We sat down with the Silver Monarch team to get insight on how they’ve created a world with thousands of characters, places, and pieces of a bigger story. In this interview, they give guidance on starting a project of this size and how they manage the ideas and lore from all team members.

Introduce yourself!

Hello there, my name is Stefan Schultz. I'm the founder and the creative designer behind the Silver Monarch team. First of all, thank you for having me, Felicia. It is quite an honor to be here. Silver Monarch was found between me and my friend, as we were students back in Serbia. This feels like a fever dream for us to be doing this, especially doing an interview with someone that we really appreciate the work they're doing.

Tell us a bit about the grimdark world you’re building and the projects attached to it.

Well, it started as an idea that we wanted to do, me and my friend, like four years ago, we had a really nice world we were chatting about, and after quite some time, we said, “Hey, let’s make it into something more,” and the idea developed, and so came The Shattered World. It’s a grimdark setting, you can call it a bit like a nihilistic fantasy, as we want to explore the themes of the 21st century, but with a metaphor and base as the grimdark setting. and that was our setting point of what we wanted to develop. The Warpwalker’s Guide Through the Shattered World (D&D expansion book) is our first installation in the world.

How did this project start?

Well actually, everything came with an accident. The whole deeper idea came after I had a dream. At 4 a.m. I woke up all sweaty, and I called my friend, “Pavle, I have an idea, come to my house, we need to chat about this,” and he was sleeping, he was like, “I'm coming to you,” and he rushed to my house. We started talking, and talking, I was like, I want to show this to the world. We've been playing D&D since we were kids, and we said this is what we're truly good at. We wanted to put this into a guidebook as the first, because D&D is quite an interactive experience.

You have a team of collaborators in this world, so when two of you disagree on canon, walk me through how you actually resolve it?

When we started the whole thing, like, me and Pavel disagreed a lot on the whole world, I'm the creative well without them, but my ideas are going all over the place. He's the one helping me connect them all. Now that the team is bigger, we have a whole team of artists that craft this magnificent world, and, we disagree a lot. But only because our artists are really talented, and they know how to tell the story with their art. Some things in my head make sense, but in reality, they don't translate into art. So [we have to have] a whole discussion about it, and a lot of stuff has changed since the beginning. When you're working with a lot of people, the end result can be amazing, because I always believe in cooperation with the team and I don't think anything good came with one man being stubborn.

What's a mistake you made early that changed how you start projects now?

The first mistake that we made was how we showcase things to people. Both me and Pavle were just players and we never really thought about how to tell people our story because it was really scattered around. But then we came across vvd.world. It helped us a lot with connecting the dots and not just how we craft the world, but with how we tell it to people. The Shattered World is big and whenever you want to tell someone about the world, you don't know where to start. Especially since beside the whole project we have, we have university and other commitments. But when we put it all onto vvd, with the graphs and all the tools, we had a conscious line on how we want to tell it to people. It helped us a lot when writing and developing the whole setting.

For someone wanting to create their own expansion for D&D, what are your first steps? What would you suggest for them to start doing or planning?

Have passion. In Serbia, you don't get a lot of opportunities to do something creative. I always say find passion and let it drive you.

If you want to make a real lore book, don't use AI. Silver Monarch is a strong opponent against generative AI, because I think when you're doing something creative, something artistic, I think it should be made by humans.

List the stuff that you want to include inside, and never think that any idea you have is not worthy of other people's time. Push forward what you think is good. Ask people for their thoughts. Don't be arrogant. Accept critique. And don't rush things.

It was our biggest mistake in the past, because we really rushed how we do things. We wanted to go out to Kickstarter as soon as possible, because we had so many ideas we wanted to show to people. But take your time. You're not in the rush. Enjoy the process. And like, if you ask me what you should do, you should take it steady. Like everything in life, you should take your time.

How can we continue to support the Silver Monarch team?

We have a website, Instagram, and our Kickstarter coming soon!

I would like to take this moment to say that I'm really grateful for meeting this whole community, and I want to thank my team for making this fever dream be a bit more real than it was three years ago.

If you’re searching for inspiration on the next story to write, why not explore an underrated genre of fiction? Infinite Flow is a genre in Chinese web novels that Western media hasn’t fully understood yet, but should. The concept involves episodic world-hopping, with each world being extremely different or unique from the last.

Stories that fit this structure feature characters entering multiple “instances” where they have to complete a challenge and/or solve a mystery. Failure in doing so could lead to consequences or death.

The actual translation of “Infinite Flow” in Mandarin means “all-embracing” so there can be a combination of different settings or themes built into one story (folklore, history, mythology, horror, fantasy, etc.).

What are the Essential Elements of an Infinite Flow story?

The Authority

This is the entity in charge of the entire Infinite Flow system as a whole. It could be a real person, a form of artificial intelligence, or even an otherworldly being. Whoever the authority is, they should have a motive or reason for their existence in this story and be the foundation to the events that unfold.

• Why are they capturing people in these virtual spaces?

• Are they learning from the challenges they’re forcing people to complete?

• Are they always watching or monitoring the instances?

• How will the main character uncover their motives?

Instances/Worlds

The instances are the virtual spaces where characters must complete challenges. They could be presented as rooms with barely anything in them or fully-realized worlds that The Authority can have control over.

Each instance should be uniquely different from one another and have a central theme associated with it. The challenges presented to the characters involved shouldn’t feel straight-forward; think of situations like mind-bending puzzles or skill-based tests. It should truly feel like a test of the character’s physical or mental strength.

The Hub

After a character successfully completes a challenge, they are then transported out of that instance into another purgatory space, typically referred to as a “hub”. This can act as a resting area for all individuals involved to communicate with each other. There are no obvious threats with this becoming a ritualistic opportunity for everyone to discuss the situation, work together, or share their findings. Questions you can ask yourself:

• Is this hub filled with security or guards working for the authority?

• Is it truly a safe space?

• How do characters interact with what the hub has to offer?

• How do you leave or enter the hub for challenges?

Influential Works of the Infinite Flow genre:

Infinite Terror by Zhang Heng

Ten Day Ultimatum by Sha Chong Dui Dui Yuan

You Are Summoned by Dean Henegar

Mystical Journey by “Get Lost”

Republication from Miyamiwu

A random interaction on Twitter earlier this year began me thinking about how the elements and principles of design can be linked to writing. I’m trained in design, both for graphic art and landscape design, so the concepts were known to me. But I’d never thought about applying them to writing.

Today, I’ll look at how the element of line can be used. In visual art, line refers to linear marks, or edges where shapes or positive and negative space meet. There are two ways to consider this in world-building.

The equivalent of visual art’s linear marks in writing is movement: journey, regardless of the method. Journeys are prime places for showing us the world: what is the traveler experiencing? What are their senses telling them, and how are they reacting? (I wonder sometimes if this is why fantasy worlds and hero’s journey story arcs go together – there is so much scope for world-building!) If these reactions or impressions add to the character’s growth or reveals things about them – either directly to the reader or to another character – then the world-building slides seamlessly into the story.

In this snippet from Book 1 of my Empire’s Legacy trilogy, Empire’s Daughter, here is the protagonist Lena at the beginning of a physical journey:

We learn a number of facts about Lena’s land in this passage: a bit about its ecology and its comparative eco-region: ‘…heathland and bog, without trees. A raven croaked…’ Most readers will be able to picture this and relate it to a northern setting. But we also learn that it is new for Lena: a short ride from her village, and she’s never been there. It tells us about the insularity of her upbringing and the expectations of her village.

“I had expected a cobbled track, but the builders had made it wide enough for two wagons to pass. Paved with squared stone, it spoke of permanence and age.” Here we learn that this country has a history, a past that is still to be revealed – but one that the character Casyn takes for granted, while Lena does not.

“North,” he said, pointing, “the road goes to Serra and Delle…. So we have map of Lena’s country laid out in words, grounding both her and the reader. Lena has this map, she’s seen it, but we also learn the geography isn’t her focus: she wants to find Maya, and she’s looked at the map only in relation to that goal.

World-building, using the linearity of the journey as the vehicle, has given the reader insight into the northern setting of this world, hinted at the age and technology of the culture, revealed a bit about the limits of Lena’s village’s worldview, and provided an brief overview of the settlement structure of the country – and shown us there is another country to its north. But because it is in the context of Lena’s experience, it blends into the narrative.

The second way to consider the concept of line is the intersection of shape or space: edges. In writing, the equivalent is meetings: the edges of culture, personality, gender, religions, politics, language…. Again, showing how protagonists react to these edges combines the world-building with character development.

In this excerpt from much later in Empire’s Daughter, Lena has reached a crowded southern inn, another new experience for her:

In this scene of meetings – a new space, with different rules, new people, a new game – there are lots of opportunities for world-building. What do we learn?

Only women occupied the tables and benches. The men had a separate room. Here in the south, where villages and farms crowded closer together, and with regular traffic on the road between Casilla and the Emperor’s camp, custom kept men and women apart.

Fairly self-explanatory, and in all honesty if I were writing this book again, I might leave out that last sentence and just let the first two show us the difference in cultural practices between the south of Lena’s country and the north. (Or reframe the last sentence as Lena’s direct thought).

I heard talk of crops and herds, of a good year for wine…While the reader is picturing Lena sitting alone, listening (which gives more insight into her character), they are also learning that this is an agricultural area; coupling that with villages and farms crowded closer together tells the reader that the south is a more fertile area, with better conditions for crops, and warmer, if wine can be produced.

As far as I could remember, it sat at the hub of several roads, leading out to a semi-circle of villages—Ballin, Karst, two or three others. Here, as Lena remembers, the reader is reminded of the geography and infrastructure of roads and villages; the sentence also reinforces the higher population of the south.

The dice game gives the reader insight into recreational pastimes (as does the instrument being played quietly in the background); the fact Lena does not know how to play again emphasizes the cultural differences between north and south. It’s also a jumping-off point for a conversation that will lead the narrative (and the journey) forward.

Lena’s experiences here are mostly that of hearing and sight. I could have included other sensory information – the taste of the food, the smells in the air, the temperature of the room – but I’d done that in other inn scenes, so while repetition (a principle of design, rather than an element) is important, so is variation within that repetition.

Republication by Marian L. Thorpe
Website

The screen adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey directed by Christopher Nolan represents one of the most ambitious cinematic undertakings of modern-day film. When a director known for his precision, realistic aesthetics, and obsession with the phenomenon of time tackles a foundational text of Western literature, the result is nothing short of a spectacle.

Nolan deconstructs the ancient myth through the prism of modernised realism and a nonlinear structure. However, such an undertaking raises essential questions: how much authenticity has been sacrificed for the sake of an excessively cold, rational view of the world, and have the visual identity (particularly the costume design), and the portrayal of the Greek mentality withstood the test of critical analysis?

Ithaca and the sea are not just geographical locations, but separate dimensions. While Telemachus’s search for his father is portrayed through a relatively linear and dynamic, song-like segment, Odysseus’s wandering becomes a slow burning side quest, each captivity with Calypso or Circe feels like a slow, gloomy interval in which the character loses awareness without any real need. Penelope’s waiting is transformed into a claustrophobic fissure in which each day repeats with the same threat of the suitors. Through overlapping timelines, the film emphasizes the physical and mental exhaustion of the characters. The return home feels like Matt Damon came back home from a 9-5 shift, and not a ten year long journey.

The film faced significant critical objections concerning the visual design and cultural portrayal of ancient Greece. Most criticism was directed at the costume design. In the pursuit of an legitimate, universal aesthetic, the costumes fell into a trap between modernized minimalism and historical inaccuracy. Instead of the richness of the Mycenaean era, with fabrics, brocades, and armor that reflect the Bronze Age, the costumes often appear too sterile, cold, and conceptual, depriving the heroes of their specific historical and geographical rootedness.

It becomes hilarious when these Bronze Age heroes use iron. Really man? An even deeper critical objection concerns the depiction of the Hellenic spirit itself. The Odyssey rests on the fundamental pillars of ancient culture: kleos (undying glory), nostos (return to the domestic hearth), and xenia (the sacred law of hospitality). The film tends to rationalize these concepts and translate them into modern psychological categories. Hospitality becomes merely a form of diplomacy, while glory is measured through trauma rather than through eternal remembrance in song. In this way, the Mediterranean, passionate, primordial spirit of the original Greeks gives way to a modernist existential drama.

In the end, Nolan’s Odyssey remains a bold and fascinating cinematographic experiment. Although, due to its shoddy aesthetics, disputes over costumes, and demystification of ancient beliefs, it is far removed from the original Hellenic soul. However it achieves it’s primary goal in depicting this timeless epic: the human need to overcome time and return home.

Written by Aleksandar Jablanović

In an earlier piece for this publication, I argued that a world without pressure is a world without life. That what makes a setting feel real is how much it is straining under. I want to follow that thought somewhere it leads naturally, somewhere I did not have room to go. Because pressure produces something else. It produces silence. And silence, in worldbuilding, is a force.

Most writers treat silence as a failure. A gap where something should be. The instinct, when you notice it, is to fill it. Add a footnote. Extend the history. Give the minor god a name, the old war a date, the ruined tower an explanation. The world grows. The silence disappears. And something important disappears with it.

Here is what that instinct misses. When a reader encounters silence in a world, they do not stop. They fill the silence themselves. That is the text working. Not a failure. The reader reaches for whatever the feel of the silence suggests, and what they find there is usually more charged, more specific to them, more frightening or beautiful than anything you could have put in its place.

The question worldbuilders rarely ask is this. What am I asking the reader to fill this with?

Because silence is not neutral. What surrounds it determines what pours in. A character who will not speak about the northern provinces invites one kind of imagining. A festival observed with great care and no explanation invites another. The world does not have to explain itself. It has to create the conditions in which the reader’s imagination moves in the right direction.

This is harder than it sounds. Unexplained detail without pressure behind it is just vagueness. It does not feel mysterious. It feels unfinished, because that is what it is. The silence has to be earned. The world has to feel, in the vicinity of the gap, like it knows more than it is saying. There is a difference between a secret and an oversight, and readers feel it immediately, even when they cannot say why.

The how is structural. You do not explain what the old families did during the occupation, but you show how certain rooms go unused. You do not name what lives at the edge of the marsh, but you note how none of the local hunters work past midday. You give the silence witnesses. Objects. Habits. Peripheral discomforts. The gap becomes visible, which means the reader knows to look into it.

Tone is part of the architecture. When the narrative itself moves differently near a silence, the reader understands that the silence has consequence. That what is not said is not said for a reason. This is how great fantasy builds dread without ever reaching for horror’s tools. The world becomes reticent. The reader becomes alert.

The other thing silence does is protect the world’s interior life. A world that explains itself completely is a world that has nothing left to believe about itself. People in functioning societies do not explain their own foundations. They live within them. When a character performs a small ritual and offers no gloss, when a phrase carries clear importance and goes unremarked on, when a second character understands a reference the reader does not, the reader receives something invaluable. The impression that they have walked into something ongoing. Something that was here before them and will continue after.

That impression cannot be manufactured directly. It can only be produced by trusting the reader with incompleteness.

Most of the worlds that stay with you have this quality. You remember them as larger than what you were shown. You remember having the sense, in certain scenes, that the characters were speaking against a backdrop you only partially understood. This is not confusion. It is the pleasurable vertigo of a world with depth. Of standing at the edge of something and understanding that your view only reaches so far.

Completeness forecloses that feeling. However lovingly built, a fully explained world is a world you have seen all of. The reader stands at the center and sees to every wall.

The test I use is this: find three things in your world that you know and that nobody in the text will ever say aloud. Do not withhold them just for effect, and if you cannot find them, then the world is probably still too explained. If you can, that is when the world becomes something the reader inhabits rather than receives.

Pressure gives a world weight. Silence gives it depth. Both are necessary. But depth is harder to teach, because it requires you to resist the most basic instinct of the builder. You have made something. You want to show it.

Don’t. Not all of it. Leave some of it just beyond what the reader can touch. They will lean toward it for the rest of the book, tale or lore. That leaning is one of the most powerful things a world can produce.

Trust them with the gap. They know what to do with it.

Jonathan B Edvane is a British writer of dark fantasy. His work draws on folklore, established fantasy traditions, and original myth-making. He is currently completing his first novel. Discover more of his work at edvane.world

Socials:

X - @Edvane67

Bluesky - @edvane.bsky.social

Queer fiction is a broad term for texts written by a marginalised group of people who may not share much more with each other than that, in some way, they do not adhere to the limits imposed by a heteronormative society. As the late Anne Rice stated so aptly, “None of us really changes over time. We only become more fully what we are.”

Unfortunately for many of us, being who we are isn’t always possible for fear of rejection, losing your job, your home, your family, or, in the very worst cases, even our lives.

That’s where literature comes in.

Due to its fantastic nature, speculative fiction has often been neglected by most literary scholars—and whoever it is that decides whether a book is worthy of being added to what is commonly referred to as “the literary canon”.

However, I shall be analysing how and why people err here, delving into what Joyce Carol Oates calls “that dark, chaotic, unfathomable pool of time” in her stellar, queer, and feminist Gothic novel Bellefleur (1980), which aptly emphasised the importance of freedom.

Closer to reality than you think

It is true that, at first glance, speculative fiction is the genre that is the furthest from reality of them all—but then, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) has now moved to the “current events” shelf. And while we might never be rescued by a dashing prince (those of us who want to can hope!), or fall through a mirror and end up in an upside-down world (not too far from reality at this point, though), there are aspects of speculative fiction that anchor it to reality more so than any other genre. One must merely learn to correctly interpret the messages embedded in those narratives.

Take, for example, vampires. They’ve always been queer—scholars just rarely admitted that fact—and even Dracula (1897) has queer under themes. When LeFanu’s Carmilla (1871-72) was published, it was only permitted to keep the sapphic themes because Carmilla was seen as a monster.

Drawing on that, Djuna Barnes depicted her queer people as grotesque in Nightwood (1936), and this theme went on for a long time—until in the second half of the 20th century, when a new wave of speculative fiction hit the market, and things slowly began to change. Whether Shirley Jackson’s characters in The Haunting of Hill House (1959) are queer coded is no longer an easily disputed theory, and that vampires do not care about gender is an acknowledged fact. In 1977, with Angela Carter’s The Passion of New Eve, we moved into gender-defying narratives.

Most of all, we must not forget about the often neglected BIPOC texts, such as Octavia Butler’s Fledgling (2005), in which being “different” is what gives you power, and romantic relationships are so ahead of their time that, even in 2026, society hasn’t arrived there just yet.

It’s not just queer characters

The fact that many classic horror authors are or were queer themselves gets overlooked even more often. Susan Hill, later in her life, entered a relationship with a woman; Anne Rice didn’t believe in gender; and we acknowledge it with Oscar Wilde only because he received a long prison sentence for it.

In many parts of the world, even in what we consider to be our supposedly advanced civilisation, people still have to hide who they are, and I’m glad that fiction gives them the freedom to explore. Today we have writers like Eric LaRocca, Gwendolyn Kiste, William Joseph Martin, and so many others paving the way for a new generation of unapologetically queer authors. It is in the footsteps of all these authors throughout history, from ancient times to the present, that I strive to follow both as a reader and a writer.

Original Article from “Exploring Queer Horror” series with British Fantasy Society, Guest Poster: Bronte Rowan

Why is our first instinct in creature design to create a monster?

Very few people think creature design and think about the animals in the background of Star Wars or the creatures that make up the whole planet of Pandora in Avatar. Instead many people think about the bosses you fight in Legend of Zelda or the creatures you fight in The Last of Us. This thinking is not incorrect, these ‘monsters’ are created and some creature designers love making them creepy and scary, but it’s not the only path and it’s not the only way to interact with “creatures” in fiction.

I believe when we only create creatures based around conflict and fear we show people that everything that isn’t ‘us’ is considered ‘other’ and therefore bad; something that we must fight against.

I think normalizing creatures in movies that aren’t just bad guys is a great step toward normalizating ‘speculative empathy.’ How will people in the world feel about aliens and animals and anything ‘other’ If we start to show them creatures as additional characters instead of just obstacles. Characters that may not be able to talk like us, but that are sentient, express themselves and live amongst society not just “beneath” it.

Designing for Cooperation

As creature designers, worldbuilders, storytellers, we are allowed to create creatures that inhabit a world and society in the same way animals inhabit earth. We can even take this a step further and design alien animals that function as part of society instead of just commodities for humans to use as they please.

I believe alien civilizations can have companions and mounts and other “fantasy creature elements” that function in society with beds instead of cages and with their own rights as well. We are still allowed to have bosses to fight or bad beasts to conquer but we can also have other animals that interact more than just the one staple dog companion that “some” games and movies have.

When I design my creatures for the world that I am building, I design them with a role in society in mind from the very beginning. Whether they directly benefit the people on the planet like my ‘messenger’ creature or whether they indirectly help the ecosystem and function of the world like my ‘surface watchers,’ they all deserve a place in the world you’re building.

I personally am obsessed with animals and creatures and want to create a world centered around them, but I believe people can incorporate a better message about “the other,” even if it’s just in the peripheral of the story.

When humans started developing on earth we pretty much bulldozed through everything already there but I think that even if you don’t have a huge amount of creatures in your world that you can design a world that has obviously been impacted by the creatures within it. Homes built in tunnels that were dug by creatures, bridges made across roads for wildlife, perches on buildings and a general integration of animals into the world itself.

Fiction tends to mirror reality with what we fear, what we hope and even what we expect out of the future. The way we treat fictional beings is a rehearsal in empathy for the way we treat real-life beings, whether human, animal or alien.

If we can empathize with a rock creature that doesn’t have a face or speak English, like Rocky from Project Hail Mary, then we are one step closer to being empathetic and understanding with the misunderstood beings in our own backyard, on our own planet.

Worldbuilding is a tool that can be used to scare people in preparation for a dire future or to give people hope, in preparation for a bright, evolved future. I do believe horror and shock value have a place, but I think hope-punk and cozy fantasy also has a place, especially in worldbuilding. I want my worlds to show people how amazing life could be if beings and creatures of all different kinds cooperated.

Allow people who read your stories to ask, “Does this being have a life I can connect with, instead of just a stat block I can beat?”

We have enough stories about surviving the dark times. Let’s build stories about sharing light with everyone and every thing.

Author: Emmelyn Rei of Emelou Studio

To be understood by another, whether real or fiction, is to be seen.

Stories can leave a lasting impact if you relate to them in some shape or form. Themes of grief, wonder, heartbreak, or passion can offer the reader emotional validation, while some books offer this with even more visibility. Everyone should be able to see their life reflected in stories and have the chance to learn from the characters you cherish.

This is why queer representation means everything when building fictional universes.

Speculative fiction that include queer characters can be a lifeline for members of the community. A dialogue exchange between two characters with a casual mention of their partner of the same gender, is already a step of acknowledgement that a reader can appreciate. Not every character needs to suffer for the plot or carry the weight of representation, but they should stay true to the human experience. Allow them to live, breathe, flourish, and exist. As basic as this may seem, it just might be the first time they finally see themselves represented.

GLAAD, an American non-profit LGBTQ+ advocacy organization, conducted a study of the diversity of regular characters of primetime scripted broadcasts for the 2024-2025 season. Their findings showed that only 9.3% of characters identify in the LGBTQ+ community. This proves how far we have come, but also how far we have to go.

We need queer books now, more than ever.

Curated LGBTQ+ book recommendations for reading all year round

💀 Haunting reads

Old Wounds by Logan-Ashley Kisner

Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell

What Stalks Among Us by Sarah Hollowell

Walking Practice by Dolki Min

Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White

✨ Myth, whimsy, and magic

Under the Whispering Door by T.J. Klune

Lakelore by Anna-Marie McLemore

Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Wrath Goddess Sing by Maya Deane

🌌 Beyond space and time

Earth Flown by Frances Wren

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Murder by Memory by Olivia Waite

The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer

A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers

Write your next story

We’re starting to notice a pattern this year with book-to-film adaptations and it’s not a coincidence. In our current world with technology and digital spaces, we’re seeing many productions return to moments of history and remaking them for the big screen.

It started earlier this year with the Wuthering Heights remake, bringing striking set and costume design for the time period. Slated for a July 2026 release, we are also getting The Odyssey, an adaptation of Homer’s ancient Greek epic from the vision of Christopher Nolan. And now, Jane Austen’s iconic Pride and Prejudice will also be receiving the same treatment in a new Netflix original series.

This trend is not just prevalent in film, but also new music and literature. Taylor Swift continues to quote Shakespeare in her song lyrics, and books like The Song of Achilles and Circe are always on Bookstagram recommendation lists.

The question worth asking is why now, and what does it tell us about the time period we’re currently living in?

Dystopia hits too close to home

In the early 2010s, YA dystopian novels were flying off the shelves. Series like The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, and Divergent captivated young audiences with dark stories about a possible future.

The idea always came down to that the world was accelerating toward something catastrophic and that fiction's job was to prepare us for it.

What mythology offers that dystopia struggles with is the sense of suffering; not being rooted from modern civilization failures, but rather in the human story. Ancient Greek myths are full of grief and punishment that prove life can be understood even when it cannot be controlled. An example being the tales of Prometheus and Sisyphus that bring purpose to the struggle itself and serve as a metaphor for progress. These concepts feel more comforting when the current news cycle feels unnavigable and out of our hands.

The urge to romanticize is growing

The act of romanticizing your life has received a bad reputation across social media, partly from its unrealistic expectations and being performative over authentic. But using this mindset to focus on your emotions can function as a form of positive cognitive reframing. Mythology is particularly powerful since the stories arrive already structured around longing for heroism, divine love, or fate. An example of this is The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller that offers new perspectives and a feminist/queer retelling. This gave marginalized characters the spotlight that was absent from the originals.

Period pieces offer a world where emotions like love and grief are treated seriously and these forces are what shape the stories. Wuthering Heights’s Heathcliff and Cathy are appealing because their relationship is raw and full of longing, with high emotional tension. The characters’ human reactions are heightened and anything but traditional, offering the reader and viewer permission to feel something so large it can’t be contained.

What comes next?

Most Western media have focused on their own American history and Greek or Roman mythology, but what should be explored further? Perhaps it moves further east, into Hindu, or West African mythological traditions that Western media has barely begun to touch. Or maybe goes smaller and more local towards folklore and fairy tale.

What the studios are chasing, even when they cannot articulate it clearly, is the audience's desire for stories that carry genuine weight. These are stories that feel as though they were built to survive rather than designed to generate a single weekend's conversation. History hasn’t left, but we had to feel tired enough of the present to remember it’s significance.

Every storyteller has a reason why. Not just why they started writing in the first place, but also why they can’t stop.

We asked Emiley (@writtenbyemiley) to bring five physical items that describe her as a storyteller and gave her the best inspiration for starting her writing journey. This is what she shared with us.

Before we dive in, tell us a bit about yourself.

Hi, my name is Emily! I'm 18 years old and I started doing social media about three years ago, but I kind of started taking it seriously, I'd say about a year ago. And now I'm mainly on Instagram, but I've recently started my YouTube channel, which I love over there. I started writing a little later than I feel like most people do, I started writing books when I was 14. But once again, I only really started taking that seriously about it's a two-ish years ago.

I actually like to write in a bunch of different genres, mainly I would say I do enjoy writing in more of like fantasy sci-fi more than like contemporary. But I also love reading in many different genres. That's actually something that I think is a little different about me than other people. I feel like most people have a favorite drama, but I can never pick one because people always say like, what's your favorite book? What's your favorite genre? I'm like, can I say all of them?

Item #1: Wooden Rose Bouquet

These are actually handmade roses out of wood. Funny enough, there's this place that me and my family go to sometimes. We call it a smorgasbord, but I don't think that's what other people call it. I guess it would be an all-you-can-eat buffet. And under this buffet, there's this huge store, but sometimes in the lobby, there will be people that are selling things.

But particularly, there was this really sweet older man, and he was selling these roses. And there were hundreds of them, like buckets full of every color that you could think of. And I was just amazed that he literally handmade all of these. And my first thought was, how are your hands doing? Because, oh, my goodness, like, as somebody that has a lot of hobbies, I can understand, like, getting hand cramps and stuff. But I picked this because I don't know if there's like a specific quote, but when people say that you can see someone's soul through their eyes. And you can look at somebody and you can just tell they're a really kind person. And I just remember when I was buying these roses from him, he was just like, one of the sweetest people I've ever met. And he just had the kindest eyes. And for me as a writer, I like remembering very small details and vivid details, you could say. And I love adding just tiny little details in my writing about my specific characters. And I would say my specific characters have very unique little things about them that I just like adding to make them unique, obviously. But that's just, every time I look at these, I remember these, the man because he was just so kind and had the kindest eyes I've ever seen.

Do you take a lot of inspiration from memories in your life? Is this just one instance or do you feel like you think about things that you've experienced in your life and incorporate that in your work?

I think it depends. Sometimes I do. I do that for characters, but usually for characters, I kind of take like memories from strangers. But I guess like certain stories I will take from memories, but I guess it just depends. But most of the time I do. I think a lot of writers do that, to be honest, even if they don't mean to. Like indirectly, I do think people take from their subconscious minds.

Item #2: Digital Camera

So this is my little digital camera that I put little stickers on both sides that I love. And this inspires me because I have been lucky enough to travel different places in the world. And I have brought this camera with me almost everywhere. So every time I look at this camera, kind of like you said, I take from memories. Back to that, actually, I take a lot of inspiration from structures and buildings that I've seen. So I use those type of memories in my books as well. But this just reminds me of all of the beautiful and cool places that I've been, especially I was in Germany. Their normal houses are just so gorgeous, like compared to here in the States. I'm so jealous that people just get to walk around and see this every single day.

You may not call yourself a photographer, but do you find that your artistry when you take pictures, helps compose a scene in your writing? If you're taking some sort of composition with your digital camera, do you ever find inspiration within that?

I never thought of that before! Yeah, I guess I think so. I love to scrapbook. So I guess like sometimes I'll take pictures with like the thought of mind of, oh, this is going in a scrapbook. So I say, yeah, I do. I would not consider myself a photographer though, because I see so many people that are just like so talented when it comes to, I'm like, how did you even think of that?

So when you are taking pictures and you're getting inspiration, is this something that you find really important in the process? Like how important are mood boards to you while writing?

Oh yeah, 100%. I love Pinterest and I recently found like another website called Cosmos. I love [and] need visuals. Anytime I'm writing, I have to have a Pinterest page open. I have to have a mood board open. I have to have some sort of visual. I have to be able to see what I'm writing, especially in scenes where I am describing a new setting for the reader. I need to be able to see it myself. And sometimes what I've done is if I can't find a picture of what I want, I'll like sketch it out or something. I'm nowhere near being an artist or anything, but sometimes, especially my main character, she lives in this underground subway and she's taken like 2 carts and pushed them together and made it into a home. But obviously, that's not something you can really look up. So I've had to like kind of draw my own thing, especially when I'm writing. I can't be confused because if I'm confused in writing, who knows what the reader's going to be thinking when they're reading.

Item #3: Star Wars DVD Set

Funny enough, I watched Star Wars for the first time [last] September. I'm very late to the game. It was because my sister has loved Star Wars for years. She's older than me. And I remember her going to the theaters, like, seeing the sequels and stuff. I just remember always thinking, “why would she like this? It's just some dumb sci-fi story. I don't know why anybody would want to watch this.” And I remember watching, just the main trilogy, and then the prequels and the sequels, and I liked all of them. But I remember after watching them, I was so in awe. I was genuinely speechless.

I mean, to be fair, literally, the prequels made me cry so hard. I was like on the floor sobbing. It was so bad. But I love stories that get you emotionally invested. And I was thinking after this, I was like, okay, I need my stories to be like this. I need people to be on the floor sobbing, wondering why I wrote this.

But even I was so amazed at the world building in Star Wars. I had no idea that there was so many unique planets. There was one planet where it was very futuristic, and it was reminding me of my own book and [it became] such an inspiration to me. And especially, I had no idea that Star Wars had gut-wrenching romance in it. I literally had no idea. And afterwards, I'm like, “Melanie, why didn't you make me see this sooner?” She's like, “I've been begging you for years!” I was so hooked. So with all of that said, huge inspiration to me. And I cannot believe I did not watch it sooner.

What are some things that you take away from Star Wars and apply to genres of sci-fi, like your book that you're writing right now?

I would say specifically I loved the technology. My book is very like technology heavy. and that's something I'm actually not too educated in. So I was like, I need to research this more. And I would say technology, but also like the really rich world. I recently went to a master class and it was talking about like, writing your book, but having series ideas in mind. And one of the key things about that is having a very rich universe that you can pull from, but also look at from different angles. And that's something that I really admired about Star Wars, because it's such a simple idea, but the universe is so rich. You can literally look at it from so many different angles.

This is something that would be further into the future because you're currently writing this story right now. But because you're looking at it in a lens from other angles, would you consider doing other parts and building off of this world in like a serialized fiction or other dream projects? Maybe further expanding this universe you're creating?

It's actually so funny you asked that because I've literally been thinking about that the past like week and a half. So the project I'm working on right now is a duology. And I really only see it being a duology just because of how my main character's arcs are. But in this world, there's four different cities. And this duology is focused on mainly one city, but also another city. So the other cities are more of just like in the book because of lore. But I have had ideas of being able to tell like the same story in the same timeline, but maybe from different people that are from these different cities. So yeah, it would be a dream of mine. Leigh Bardugo, who wrote Six of Crows, I know that she has like a trilogy and a duology that are separate, but they're from the same world. And when I saw that, I was like, wait, I didn't know you could do this, it’s such a great idea. So I've been thinking about that recently.

Item #4: Headphones

We have my headphones because I listen to music all the time when I write. I barely write in silence. I just, I can't do it. It gets too loud in the way. So I know a lot of people that cannot listen to music that has words in it. I used to be that way. I used to only be able to listen to instrumental. But recently, I've been able to start listening to music with words. So I listen to a mixture of different types of music. Honestly, when I write, depending on the project, obviously, I have specific playlists for each project, as most writers probably do. Sometimes I will, if I don't want to listen to music, I listen to brown noise, which is like white noise, but it's softer.

But music is such a huge inspiration to me as well. I feel like most writers also think that. But it really, like, sets the tone. If I'm listening to music, it can still put me, like, in the world again. For the book I'm writing right now, I love soundtracks. I love, obviously, the Star Wars soundtrack. I love the Arcane soundtrack. I also love the Pride and Prejudice soundtrack is one of my favorite classical music. But one of the albums I listen to nonstop for Project Eclipse is the AM album by Arctic Monkeys. I love that album. And I will literally listen to that album on repeat while writing. And it's a 40-minute-long album, so sometimes I'll just listen to the whole album and just write that entire time. But besides the fact that music is like a huge inspiration, it also just helps me focus because sometimes it's really hard to get distracted for me sometimes when it comes to writing, especially if I like don't want to write one day. And it's just a way to kind of get me in the mood.

Do you have playlists for the worlds your write or specific characters?

I do have one for specific characters. Sometimes I get kind of anal with my playlist. I'll have a main playlist for a project. Sometimes I have certain playlists for a romance between two characters, and then I'll have individual playlists for characters, mainly just main characters. I have ones for Project Eclipse for one of my main characters, but I think that also really just helps me with character arcs, character art, character motivation, internal thoughts and things like that.

Item #5: The Tortured Poets Department by Taylor Swift

So this is my CD of The Tortured Poets Department. And if you know me, I love Taylor Swift, but I love this album in particular because I remember when - it's two years old now, actually, as of yesterday. That shows you how much I'm obsessed with it because I know when it was released. I literally feel like Taylor broke into my house and read my diary and wrote this album about me, and I know a lot of people feel that way. One of my favorite things about this album is, like, the lyricism. I love everything with desperation, angst. I love anything tragic. I cannot write a book that's, like, super happy. I will read happy books sometimes, but I just can't see myself writing them. I specifically love to go through and flip through the lyric book. But I just love being able to look at the actual lyrics and stuff. I used to actually write a lot of poetry. I don't really anymore. But something like this, I'd love to look through this before writing poetry as inspiration. But like I said, music is just a huge inspiration to me in general, and specifically this album, because I feel like she's able to put so many different emotions into words.

And obviously as a writer, your goal is to be able to do something like that. And I just feel like the way she encompasses heartbreak and grief and just everything is so perfectly put into words. And it's like, I aspire to be like this. I aspire for my books to at least be 10% as well written as this.

Want to support Emiley’s work?

Emiley’s Socials: Instagram, YouTube, Substack

Close your eyes. Imagine yourself walking through a local mall you regularly visited as a child. The smells in the food court, the noises from the children’s play area, the fluorescent lights shining - reminding you of a different time.

What if we removed all that brought the place to life? No sounds. No kiosks. Void of any living thing. Left abandoned, yet you find yourself lost in the hallways. This deviation from reality can be described as a liminal space.

A place that feels like it doesn’t exist in time and was left in an in-between state. And now, this concept has made its way to mainstream media.

The internet has been obsessed with liminal spaces ever since a 4-chan story about “The Backrooms” was posted. The original depiction read:

"the stink of old moist carpet, the madness of mono-yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hum-buzz, and approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be trapped in."

But the visual style continues to evolve:

• An implication of function (an office space, hotel hallways, a swimming pool) with no evidence of life or use

• Silence except for mechanical sounds (humming, sound of plumbing, faucet dripping)

• Repetition, never-ending loops, and feeling like you’re trapped in a labyrinth

• The possibility of supernatural entities and anomalies living under the surface

Creators on Tumblr, Reddit, and 4-chan have formed online communities to express their own depictions of the aesthetic and write fictional content to pair alongside them. The internet was flooded with liminal space artwork, animated shorts, web novels, and serial fiction. It transformed from one simple short story, to an entire digital media library dedicated to this uncanny world outside of our own.

But why is this sub-genre so popular?

Some of the appeal can be stemmed from human psychology. The feeling and reminders of forgotten memories. Social media serves as a platform to connect with your past, and places that evoke a mid-90s to early 2000s aesthetic can provide a great form of nostalgia. Some may also resonate with the uncertainty. Using their surroundings as a space to reflect, viewers may feel as if their emotions are being represented in an art form they can relate to.

Keely Smith, lead interior designer at JD Elite Interiors, describes why people are seeking out liminal spaces, regardless of the horror element:

"In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in liminal spaces in architecture. This is partly due to the pandemic and the general uncertainty of life, which has made people more aware of transitional spaces and the emotions they evoke. Liminal spaces are being talked about as spaces of potential where people can reflect on their experiences and engage with their surroundings in new and meaningful ways."

For several years, Kane Parsons (Kane Pixels on YouTube) animated and produced an entire series about “the backrooms” bringing viewers lore and and the most influential creative direction to what this place is and why it exists. He was only 16 years old at the time of his first upload, showing how powerful the internet is for fictional storytelling. And this has finally captured the attention of larger production companies.

A24 announced their production of The Backrooms (NA release May 29, 2026) inspired by the internet creepypasta - with the director being none other than Kane Parsons himself. This is a triumph for online storytelling and web-based fiction. Original stories developed online are starting to get noticed, with no intention of slowing down.

In 2023, a Japanese indie game was released by the name of The Exit 8. The game follows the player navigating through a sterile metro station alone, attempting to find Exit 8 and leave. From slight differences in the environment, to unsettling figures in the distance, the player must stay vigilant to survive the liminal underground passageways. Even though it can be completed in under an hour, the eeriness of the gameplay had players coming back for more.

Following the success of this indie title, a full-theatrical movie adaptation has been made called Exit 8 (NA release April 10, 2026) - bringing the concept of liminal spaces to an even larger audience outside of an online phenomena.

Fictional realms continue to be developed by online communities but only a few make their way into virality. Liminal spaces work as a focal point in horror because they weaponize familiarity. The scares don’t stem from creatures or gore, but rather the lingering realization that you recognize this place…but it was never meant for you.

Traditionally, an author worldbuilds to the extent that they need, and then they stop, because the story must be written, and you can get in the weeds with worldbuilding if you’re not careful. It occurred to me one day, what if we did get lost in the weeds? On purpose.

Think about when you were a kid, we all created imaginary worlds and situations automatically. We did this without even trying. I believe that this is a core piece of the human spirit, the use of our imagination.

That is how I define worldbuilding now, not as a task I need to complete to write my story. Worldbuilding is the practice of making use of one’s imagination.

I believe we should change our thinking: a practice that once just served other mediums could become it’s own art form and take on many new shapes.

In some ways, this is already happening. We see people reference the worldbuilding in movies, like Studio Ghibli, in music like Twenty One Pilots, and so many more places. I see creators on Youtube especially leaning into worldbuilding for the sake of, well fun. They worldbuild for worldbuildings’ sake, then decide later what the project will ultimately become.

One notable worldbuilder is Sam Carr, he created a project called the Eternal Ruins on Youtube. An endless labyrinth fill with strange spirits, terrible demons, and curious creatures, animals, and even robots. Talk about getting lost in the weeds. Sam started just by sharing his thoughts and drawings from the world, but now he has created a full fledged TTRPG game.

I have been deeply inspired by Sam, and I love his approach to worldbuilding. We can start out by just living in our imagination, and decide later what shape our worlds will take in reality.

So, how would you begin?

The way you can start worldbuilding is simply by asking questions. I have a series on my Instagram (@worldbuildingchris) called Worldbuilding Sidequests, where I ask my followers to imagine themselves in fantasy worlds as a person with a specific task. They are just simple writing prompts, but the results are powerful.

After all, creativity is just an answer to a question. We see a gap, and we find a new way to fill it. We tend to overcomplicate creativity, but that’s all it truly is.

I’ve found that in asking these simple writing prompts, people fill in these gaps themselves. For example, here was one that I asked:

“Imagine you are a soldier standing guard in a small town, and you witness some suspicious activity that you need to report to your superior officer. Write a detailed report of what happened, where it happened, and who was involved.”

By the time a person gets through the prompt, they have thought through morality and law, towns and government systems, as well as what crime looks like in an imaginary world.

My point is that worldbuilding is a creative art all it’s own, on par with any other school of art. In fact worldbuilding is the secret source of so many art forms, adding depth and enjoyment to movies, paintings, and music all while staying in the background.

I would love if Worldbuilding could get center stage. I want a world where when a person is asked, “What do you do?” They say “I create worlds.”

Worldbuilding has done so much good in my life, and given me a new way to express my creativity when I discovered it. So many people believe that they are not creative, and therefore they don’t ever try to be. Worldbuilding has such a low barrier of entry, and my goal is to make worldbuilding more understood and accessible to the average person.

If this sounds interesting to you, I would love to connect and get you started on your journey with worldbuilding!

Written by: WorldbuildingChris
Chris’s Socials: Instagram, YouTube, TikTok

That is the trap. You start with a map. The map needs kingdoms, so you invent them. The kingdoms need histories, so you write those too. Before long you have a tax code for a river nation, six collapsed empires with distinct burial customs, and a pantheon whose internal politics you understand better than your own family’s. The world is enormous. It is also, somehow, weightless.

The problem is not the invention. Invention is one of the genuine pleasures of writing fantasy. I am not going to pretend otherwise. The problem is mistaking accumulation for pressure. A world can contain multitudes and still feel like a museum. Well-lit, nicely labelled, completely inert. In my opinion, what makes a setting feel alive is not how much it holds but how much it is straining under. Pressure is what turns a setting into a story.

Think about the fantasy worlds that have stayed with you. I doubt you remember them for their completeness. You remember them because something felt unstable. Because faith had become brittle somewhere. Because an old victory had morphed into a ritual nobody truly understood any more. Because the city was large and also deeply uneasy, the way cities get when they have been through things they have not finished processing. You felt, walking into those worlds, that the ground had memory.

Readers catch this before they can name it. They feel it in how people speak. What gets said sideways and what never gets said at all. They feel it in what a town fears after dark. They feel it when a ruler talks like someone defending something already half lost. These are not decorative touches. They are symptoms of a world carrying weight.

The world-builder’s question should not be what exists here? It should be what is pushing on this place. What has this world survived, and what did survival cost it? What is buried that is not staying buried? What do people pretend to believe? Who gets excluded from the magic, and what kind of person was first in line to abuse it?

These are not separate from world-building. They are the point of it.

Pressure also produces atmosphere, which matters more than most craft discussions admit. A foggy street is not atmospheric because it is foggy. It becomes atmospheric when the fog feels like concealment, when the street has rumours or when the buildings become strange witnesses. A forest is not compelling because it is old. It is compelling when its age has produced tension, when the old paths are still in use for reasons nobody wants to explain, when the trees have outlasted several orders and will outlast the present one too.

Imagery without pressure is just decoration. With pressure, it means something.

It also gives your characters somewhere real to be. When the world itself is strained, every conversation carries charge. Every institution has a moral quality. Every journey costs something culturally, not just physically. The setting stops being scenery and starts being one of the forces your characters are actually contending with.

None of this requires grimness. Pressure can live inside wonder, romance, and even comedy. But it has to be there. The gentlest fantasy still needs the tension between what is loved and what might be lost. Without that, you are just cataloguing.

The test I keep coming back to is this: if a stranger arrived in your world and spent one day there, what would they feel before anyone explained anything? Hunger? Reverence? Suspicion? Dread? The specific exhaustion of people living under something they did not choose? Would they sense that this place had been shaped by forces still in motion?

If yes, the world is beginning to breathe.

If no, more lore will not fix it. More history will not fix it. More maps, more names, more carefully designed coinage will not fix it. What it needs is weight. And weight does not come from invention. It comes from consequence.

Build the wound before you build the empire that caused it. The empire, you may find, mostly takes care of itself.

Jonathan B Edvane is a British writer of dark fantasy. His work draws on folklore, established fantasy traditions, and original myth-making. He is currently completing his first novel. Discover more of his work at edvanestories.com and talesfromthewoldwood.com.

Jonathan’s Socials: X, Instagram, Threads

Every storyteller has a reason why. Not just why they started writing in the first place, but also why they can’t stop.

We asked Kaden Love to bring five physical items that describe him as a storyteller and provided him with the best inspiration for writing cyberpunk. This is what he shared with us.

Before we dive in, tell us a bit about yourself.

My name is Kaden Love, I am a 27 year old author from Utah, and I wrote my debut about two years ago, which was an epic fantasy series about organ transplant-based magic. More recently, I’ve been talking a lot about Tooth Sucker. This is my cyberpunk series about vampires who eat teeth. And then book two, Chromatic Creep, just recently came out! But besides that, I run a book-based Instagram where I talk about my books, review books, and so forth.

Item #1: Cyberpunk Edgerunners by Rafał Jaki

I think the most foundational piece of fiction that inspired me to write Toothsucker was the Cyberpunk: Edgerunners manga. [I’m currently holding] the Japanese version because I got it when I was in Japan before the American version came out. But this is a prequel to the series.

The anime Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is a 10-episode series, and it just nails what I wanted in cyberpunk. It made me kind of fall in love with the genre. It deals with romance, tragedy, addiction, and so many great themes that it really just kick-started that inspiration to write Toothsucker. When I was in college, I wrote a short story called “Toothsucker” that was the same kind of idea: a tooth-eating vampire, and a play on the tooth fairy. But that was a dark fantasy story, and I just fell in love with cyberpunk. So [Cyberpunk: Edgerunners] kind of became that driving force.

So, you said you went to Japan! Were there any influences during that trip that you discovered that you wouldn’t have considered otherwise being at home?

Yeah! And it’s super funny because my family knows that I write, and they’re like: “Oh, you’re going to Japan…you’re going to get lots of inspiration for your writing.” And because they don’t know exactly what goes in my process, I’m like: “Yeah, sure, whatever.”

And I honestly wasn’t expecting that much. But immediately right after the trip, I started incorporating some of the things I saw into the higher end districts of the world of Toothsucker, [with] a lot of it inspired by Tokyo. We saw a huge ‘light show’ that was projected on a building there.

And one of the main characters [in Toothsucker] is a kind of a corrupt K-pop idol. So I got to see some pop-up shops all over some of them for J-pop and K-pop groups, [which] gave me an idea of how those fandoms can be used in this book because big corporations are a very big force of how the politics work in it. So yes, very inspirational.

Item #2: Billy Bat by Naoki Urasawa

Manga has been a huge influence for [the Toothsucker] series. Billy Bat is by Naoki Urasawa who wrote Monster (20th Century Boys). [He is] one of my favorite writers just because he does psychological thrillers so well. And this is a story about a cartoonist who draws this cartoon bat. It’s essentially kind of like the equivalent of Mickey Mouse in this world. That then starts popping up all over the world, and all throughout history. And then it starts to connect to every conspiracy that you can think of, like, you know, the JFK assassination, Disney as Naval Corporation - all of these things.

And I just loved that so much. And I think I read it all before writing book one or around the same time as writing book one. It’s set in an alternative future…and it’s a world where governments are actually corporations. And then adding a little bit of some fantastical elements really worked well with this.

Can you explain a little bit more about how you’re bringing some hard topics into your stories to further build those worlds?

I think the best stories really reflect on the problems that are going on the world. The best stories have a purpose in it. And so I wanted to approach some of these difficult topics, but not make it as blunt as certain books do, just because there are people that are opposed to it. And even if I don’t agree with them, I’m fine with them reading my books.

For those that don’t know me, my wife is from Russia. She’s my cover artist. And her best friend was trying to immigrate to the US. And recently, immigration’s been a very difficult thing. Her husband made it after a year of detainment. And unfortunately, she never made it to the US, so they had to go back to Kazakhstan. [Toothsucker’s] main character, Petya, is from a Slavic country. And I really incorporated a lot of the stories that my wife’s friend told from her detainment center and the struggle she went to into Petya’s backstory. So, both books are dedicated to my wife’s best friend and her husband, because this is something that I want people to see. And I think a lot of people get under the idea, especially in America, that people trying to come into the country…and steal our jobs. And I think that we’re slowly overcoming a lot of those topics. But I felt like this was a really good way to tell that story but also, not do it from somebody who doesn’t know anything about it.

This is the first book where I really incorporate the actual people’s experiences and struggles into it. [And sharing] some of the political drama that’s occurring today without choosing a side, just more so putting it out there. Showing the difficulties certain people are experiencing and letting the reader kind of come to the conclusion themselves.

Item #3: Red Rising by Pierce Brown

It’s so big today, but I read [Red Rising] a couple of years ago and then I followed with it for the recent releases. But one of the big things that I differ from a lot of people is I actually prefer plot over characters. And this is more visible in my first fantasy books. It’s a reason that I really love books like The Three Body Problem when other people don’t. I would rather have a flat character set in a really intriguing story than a flat story and really interesting characters. But I recognize that I am kind of an outlier in that. So while I feel like my other books do have some interesting characters, I really wanted the readers to fall in love with the characters in the Toothsucker series. I wanted them to be something unique and a reason that people are reading them other than just the plot. And I think that Pierce Brown did that really well.

Really early in book one, he makes you care about certain characters, and then when he takes them away, it really leaves a big impact. I tried to take some of those lessons and apply them to mine so that I can really capture an audience looking for really good characters. A lot that he did with the series has inspired me going forth [like] how he has the colors organizing the societal structure. I’ve also kind of used that to draw fans of Red Rising to my book series, so I definitely owe a lot to Pierce Brown.

Item #4: Fan-made Gifts (dentistry instruments)

Even though these are just kind of weird and goofy to have on my bookshelf, it just means a lot to me. To start to actually see people really loving my books, talking about them, and sharing them. Because, you know, most days I’m just here sitting behind a computer, writing, and doing social media stuff - but it’s those few interactions where people say that my book means something to them. Where they talk about it, or, at conventions when people approach me. It’s kind of the reason to keep going forward. A lot of the other books and stuff that I’ve shown you so far were foundational to creating my stories. But these are more so the inspirations to keep going forward. I might not have the world’s biggest following, but to have people that are reading and appreciating my books, it just means more than any income or fame or anything like that I could ever want.

I know that you were in nursing school when you started your debut novel. And with the whole pharmaceutical horror of it all and the kind of wackiness to it, was this like a natural pivot for you as someone who wants to help the human body? How do you feel when it comes to that contrast?

I think it has been a little. In my day job, I’m still a nurse. And a lot of people will say that science fiction is such a difficult genre sometimes because you have to write it very smart. And even though sometimes I do feel a little intelligent, I sometimes doubt myself. But that is a place where I do have knowledge on how the human body works, pharmaceuticals, things like that.

At the time that the story takes place, the president is actually a pharmaceutical company. And [I wanted to] incorporate more social commentary with some of my frustrations with the current state of big pharmaceutical companies. How medicine is focusing more on business and gain rather than just the patients themselves. It’s like me trying to correct the world that I have control over, while, the world outside is just so different. So yeah, it’s definitely helped influence my writing and continues to do so today.

Item #5: Chainsaw Man by Tatsuki Fujimoto

This one was really inspirational for book two [of Toothsucker] and has been for book three. I fell in love with this one because it is just so absurd. It’s not afraid to just go over the top odd. But that’s one of the things that I love about reading and writing is novelty and creativity. And while I love the cyberpunk genre, there are a lot of books that are just kind of the basic high-tech, low-life, and corporations are bad stereotype. Stories like Chainsaw Man give me the inspiration to do something a little bit weirder.

A lot of people might ask, “are you doing tooth-eating vampires and organ transplant magic for shock value?”. I think I do enjoy a little bit of surprising the audience, but it’s not for that. It’s just because I want something different. People that know me personally might know I’m a little critical of just the continual dragon rider books and the chosen one trope repeated over and over again. And it doesn’t mean that there aren’t good books like that out there. I just feel like we definitely need new stories.

I’m not a big person for reading books for trope purposes. You know, there are always going to be dragon writer books. And a lot of times they’re kind of the same story. I just really want to give my audience something different.

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If aesthetics are prioritized over the environmental factors and lore that lies between the genre, the story becomes meaningless fluff. This is how to stop your utopia from becoming just a visual mood-board.

What solarpunk actually stands for

The importance of the solarpunk genre stems from its key characteristics.

• Renewable technology and green energy

• Developing solutions to the climate crisis in contrast to a dystopian future

• An amalgamation of architecture and the elements, leaving the perfect blend of man-made and nature

But how it it get to this point? The concept has grown from our understanding of a futuristic society. The route of optimism. The idea that if we were all on the same team working towards saving the Earth that the planet will flourish. It’s almost impossible to imagine. The planet is slowly dying and we’re continuing to make choices in our life that support its downfall.

The solarpunk genre isn’t a wake up call, it’s a movement.

This type of lifestyle would not exist without an anti-capitalist mindset. The characters of this world should be aware of the rivalry and trauma it took to get to this stage and the community it created. These worlds should carry the weight of what was sacrificed to make them, and readers should be given the chance to unpack that.

Start building a solarpunk world

The aesthetic is a political argument

The characters in a cyberpunk world who are rooting for the capitalist system to fall are the same characters who would build a solarpunk society. They have a craving for meaningful labour and above all, hope. It shouldn’t be hard to imagine the rebel forces of a cyberpunk world living in your solarpunk villages. This literally depicts them winning.

The success can be easily shown in the visuals but rather than it being aesthetic, it’s really just symptomatic to its history. This means that when building your world, start with the argument behind it.

Questions worth asking can be:

• What did this place used to be?

• Who is causing conflict now? (characters or the natural world itself)

• Where does the technology come from? Is it remnants from the past or fully re-invented?

• Who determines the goals now?

• What do the people of this world consider ugly?

The visuals of solarpunk leave a lasting impact. The walls of buildings are draped in vines, gardens trickle over paved roads, and solar panels glisten as they catch the afternoon sun. And because the atmosphere is beautiful, writers can forget to populate it with problems. Just because it’s a utopian vision, doesn’t mean this is a perfect society.

An example of this is shown in the typical shape language. Solarpunk doesn’t hold a lot of repetition in its structures. Every asset, piece of machinery, and tool is unique from human craftsmanship. And this proves the direct influence from the anti-consumerist mindset. The organic design of solar panels is created from recyclable materials and crafted from artistic expression. Everything becomes a true work of art when people are given the creative freedom to do so.

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Most writers avoid solarpunk because hopeful futures feel harder to make believable than dark ones. But we need to immerse ourselves in a world where we win. Readers should be able to fully realize a universe without huge corporations and one that can function with broken boundaries.

You can’t have radical optimism without being a little punk.

But inspiration rarely works that way. More often, it reveals far more about the observer than about the thing observed.

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Consider how instinctively we romanticize the ordinary. We tell someone they are as beautiful as the ocean, as calming as a sunrise, as warm as music spilling from an open window into the restless hum of a city night. The metaphors come easily, almost automatically, as if the world were full of inherently poetic things. Yet the world itself is largely indifferent to our sentiment. It is color and pressure and light refracting through the atmosphere. Lines, shapes, temperature, gravity. Data.

And so, inspiration occurs somewhere else entirely.

It happens in the moment when something outside us touches something already waiting within. A particular external frequency strikes an internal chord, and suddenly the ordinary begins to glow. What we call inspiration is less a message from the world than a confession of the self. It reveals what we are hungry for, what we notice, what we are quietly hoping to find.

Arthur Conan Doyle once wrote through Sherlock Holmes that “the world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.” That line captures the creative mind more accurately than most definitions of artistry. The creative mind is not simply one that produces objects, but one that notices with unusual intensity. It moves through the world like a detective of small wonders, collecting fragments of significance that others walk past without a second glance.

In that sense, art is not merely something we make. It is a perceptual filter we choose to wear.

There is a long philosophical tradition claiming that anything can be art. The argument often points to figures like Marcel Duchamp, who famously placed a porcelain urinal in a gallery and declared it sculpture. Those debates are largely about definitions but what interests me more is the emotional dimension of that idea, the deeper instinct behind it.

The creative mind refuses futility.

Where another person sees emptiness, the artist insists there must be something there. Not necessarily because the object itself possesses inherent meaning, but because the creative imagination refuses to accept that existence is fundamentally hollow. The artist becomes a kind of translator, taking the lead of everyday life and attempting to transmute it into the gold of significance.

There is a quiet mercy in this. To live creatively is, in a sense, to protect oneself from the weight of meaninglessness. The world may be indifferent, but the gaze does not have to be.

But of course, this refusal does not always come easily. Anyone who creates long enough will eventually reach a moment where the world looks flat again, where the page stays blank no matter how long you stare at it, where the mind begins rummaging desperately through its own empty drawers looking for something—an image, a phrase, a memory that still carries heat—and finding only scraps that feel embarrassingly thin, things you almost write down before immediately crossing them out, because surely that thought has been said before, surely that image is obvious, surely the feeling you’re chasing is just beyond the edge of the next sentence if you can only sit still long enough, and so you scroll, or pace the room, or reread something you wrote months ago and wonder if the person who wrote it has quietly disappeared, if whatever current once moved through you has dried up without warning, leaving behind the peculiar humiliation of wanting to make something beautiful and having absolutely nothing to offer but this restless wanting itself, this humming sense that something should be happening inside your mind and isn’t, that the world must still contain meaning somewhere and you simply cannot seem to reach it—

we begin to wait for the lightning strike.

But if inspiration is simply the meeting point between the world and the observing mind, then the creative task is not to sit patiently beneath a clear sky and pray for thunder. It is to build a lightning rod. To move through the world gathering more than you think you need: noise, color, stray conversations, strange corners of unfamiliar places, the quiet geometry of ordinary rooms. To loosen the rigid little judgments that declare something too plain to matter, too small to be worth noticing. To look longer than most people do. To let the mind brush up against the raw, indifferent data of the world until something inside you answers back.

And if the spark feels distant, if the mind has gone quiet and the page looks blank again, the answer is rarely to wait.

The world does not owe us meaningful moments. But we do owe the world a meaningful gaze.

Written by: Geneva Holden
Geneva’s Socials: Instagram, YouTube

Can we talk about cozy fantasy?

Over the last few years, it’s become one of the most beloved corners of the fantasy bookshelf.

The one with teacups on the cover, beautiful cottagecore, a cat somewhere in the illustration, and a title that mentions a house, a shop, or something magical.

At its core, cozy fantasy is low-stakes, character-driven fantasy that prioritizes comfort, community, and emotional narratives over epic conflict.

Think Legends & Lattes — an orc retires from adventuring to open a coffee shop or Kiki’s Delivery Service — a young witch starts a delivery business in a seaside town.

Let’s break down what these stories are about and how to write it.

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The most important rule: Low stakes does not mean no plot

It’s easy to think cozy means “nothing happens.” or just because it’s a plot that’s not an epic battle that there is less stakes.

These stories aren’t about saving the world.
They’re about saving a café. Or a village. Or yourself. And often, there’s is a notable narrative difference.

A simple framework you can use

If you’re trying to structure a cozy fantasy, think in three layers:

• Personal stake – What does the protagonist emotionally need? (Belonging? Stability? Redemption? Rest?)

• Community stake – What’s at risk? (A shop, a manor, a town, a found family dynamic?)

• Restoration arc – What is being built, rebuilt, or healed by the end?

You can technically write a story about murder and still have it feel cozy — just look at cozy mysteries.

The difference is how much you dwell on the harm. You don’t describe the violence in detail, or linger on cruelty. You don’t strip your character of autonomy for chapters on end.

Instead, you focus on the cleverness of solving the mystery, the comfort of routine and how it’s unique to the character or the relationships surrounding the event.

Agency is everything

One of the rules of cozy fantasy is this: Your protagonist should almost never lose meaningful agency.

They might face obstacles and struggle. They might even be briefly inconvenienced by something dramatic (poisoned! kidnapped! caught in a storm!).

Even if something dark exists in the world, your character is not helpless inside it.

A reader can handle mentions of past trauma or grief. They can even handle an off-page death, but what they’re here for is the healing.

If you spend more narrative time describing harm than growth, the emotional narrative is broken.

Cozy fantasy is about watching the good side win, not through power or violence, but through care.

The world should feel like somewhere we want to live

One of my favourite areas of fantasy, and also something that’s often not spoken about as the important role that it plays, settings do a lot of heavy lifting in this genre.

Common ones include:

• Enchanted bookshops

• Tea shops with secret spell menus

• Taverns with glowing hearths

• Small towns where everyone knows your name
  

Cottagecore isn’t mandatory, but the feeling of idyllic possibility usually is.

And here’s something interesting: most cozy fantasies take place in secondary worlds with low technology.

Why? Because magic can simply exist. No explanation needed, you don’t need a bureaucracy of realism.

Ask yourself:

What would feel like a small slice of paradise to me? Start there.

Ways to start writing cozy fantasy

If you’re staring at a blank document wondering how to actually begin, try one of these entry points:

• Write about someone opening a business in a magical town.

• Write about a character returning home after years away.

• Write about someone inheriting a slightly cursed but very charming property.

Notice how none of these involves defeating a dark lord or a chosen one. They involve building something.

And sometimes or for some, it might be tempting to dismiss it as “soft.” But in some ways it’s actually harder to write than epic fantasy, because you can’t rely on spectacle.

You have to rely on characters, their voice and emotional stakes alongside the atmosphere of the world.

A final thought

I think cozy fantasy is having a moment because a lot of us are tired.

Tired of doomsday narratives. Tired of constant escalation. Tired of everything being high stake all the time, and lacking substance.

There is something empowering about a story that says: The world doesn’t need saving today. Just this little corner of it does.

And maybe, in the process of writing about magical cafés and talking cats and stubborn witches— you’ll realize you’re writing about something else entirely.

About rest. About community.
About choosing without losing strength.

And that’s powerful.

- Written by Notetrail

The content we consume is what fuels our thoughts and ideas. If we continue to watch the same brain-rot reels on Instagram and listen to the same trending audios on TikTok, our critical-thinking will diminish into the lost fragments of social media. Don’t let that happen.

This is how to be disgustingly creative.

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Consume Curated Media

Your social media algorithm is trying to give you more of what you already like. That’s the opposite of creative input, this is what you can start doing.

• Use “best of” lists as rabbit holes rather than checklists. Don’t follow it all and instead pick one that resonates the most and follow that creator’s influences. This turns into a curated collection rather than a scattered list of someone else’s recommendations to you.

• Save everything that moves you. Most people save or bookmark inspiration and never look at it again. You need to revisit that curated collection before starting a writing session to get into the right mindset.

• Study serial fiction throughout history. Read recommended books from the local library, follow artistic tutorials to learn a new talent or skill, and witness art in every form. Start scavenging for indie artists and writers and don’t let your timeline assume who you are.

Start Free Writing

I recently read Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft by Janet Burroway and loved her tips on free writing. Free writing or free drafting is a technique to help you just get words down on paper. The point of it is to just keep going as your thoughts roll out without stopping or giving yourself time to adjust. You’re not expecting to create something perfect or polished but instead develop a habit of starting something.

• Don’t critique it as you go, just type. You can do this right after you wake up in the morning, before talking to anyone. Just open up a document and start funneling words.

• An exercise you can do is every morning for a week, sit down before breakfast and free write a paragraph of anything that comes to mind. At the end of the week, read the pages over and highlight one thought or phrase that seems interesting to you. Then, free draft a page about it.

• Make a list of 10 things you know nothing about. Pick one every day and free draft a paragraph about it.

This form of practice allows you to think creatively before worrying about perfectionism.

Be Performative

We see influencers, celebrities, and public figures be performative everyday to maintain relevance or status in so many unhealthy ways. It gets a bad reputation for good reason. But adding a little bit of performance can also encourage you to find your creative voice and what makes you unique.

• Find your creative aesthetic. The way your workspace invites you and how your bookshelf is displayed are things that represent your creative identity. Fill your room with the things you love (posters, stickers, collages, paintings, prints, etc.).

• Create a ritual that you perform publicly. This can be a diary you keep to yourself or share online, a coffee shop you visit every single week without fail, or joining a local library event/club. These will make you feel accountable to showing up for them and also wire your brain into knowing it’s time to create.

Performance is not the enemy, but using it as a substitute for actual productive work is.

Whether you’re writing your first novel, starting a new web-comic, or searching for a new hobby - we all need more authentic inspiration in our lives.

Creativity starts here

There’s this tiny, very indie, under the radar book-turned-show called Heated Rivalry. Ever heard of it? But what most people don’t know is that it was originally a Marvel fanfic. Specifically a Steve (Captain America) and Bucky (Winter Soldier) AU leaving fans of the book and show curious of the relation.

But there are others hidden in plain sight. Countless major commercial successes originating from fan-created content. The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood originated as a Star Wars fan-fiction titled “Head Over Feet” featuring a “Reylo” ship (Rey and Kylo Ren), but is now an upcoming movie starring Lili Reinhart slated for a 2026 release.

Writers may not see fan-fiction as a potential outlet for them, but it allows you to explore niche interests and be experimental with a built-in audience. It helps publishers see exactly what audiences and fans want more of, like alternate world-building or different relationship dynamics.

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This increased acceptance is also a gateway to publication now, so writers can not only write about something they love for fun, but they could be noticed by professionals in the industry.

And this isn’t a concept that sparked 10 years ago. Fan-fiction has been around since William Shakespeare. About half of his plays were stories he expanded from others including Romeo and Juliet (based on the poem The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Luliet by Arthur Brooke). This modernization is just a part of literary tradition.

But why should we continue? It’s a space for representation, creativity, imagination, and you’re more likely to tell better stories by practicing. Start building from the existing foundation and you might find yourself craving to write an original story of your own.

The next time you find yourself in a new fandom, ask yourself, “Who gets to decide when a story is over?”

Here are 5 indie animated pilots released in 2025 with incredible worldbuilding:

Heathens from Studio Psycho

An action dark fantasy series about demons, devotion and an era coming to an end. The art style is edgy, but still really soft on the eyes and the character dialogue is a real treat to listen to.

Spice Frontier: Escape from Veltegar from Steamroller Studios

A sci-fi adventure with a ragtag space crew you’ll fall in love with. An aspiring chef is on a mission for ingredients to cook up lost Earth cuisine. The story is rich, immersive and will leave you craving for more nostalgic morning cartoon vibes.

Get Fatter Now from Binkophrenia

Following friends Gilly, Nico, and Franny in an unexpectedly expansive world. This pilot proves that simple visuals can still be entertaining. You don’t need a huge budget to make entertaining content with a world that will leave you wondering: “What did I just watch?” and “Where can I watch more of it?”

Pretty Pretty Please I Don’t Want to be a Magical Girl from Kiana Khansmith

This pilot has amassed over 4 million views on YouTube and for a good reason. The story follows a girl who has fallen out of love with her powers over time. The characters are so charming and you really want to experience this world from the taste they give us in just 10 minutes. This animatic has so much potential and features popular voice actors (Aleks Le as Eclipse and Bennett Abara as Zira)

Guys Next Door from Eric Kaplan

This is an animated comedy about three roommates who get sucked into a mess of spies, biohacking, and global conspiracies. The writing and art direction of this is stellar and the most underrated on this list. For writers needing some inspiration on comedic timing and pacing, this is the perfect hidden gem.

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