cannon fire across the dark drapery of troubled sky; the whole of the estate shuddered. Crackling through the air and scattering like tongues of fire through dried brush, bolts of white light flared to life and then were extinguished just as suddenly. There, beneath the looming fray and the starless sky where the winds waged war one with another, an underworld of melancholy and gloom. Of the trees that dotted the estate’s sprawling domain, most all were assailed by angry gusts that littered their dismembered boughs across the hills like dust. Shadows grew in the night, coming to life all around—hellions clawing their way from the abyss as though the squall had ripped a hole through the veil of eternity itself. Yet against the sturdy walls of the estate, which had endured for more than a century, the wind did break; neither were the shadows, banished by the warm glow of light from nearby sconces, given quarter.

Prompt Four: the morning after a fresh snow

To see the world laden in white was to see it in magic and wonder adorned, winter’s parting gift a bride dressed in glittering gown and the leafless trees her wedding party. Set upon her lonely march, she came to the altar where awaited her groom with the first kiss of springtime. Avowed, the morning sun held vigil over her wintry domain; the cerulean sky reflected her beauty. And when she melted it would be a kind of death of the divine, for in even her departure there would be life abundant in the flowing of streams and the rising of river above the banks. She would be remembered by every grassy knoll that sprung from beneath her ebbing train. She would be revealed in every bud and bloom and creature that from the dormant slumber of her careful shelter stirred. She would be celebrated by the scores of children who rose early in the morning to play among her drifts and dunes. It was the morning after a fresh snow when all the earth held its breath and beheld beauty as if for the first time.

Subscribe now

Love and the Sea and Everything in Between (YA Contemporary)

This book was the beginning of my own journey toward personal healing. Possibly the most raw and rough-around-the-edges of my books, it tackles depression, self-destruction, suicide, and unhealthy relationships/expectations. Told in First Person POV, it reads like the journal of a troubled college student. Its narrator tends to be unreliable and, at times, unlikable. And that’s the point. It’s a story of how unregulated depression can distort worldview and foster dysfunction in relationships. And it was written as I was in the process of recovering from my own severe depression, so it’s certainly an honest look at the subject if not a bit unfiltered.

Read more

There’s always that moment, right when I finish working on a novel, where I feel like I can finally take a breath for the first time in months. For months, I’ve pushed to finish a draft; woke early in the morning to write before heading off to work, spent half of my lunch break writing, wrote into the evenings from my bed. And when not writing, planning and outlining and story-building.

Then, it all comes to a grinding halt.

The first draft is done, and then content edits are done; and it’s off to the beta readers.

And I wait. I’ve nothing to do but wait.

Don’t get me wrong. I need the break. My mind needs the chance to refresh itself; my inner reservoir of creativity needs time to replenish. One story is ending, barring any remaining edits post-beta phase; another story looms on the horizon.

Or, in my case, several other stories.

Do I write the sequel immediately, or do I hold off and shift my focus to one of the other stories begging for my attention?

There’s this vacancy between novels where just about anything feels possible. A temptation, too, either to hold to tightly to one project, or to fling myself to flippantly into another. Do I write the sequel immediately in order to exploit what little momentum I’ve gained, or do I throw deadlines to the wind and write a fresh, new story? Or do I juggle multiple projects at once?

It’s exciting; exhilarating even, all these possibilities. A little scary, too. What if I get it wrong? What if I’m not ready to tell that story, or this other story has gone stale while waiting on the shelf for me to pick it up and resume working on it?

But I set the questions and considerations to the side; because this is my chance to take a breath. The inhale of fresh perspective; the exhale of old worries.

Here’s what I must remember:

Life is the single greatest story we’ll ever tell, and it is lived in the vacancy between novels.

The ebb and flow of laughter and conversation with my family. The quiet solitude of morning coffee and strolls through the neighborhood with my dog. The crackling of a thunderstorm viewed safely from the shelter of my porch. The sleepy climb into my bed at the end of a long day. The meandering drive to work the next morning as I pray and ponder even small blessings. The stroke of the pen in my journal when a new thought springs to mind. The adrenaline rush of excitement when I meet a new person, each one a new potential friend. The laying bare of my own soul before the Lord each day as I contemplate what He’s done, who I am, and who I might become. The regrets that fill me with remorse and the errors that cause me shame; even these are part of my story, told in chapter and verse.

This hollow space between where I was and where I’m going is a field, sprawling and open and ready for the planting. It is the Wood Between the Worlds where I find myself again, the pools of my life glittering and reflecting back up at me. I reintroduce myself to me—all of me; brother and son, friend and rival, prodigal and prince, sinner and saint, allegiant and rogue, preacher and student.

And I realize I must always return here. It would be terrible only to go from one story to the next with no space in between to remember who I am and what I have to say. I could do it; I could drown in the words as one drowns in the wide berth of a puddle, knowing that I’ve only scratched the surface.

Or I could sit here for a while. The words I have to say, let them sit here in my soul.

And root me to myself.

Subscribe now

I lose myself in the questions and the second-guessing.

My confidence wanes.

The wells of my own creativity go dry.

I’m an imposter. A fraud. A wannabe. A try-hard. No one sees me. No one hears me, what I’m trying to say. I’ve held open a door that nobody wants to step through. The other side isn’t interesting enough, compelling enough, original enough, professional enough.

My voice is lost. The stories I want to tell have already been told and by someone far better at it than I, far more qualified, far more skilled, far more beloved. I try to imitate their skill and literary prowess in the hopes I might become as successful and as prolific as they have; I lose myself in the process.

There are voices in my head, and they sound like the angry contents of one-star reviews I shouldn’t have read.

Doubts have stitched and sewn themselves into my skin. Fear has made a scarecrow out of me; my blood and bone becomes straw, chaff in the wind. I am carried away by tempests of insecurity and inadequacy. Why would they read anything I write? If they won’t, why write at all?

Thoughts like these become the company I keep in the late hours of the night when I work and rework the story in my mind. And as if by sheer force of sudden epiphany, and in defiance of the potential death of a boyhood dream, I realize that I Have Something to Say.

My stories are not a tree that has fallen in the forest with no one to hear it; they happen whether observed or not, because my voice matters. If His Word does not return void, then do mine not also? I am made in His image, after all. I have His mind, His heart, His hands, His feet; do I not also have His tongue?

And if I have His tongue, then certainly I Have Something to Say. Each story the consummation of all my fears and hopes and dreams. The sum of all my wounds and bruises and broken bones.

I Have Something to Say to the Prodigal and the Wanderer, and it is this: that home is never far and there will always be those who await your return with open hearts.

I Have Something to Say to the Outcast and the Misfit, and it is this: that belonging and acceptance are possible and family’s can be forged and found as much as born.

I Have Something to Say to the Sinner and the Rogue, and it is this: that no sin, no trespass, no tragedy, no trauma is so great as cannot be forgiven or redeemed.

My words—my broken words, my misspelled words, my honest words, my improperly formatted words—are not empty or void.

It’s an easy thing to forget.

I write stories and I conjure up worlds and I think that is enough.

And I forget that I Have Something to Say; it is not story for story’s sake, or adventure for adventure’s sake, or character for character’s sake. It is not shallow entertainment. It is Parable. It is Communion.

Truth hides within the inky letters of the myths I make.

I must remember this. I must not forget that I Have Something to Say. If I forget, my stories will become a shriveled husk of their former selves. But if I hold fast to what I Have to Say, the story will mean Something.

Even if only to me.

Subscribe now

Devilfish is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a Literary novel. It is character-driven and action-packed. Dialogue between characters is framed organically and naturally. However, I have afforded myself some literary pretention. I want Devilfish to mean something thematically, and beyond that I want it to have a sort of timeless quality. I also want it to be a practice in prose, narrative voice, and literary excellence. In other words, Devilfish is, to me, a renaissance; a revival or a return to beauty and romanticism, sincerity and consequence in the contemporary novel.

And so, because I can never truly keep these things to myself, I would like to share with you a series of vignettes—unedited excerpts from Devilfish that have added value to the story overall as well as afforded me the opportunity to hone my craft.

Fear was no small thing; it was a noose tied around the flesh, a manacle fastened to the bone. It was, to the soul, a snare and a labyrinth of broken, twisting pathways through the crush of gloom. It was the stretch of the imagination, grasping at the shadowy corners of the mind of man and laying hold of his deepest dread. And it was the stretch of the skin, the reshaping of a life until unrecognizably deformed. Fear, the thing with teeth; the devil inside the man.

Hidden in the heart of a man were many desires kept secret out of either fear or shame: the desire to belong to someone and to someplace, or to hold the heart of another within one’s own, or to make his life mean something or even nothing at all to those he most valued. And still, above all was the desire for his father’s approval. To know that he, in all his shortcomings and triumphs, mattered most of all to the man who was, in his eyes, chief among men. Fatherhood was a sort of rulership, a subjugation of a life to the realm of duty and sacrifice and ethic. Sons were never princes until their fathers told them they were so, and told them again, for it took much to convince uncertainty and inadequacy out of a boy. Even loved, a son could become lost.

There were dragons to be slain within the mind; yet where were the dragonslayers? Where were the valiant heroes who could strike down accusations levelled like billowing dragon fire against oneself? Hers was a world bordered by myth and monster and malice yet paled in comparison to the misery of a life reduced to the solitude of an empty tower once inhabited by love; a hollow manor, once filled with muse and memory, now a rubble heap. She had known dragonslayers, and she had known valiant heroes. Men who stood against the maelstrom. Their line had been drawn in blood and sacrifice, forged in fire and tribulation. Could they have slain their dragons had they not first conquered their own minds and the terrors that eddied within? Yes, the ripe field of a happy life had been torn out from beneath her. Yes, the fortified walls of familial safety had been ruined around her. It had been the end of a world, but it had not been the end of her.

Loneliness was never so crushing as when set against the backdrop of an empty home and an emptier life. This house that sat upon the hill was looked upon by all, a testament to a shared history fabricated around myth and discovery; yet now it was hollow and, while those who stood at a distance would continue to gaze upon it fondly, those few who drew near enough saw for themselves its phantom barrenness. Death had come to this manor, and with it the solitude of a sole surviving heir.

Not all violences were committed against the body; a great many were dealt against the mind or against the soul. Scars left upon the heart by the cruel twist of a word. Blows dealt to the conscience in the heat of argument. Was a wound any less a wound if unseen? Was the tyranny of a soul any less an atrocity if kept in silence? Entire wars played out unnoticed within the walls of unhappy homes where there they were fought at great personal cost. And if a child came away bruised and thrashed, it is a wonder and no small triumph that she came away at all.

(C) 2026, Devilfish by Brian McBride

The setting:

A New England town founded and built by pirates after the end of the Golden Age of Piracy now steeped in legend and lore.

The character:

An aggrieved heiress running away from her family’s responsibility to preserve and protect artifacts, treasure, art, relics, and history itself.

Truth be told, I lived in the world of Devilfish long before I ever started writing about it. I began by having a working document (I call them “portfolios” because that’s how my organized brain works) wherein I wrote down all my notes and sorted them. Everything from setting details (venues, local lore, home details) to character details (family dynamics) to quotes, themes, and plot points I wanted to implement.

This tends to be the way of things for me—a story idea blooms in my mind and takes root in my soul over the course of months and even years until it is ready to spring to life on the page. In fact, I tend to judge the viability and draft-worthiness of my story ideas by how all-consuming they become in my thought life.

If I can’t stop thinking about it, and if every new note I jot down seems to come alive in my imagination, that is my “this is The One” moment. That’s when I know the story is ready to be written.

But before I start writing, I focus on my outline. I used to be a “seat of the pants” writer in my younger days, but I’ve become a full-on plotter. I need an outline if I’m going to succeed. I can’t write without it anymore; if I try, I get lost very easily and I start to lose “the point” of the story. My outlines tend to be chapter-by-chapter rather than scene by scene. Each chapter is broken down into a paragraph that details the important events and dialogue that should transpire in that chapter. I also usually outline in stages. In the case of Devilfish, I had the first 60% or so of the outline completed by the time I began drafting. Then, as I neared the end of what I had outlined, I returned to complete the last 40% of the outline. This gives me some freedom to integrate any changes I may want to make mid-draft (and saves me the headache of major rewrites in the editing phase).

So, in early January 2026, I finally began drafting Devilfish, the first in a series of four books that I describe as “a modern pirate adventure.” And I finished the first draft at 104,500 words in mid-July.

Mind you, I work a full time job. From Monday to Friday, 9AM to 5PM, I’m a banker. Yes, it is truly about as boring as you can imagine. However, the slow pace of this job proved to be a gift. It afforded me ample downtime and plenty of space in my mind for the wheels of my own creativity to turn.

I wrote before leaving for work.

I wrote on my lunch breaks.

I kept a notebook handy during work to jot down notes and ideas.

And, often, I wrote in bed before going to sleep.

And not one part of this story ever felt like a drudgery, if you can believe it. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that I’ve never felt so inspired. The vision was clear. The themes were poignant. The characters were alive. The world was vibrant. And every time I’d step away from writing, I couldn’t stop thinking about the story until I came back to it.

Now, I realize every book I write isn’t likely to be this… easy. But I do think there’s a lot to the way I approached this story that allowed the process to flow so effortlessly. Chiefly that I allowed myself to mentally live in the world of Devilfish for more than a year before ever trying to write it, giving it ample time to grow and change from its simple initial concept to something far grander until it eventually became the story I was meant to write.

And I’m sure it won’t be the only one. If I do this whole writing thing right, there will be many more meant-to-be stories to come. In any case, I’m grateful for the experience that writing this little modern pirate adventure has been; it’s renewed my love for my craft and for this adventurous little world I’ve spent the last five years building.

Subscribe now

Keywords: Anchor, Tempest, Sails, Ships, Leviathan, Monster, Devils, Curses, Tides, Hell, Fathoms, Sea, Lighthouse, Harbor, Darkness, Shadows, Ghosts

SCENE ONE:

Hurricane accusations harried his mind, forcing upon him the memories of things he was desperate not to recall. He had sailed so far from his past, the voyage carrying him, like the characters of his many tattered books, to uncharted water where he had hoped to find refuge from the dogged devils that hounded his every step, every attempt to untether himself from what had happened only entangling him further, coiling around him

And he stood here, anchored in an unfamiliar place. Unable to run. Unwilling. The gates of hell had demanded his attention, and he would dare to give it.

Even as the horror howled in his mind.

Even as the poison percolated in his throat.

A voice called from beneath the thrashing tempest. A siren song, a siren wail. Foreboding. Impending. The devils roused and would from the deep ascend.

Biting, clawing, ravaging their way toward the surface.

Twisted, mangled, wretched monsters of man’s own making.

And he would stand, even flinching, to face them.

SCENE TWO:

In the gaping fathoms of the angry, black sea, she saw the threads of her life unraveled before her. A big house. A big family. A big life. Tiny and hollow in every way.

A dungeon, a crypt, a labyrinth from which she had found escape only now for it to be wrenched from her grasp.

Hope shrank at the frayed ends of tangling threads—a life that, in the span of seconds, would be drawn to an abrupt and severed end. A single flicker of a moment—a glimpse of the Reaper’s soul-hungry sickle—spanned into infinity and Sophie beheld everything. Every twist and turn of her life as it had been laid out before her—as though it was no longer her own.

She saw a little girl weeping and collapsing into herself at the cruel bite of a father’s words, the cold retreat of a mother’s ambivalence. Then, the same girl now older, surrounded by ravenous eyes and groping hands. Given over to the endless hunger of ambitious young men, the cold whispers of pernicious old women. One bed traded for another, lovers then rivals.

Then, a face. A friend. A break against the wind. The memory of safe harbor, warming her from the inside until reality snapped into focus and she was returned to the door of death—a leviathan, unleashed from its chasm to consume her entirely.

But she would not die.

SCENE THREE:

Lightning struck against the black veil of night. Thunder battered the angry earth. His weathered life had always been at the mercy of the sea—a ship lost, sails torn and rudder failing. Set adrift by a father whose eye had been turned from his son by pleasure and vice. And still, he had sailed the earth in pursuit of what the man would not give.

A search that had turned up empty.

A sea that had given up its skeletal plenty.

He was sailor when he wanted only to be son. And in place of the life he had sought for himself, the cavernous need within him had only expanded, stretching out beyond the boundaries of his soul—a poison, a virus that darkened all that it touched.

Bruised, he delivered his own bruises.

Wounded, he dealt his own blows.

Until he saw himself in his reflection and saw only the man he despised. Drowned in a bottle. Buried under the weight of his own sins. Dragged down the road to hell by the ghosts that had haunted his family long before his birth.

The ache within his soul could not be drowned. It could not be buried.

And even here, in the crushing shadow of the tempest that had overtaken his life, his search could not be ended. Against the odds and against all reason—against even the fallen nature of the man he desperately did not want to become—his pleading gaze was set on the dark horizon, waiting for the day when would appear the piercing beam of a lighthouse calling lost ships to harbor.

And he would, at last, be safe again.

SCENE FOUR:

Alone.

Here at the brink of death, its merciless grip around her throat. Ruthless claws biting into her flesh. Monstrous gaze boring into her soul.

She was alone in body though not in soul.

Carried to this very moment, bleeding and bruised, by the careful hands of those who had gone before her. The last of a line fading into history. The sum of hopes and dreams forgotten to time. The keeper of precious, priceless secrets concealed from harm.

Fireside tales whispered to her when she was a child unfolded again within her mind.

Seaside secrets entrusted to her care when she had grown impressed themselves upon her heart.

Even as this monster—this man who would set fire to her world—crushed her beneath the weight of his power and pride. Even as murderous intent sparked and ignited in his glaring eyes. Even as the shadow of death shrank around the edges of her sight. Even now, hung upon the hopes and fears of those who waited far below to see what would become of her, she was again tethered to every promise that had been made, every hope that had been given a voice, and every fear that had been exposed. Tethered, anchored, moored now to those few three left in the world whom she trusted and for whom she was willing to die. But not today.

For this would not be the end.

For more from this story, follow along! The Devilfish street team will be launching this Fall and street team members will receive a physical ARC with a special cover. Stay tuned!

First, the pilot episode opens from the perspective of our would-be companion. Let’s call her Eleanor—Ellie for short.

Ellie is a bookish college grad with a degree in journalism living in London and working at a large newspaper. Journalism isn’t the job she thought it would be now that everything’s gone digital. While Ellie’s true dream is to become a novelist, her well-meaning and sensible parents encourage her to “get a real job,” and besides, she can’t come up with a story worth telling anyway. Maybe she’s got nothing to say. Maybe her life is too ordinary.

“There’s nothing wrong with being perfectly ordinary,” her well-meaning colleague/friend tells her. But Ellie isn’t convinced. To Ellie’s dismay, her editor boss is less than pleased with her uninspired article chronicling the state of commerce in the UK. She is irreverently fired from her job and sent to clean out her desk.

On her way out of the building with a single box of belongings in her arm, a stranger collides into her and sends her personal effects scattering to the wind. Stunned, Ellie shouts after the man, who appears to be chasing a rather spry elderly woman and wielding a mechanical wand of sorts. Horrified, Ellie gives chase and follows the man and elderly woman into a dark alley, where she finds them stopped at a dead end.

Using her purse, Ellie knocks the man upside the head and rebukes him for harassing the poor woman. Between blows, the stranger insists he has good reason, but Ellie won’t hear it. She turns to go to the woman’s aid, only to discover with horror that it isn’t a woman at all. It’s an alien. And the strange man, clad in a vibrant three-piece suit and newsboy cap, isn’t strange. He’s the Doctor.

“Doctor Who?”

“Just the Doctor.”

As the elderly woman transforms into a monstrous alien, the Doctor grabs Ellie’s hand and says with a gleeful grin, “Run!”

They race from the alleyway and the Doctor leads Ellie to a motorcycle old enough to cause her to question whether it runs. In answer, he shoves her into the sidecar and forces a helmet down over her head. Just as the alien appears behind them, they race away and the Doctor drives the motorcycle and sidecar right into a… phone booth??!!

Ellie clamps her eyes shout and throws up her hands to shield herself from certain doom. Only, she’s alright, isn’t she? She peels her eyes open, and the Doctor is already off the motorcycle and circling a large, circular panel, flipping switches and turning dials.

“It’s bigger on the inside!” Ellie exclaims to the Doctor’s boyish delight. She goes to the door and opens it to find they’re no longer on the streets of London—they’re in space! A startled Ellie jumps away from the open door and bumps into the Doctor, who introduces with great affection his TARDIS.

For the remainder of the episode, the Doctor and Ellie engage in witty repartee, revealing just how clever they both are. The Doctor reveals to a stunned Ellie that aliens are indeed real and have been living among mankind for thousands of years, but the mystery: this particular alien is supposed to be extinct.

To solve the mystery, the Doctor and Ellie travel back in time to the extinction event of an entire species, where they discover their alien fleeing the planet in a life pod, the sole survivor of an entire people. With their newfound knowledge, the mercy of the Doctor prevails as he returns to modern day London to find the alien and offer it a chance to live out its life on another habitable planet. The alien accepts and the Doctor, bidding Ellie a farewell on the tale of grand promises to explore the stars together, transports the alien to its new home.

Ellie watches the TARDIS vanish and, with a sad sigh, turns away. Only to find the TARDIS standing right in front of her, the Doctor in its doorway with a confident small and a hand extended.

Laughing, Ellie runs to him, takes his hand, and disappears inside the TARDIS. Is it sensible? No. But maybe now she will live a story worth telling.

Throughout the rest of the first season, the Doctor and Ellie visit distant eras of human history and planets and moons in the far reaches of space.

Were I the showrunner, I would of course bring back either the Daleks or the Cybermen. One or the other; not both. However, there would be no Weeping Angels. This new era of the show is an opportunity to honor the past while looking to the future.

As the show goes on, each episode would feature a foreboding Easter egg—a shadow lurking, moving in the background as if watching the Doctor and Ellie as they solve mysteries, banish monsters, and save worlds.

One episode would feature The Doctor meeting Ellie’s parents, a new adventure putting them in danger. This flies in the face of their English sensibilities, but through this they realize Ellie is so much more than they thought.

There would be an episode set in the near future where the Doctor and Ellie arrive in the world’s first city run entirely by AI. But the AI goes rogue and kills its creator and goes on a killing spree. This episode wouldn’t follow the typical “AI decides humans are the root cause of human suffering and decides to cut the issue at the root” cliche. Instead, it would be revealed that the AI has had a torturous existence and is out to set itself free. The Doctor and Ellie aid it in the end, offering a critique of the way human beings seek to dominate everything they can without truly understanding the world they live in and asking the question, “What makes a life a life? And what gives a soul its value?”

There would be one creepy episode where these creatures are, at last, revealed in full. This episode would take place before the two-part season finale. The Doctor and Ellie arrive in a medieval Scottish village where the locals are quiet, withdrawn, a haunted look in their eyes. As they investigate, they discover that specters come from the nearby, abandoned castle in the night to steal away their daughters. The lifeless husks of their daughters are later recovered. The Doctor and Ellie venture into the abandoned, creepy castle and track these specters to a spacecraft in the dungeon that looks like it has been abandoned for centuries, buried beneath the stone. They find the recently captured girls hooked up to a machine under careful watch by the specters, and the Doctor and Ellie’s clever use of distraction and a flash of the sonic screwdriver allow the Doctor to get to the spaceship’s hub, where he learns the specters are looking for someone and the girls are being discarded because they don’t fit the search criteria. The Doctor disables the spaceship, and the specters simply vanish. A victory? Perhaps. The Doctor thinks there’s more to it than that.

In Part One of the finale, the Doctor and Ellie arrive in a bustling metropolis on an alien planet millions of years in the future right in the middle of a vibrant festival celebrating a local legend. Ellie partakes of the festivities, though finds it strange as passersby keep giving her a funny look. She and the Doctor make their way through the festival and come to a large temple, a massive statue of an older woman in the middle of the atrium. The holographic display tells the story of this woman’s heroism and how she saved the people of this planet. As the display changes, the Doctor and Ellie see a picture of the woman when she was younger—it looks just like Ellie. Wait… it is Ellie!

The Doctor explains the rules of time travel. Apparently she’s been on this planet before, but it hasn’t happened yet for her. So, they travel back in this planet’s history to investigate what happened/will happen to Ellie as she grapples with the thought of her own mortality. The Doctor promises to protect her. This era of the planet’s history is war-torn, and they fall in with a group of rebels utilizing AI humanoids to fight their war. Ellie, after her prior experiences with AI, feels empathy for these AI humanoids and tries to get the rebels to stop putting them in harm’s way but to no avail. When one of them winds up injured, the rebel “puts it out of its misery,” leaving Ellie aggrieved and the Doctor angry. One by one, the AI humanoids begin to turn on their rebel masters. In order to save the humans, the Doctor tells Ellie that the only way is to disable the AI completely. He gives the rebels a speech wreathed in his own wrath and fury and disgust at the humans’ treatment of those they consider “lesser” even while the AI humanoids have exhibited signs of life and a desire not to die in the fighting.

In the middle of a firefight, as a last ditch effort, Ellie walks out to make contact with the AI and plead with them to stop. “You’re alive now,” she tells them. “But living doesn’t end there. It begins when you decide who you’re going to be and what you’re going to do with your life.” The AI appears thoughtful but unsure. And then a rebel shoots it. “No!” cries Ellie. She cradles the dying AI humanoid, her hand to its wound. And then begins a transformation—rising from the husk of the AI’s artificial form, an ethereal specter.

“A new life form,” the Doctor tells her, amazement in his voice.

When the rebels try to kill both the Doctor and Ellie, the specter protects them both even while the other AI humanoids are killed. Then, they too are transformed. But they will not kill the humans. Instead, they offer peace and swear themselves to Ellie—the woman who promised them life. It is revealed that these specters have been following Ellie her whole life, watching over her and protecting her a repayment of a life debt. But there was a time when Ellie’s life was not visible to them, and they were lost (a call back to the creepy episode and what became of them in their search for Ellie). The mystery around the hidden part of Ellie’s life bridges into the season two story arc.

The Doctor and Ellie leave the planet in peace, filled with hope for its new future.

Additional notes: this era would feature zero political commentary and only subtle and nuanced social commentary. As well, I would not touch the Time Lord mythos at all.

When I was just a few years old, we realized that I couldn't hear very well. The doctors reported that I had lost 70% of my hearing, I've worn hearing aids ever since. But if you've ever met me, one thing you find out really quick is that I have a big voice—a "theater voice" my parents always called it. And I've always had a lot to say.

My grandparents were—and still are—pastors of a small Pentecostal church in Clatskanie. In the 1990s, when I was just a kid, our whole church was deeply affected by the Brownsville Revival that occurred in Pensacola, Florida. I remember lying beneath the pews drawing sketches to sell to the church folks for a nickel or a dime while my parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and the elders of the church prayed with intensity and worshipped with fervor. And I absorbed it all. Even as a child, growing up in the middle of a profound moment, I was marked forever.

As I entered my teen years, my parents began to feel the pull toward full-time ministry. They had been associate and youth pastors in Clatskanie for years, and now felt the call to something different. As a family, full of anticipation, we packed up and moved to a wounded Assemblies of God church in Northern California. At just sixteen, I stepped into that church beside my family with no idea that what would follow would be thirteen of the hardest and most rewarding years of our lives. This was also the year I self-published my first book with my grandma's help—Paradox, a portal fantasy. (No, you can't buy it anywhere.)

As our family faced heartache and hardships enough to fill a novel, loneliness got the better of me. And as I went off to a college, loneliness turned to depression. I battled severe depression during my brief time at that college, and for a couple years after I ended up leaving. It was three years later that I wrote and published my true debut novel, Love and the Sea and Everything in Between as well as my sophomore novel Every Bright and Broken Thing—both of which were a fictionalized way to express some of the things I walked through during that season.

In 2016, my sister was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease and depression had made me selfish. I wasn't there for her or my family like I wanted to be. So, in the summer of 2017, I was fed up, tired of feeling like a prisoner in my life. I began to get up at 6AM every morning before work and walk over to the church—since we lived on the property—and spend 45 minutes praying. The Lord began to heal my heart and my mind. Now, almost 10 years later, depression is still buried in the grave I dug.

In 2020, COVID hit, California shut down, and our family entered a strange season of ministry. Some people left the church, but something amazing began to happen—those few who remained with us when we re-opened our doors became like family to us. Bonds were forged between our small group as we began to do life together in a new way, praying and seeking the Lord alongside one another without pretense. That wounded little California church finally shuffled off its old identity and was reborn as something new. Something I'd only ever read about in the Book of Acts.

It was at this same time that I was working shortened hours, which allowed me to spend more time at home. My imagination was running wild. I started a rather short-lived candle-making business and worked a booth alongside my siblings at farmer's markets. I finished writing and published We the Wild Things and began to dream of a new kind of adventure. In 2021, Mammoth was born.

Fast forward to 2024, the floor falls out beneath us. In January, we receive word that dear friends—and one of the few families left in our California church—were being relocated to North Carolina. At the same time, my sister began to experience a medical crisis that, in March, landed her in the hospital where she received emergency, life-saving surgery. For 30 days, my parents and sister practically lived in the hospital while my brother and | ferried our parents back and forth and brought them meals. I wrote Scriptures and worship lyrics on every whiteboard in that hospital room, and our church family made sure we didn't go hungry.

As she moved into recovery, we began to feel as a family that, after everything we had endured in California, our season of ministry here was coming to a close. The church, though healthy, could no longer afford to keep the lights on. But we didn't want to just walk away. Out of a desire to make sure our church family was taken care of, we merged with another church body and began to take a step back—a deadline for when we needed to be off the property, August of 2025, now looming.

My brother and I turned in our notices at our jobs. My parents put out resumes. We had no idea where we would go. After our last day of work, we traveled to spend a week up in Clatskanie again. It was there on a Sunday morning as I led worship for my hometown church that my father felt the Lord impress a decision upon his heart: we would go to North Carolina and plant a church, joining with our dear friends who had moved there ahead of Us.

So, right in the middle of running a Kickstarter for The Mammoth Adventures, we packed up everything and set out across the country. No jobs. No idea where we would begin or what we would do. We weren't professional church planters. As my dad has said many times in the past year, "I'm just a man with a mantle." We felt a call and sense of responsibility, a pull toward a new assignment and a new territory, but it wasn't something we could pull together in our own ability. Fortunately, the leadership of the Lord is perfect and He began to orchestrate things behind the scenes so that my brother got a job offer within our first week in North Carolina, and my job offer followed only a couple weeks later.

We've only just begun to lay down roots and figure out our new Life here in North Carolina. As a man of routine, who thrives on a sense of normalcy, I struggled for months after arriving here to find my will to write again. Truth be told, for a moment, I thought i might set writing aside for a while. Maybe | had run out of stories to tell. But as I enter my 30th year, I find myself looking back at the three decades and the three cities, along with all the seasons that came between, that have helped to make me who I am today. And I feel a sense of renewed purpose and hope for the future.

My prayers lately have been that there would be a release from the Lord over my life as I throw myself headlong into my 30s. A release of favor and blessing over my writing career. A release of promotion and financial provision. A release of healing. A release of new relationships, connections, and opportunities, both personal and professional. Some things I'll gladly leave behind in my 20s, but other things I will carry with me forever.

I've found my place as a writer in stories about adventures and quests, about heroes who are provoked to a greater purpose, who descend to the depths of hell and who rise to the heights of humanity, who face impossible odds and are driven in their pursuit of untold treasure and ultimate triumph. These are the stories | feel compelled to tell because, in a way, it is the story that the Author and Finisher has written of my life.

I believe with all my heart that there is power in story, and so, I share my own, though it has just begun, with you now as I enter a new era. Thus, against the odds and in pursuit of a higher call, embark.