 Hello writers, hello readers, how you doing? Hope the writing's going well. Thanks for tuning in. So we're doing a Q and A, pretty much covering everything, writing, and I guess YouTube or reading related. I'm not too sure I haven't read the questions yet. But hey, if this is your first time tuning in on this channel, as the name suggests, I make videos about writing and the journey of being a writer. And I'll try to keep my answers brief, but I have a habit of rambling. Super quick interruption, just cutting in for one minute. I filmed this video quite a while ago, like a month or two ago. And since then, on the 9th of December, my book of horror short stories, Darkest, Deepest, has actually come out. It's launched, it's released, it's available. I had to take some time off from YouTube due to some health stuff. I'm fine, 100% fine, but I needed a bit of a break. And unfortunately, that kind of cut into the, like marketing preamble for that release. But again, it's out right now. So if you like horror, if you like short stories, then check it out. I'll leave a link below. And you would be supporting me, which would be amazing. It really would mean a lot to me. That's about it. Thanks, back to the video. Would you ever do writing vlogs where you write a novel showing us your progress until the book is finished? That would be interesting. It's funny you say that, okay, because I actually have been toying with the idea of filming short clips along the journey of publishing the first book in my new fantasy series that I'm working on right now. What I mean is that I would, for example, film a short clip after I finished the first draft, saying how, when, what my experience was, film another clip after I'm done with all the drafts and it's being sent to the editor, another short clip when I publish it, another short clip when I'm doing the marketing, and then just squeezing them all together to make a kind of timeline video where the progress of the book at the start of the video and the end of the video is very different. What do you do to keep yourself motivated, stop yourself from being overwhelmed when editing your first draft? Like when you find a plot holder, patch it up, or when you grind to a complete halt because you end up doubting yourself and start thinking that the entire story was a mistake. Luckily, I've never really felt demotivated when I get to the editing stage. It's always writing the first draft that is always the most difficult thing for me. If I can finish that, then it's pretty much smooth sailing towards the end because when I get to the editing stage, I actually kind of enjoy it because I know that the hardest part is behind me and even if I do end up having to make a lot of changes, which I usually do, I already know how the story starts, rises and ends. So it's pretty easy for me to make those changes in a way that makes sense. That's my experience so far. It might be different in future, especially in writing fantasy now. It could be very different. It could be a lot harder. Maybe when I'm doing the editing for this book, I will be pulling my hair out. I'm not too sure, but in terms of keeping myself motivated, I guess this goes more for writing than editing, but I'll always just go back to the media that inspired me to do it in the first place. So I'm writing an episodic fantasy series and that was inspired by episodic fantasy style stuff like the Witcher, Dresden Files, Supernatural even. So if I know I need a bit of a burst of motivation, I'll just go and watch or read those things and I usually end up feeling pretty inspired. The best thing you can do is just finish the first draft, fix the other stuff after you do that. Hi Cam, I've always heard that writing a blog is good for promoting your book and author career, but I don't actually know what I could write about. Blog related, I'm finding that harder than I thought it would be. Could you give me some ideas for themes that would be interesting? I would also like to ask if you have any tips on writing a story with multiple characters with different plots, each one that are related to the main story plot. Promoting your book and author career, this is a fun one because there is one piece of advice you will hear a lot and it is very, very true, but it's also got a lot of nuance that not many people go into, so I'll do that for you now. Marketing your book is going to be exceptionally easier if you have a platform and even bigger platform than mine. I don't really sell a lot of books as it is, which is okay. I sell some, I get some feedback, that makes me happy. That might change in future, I might get more of an audience, who knows? But the point is if you have a platform, it will be a lot easier to market yourself. That's just how it is. But with that said, and here's the nuance, if you do not enjoy creating content, whether that be writing a blog or making YouTube videos like I do here, if you don't enjoy doing that, don't do it because if you are just doing it as a way to promote yourself and you're somewhat miserable doing it, if you don't enjoy making videos or writing blogs, people are gonna be able to tell. More than that, they're going to be able to tell that you're kind of using them or you're kind of using this purely to push a product on them. Whether you believe me or not when I say this, I don't make videos on this channel to push products. I will plug myself like I did at the start of the video because I'm a self-published author and it would be silly for me not to. But I don't make videos about writing on this channel purely to push books. I do it because I kind of wanna have something I can look back on when hopefully one day when I am a much more successful writer, I wanna have something I can look back on and see kind of how I went along the way. When I started this channel, I did do it purely with the purpose of selling a product. And I think I can honestly say my content back then was nowhere near as good. I'm starting the ramble again. My point is you can start a platform with the purpose of, or with the goal, I should say, of selling books, but you should only do it if you also enjoy just making content. As for how to come up with ideas, this is another thing I should touch on and it's the reason I have two YouTube channels. If your goal is to ultimately just to sell books, which is fine, I would probably advise you to make content on book reviews, that kind of stuff, rather than making content on yourself and your own writing or writing advice in general, because it can work like Jenna Marashi or whatever. She makes videos purely about writing and it has obviously helped her writing career. However, when you make videos about writing, a large, large portion of your audience are only there to kind of help their own writing, which makes sense. That's if you're making writing tip videos, people are coming there to improve their own writing rather than to see what book the creator is writing. Whereas if you make a book review blogs or videos, people are coming there because they have an interest in those kinds of books. For example, like me, I have a separate channel where I make horror and fantasy book reviews. Again, I didn't do that purely just to sell books. I don't think I've ever even plugged a book on there yet and it's been like over a year. I did it because I wanted a creative outlet for me to review books that I like reading. I love reading fantasy and horror, so I wanted to be able to review them in video format. But what I'm saying is I have created an audience there that are interested in fantasy and horror books. So if I was to go on there and say, hey, I have this horror book you might like, I would expect a lot more people on that channel to take interest in the book than people on this channel that are here for writing. Anyway, I went on a long, long tangent there, but hopefully that answers your first question. In regards to writing a story with multiple POVs or multiple characters with different plots, I'm really not an expert with subplots, that kind of stuff. Although going back to me writing episodic fantasy, I guess it is kind of the same thing. Every single book has its own separate plot, and then there is a greater, more dangerous high stakes plot that link all of the books. I don't know if I'm doing it well, but one thing I have been keeping in mind in doing this would probably be that in most cases, I think it works when at the start, the B plots are more important than the A plot. And then as the story progresses, the A plot becomes more and more important until it overwhelms the B plots. I don't know. I don't know if I am qualified enough to give too much advice on multiple characters, that kind of stuff, because I haven't written a lot of multiple character stuff. Most of my writing has been short stories with one or two characters. My psychological horror book has multiple characters, but it is a very intimate story about one man. This fantasy series is really my first dive into it, so I might be messing it up. Who knows? Our short story is the best starting point for beginner writers. I have an idea for a book series, but I feel that's a big step for me. I will always say that you should write whatever you feel is right for you to be writing. If you have an idea for an epic fantasy book, write it. However, I think it is just a fundamental truth that starting with short stories, if you are a new writer, is a good idea. Writing short stories is very different to writing longer stories, and you have to approach them differently. But in writing short stories, it will flex those creative muscles and help you a lot with not just grammar and sentence structure, that kind of stuff, but also it'll help you get an idea for how pacing might work when you stretch it out a bit. But at the end of the day, if short stories aren't for you, that's fine. Hi, Cam. I have some difficulties in character development. Can you give us some tips on how to properly execute it? Character development is a very tricky thing to advise on because it can be very, very different. Character to character, story to story, genre to genre. Character development in a horror will be very different to character development in a fantasy, but one tip, I'll give you one tip that was given to me that I have always found extremely useful, and that was in the first chapter, show a major flaw that your protagonist has. So if your protagonist is selfish and you want them to change during the story and become selfless, have them do something in chapter one that shows the reader they are selfish. All protagonists should have some kind of character flaw. So all I would say is show that in chapter one and then throughout the story, maybe in the climax of the book, show them doing something that they wouldn't have done in chapter one. Is there an author whose covers you really love? Rather than saying an author with covers that I love, I will tell you the name of an artist that I love. I think he is legitimately making probably the best fantasy book covers right now. I think he's absolutely exceptional. His name is Felix Ortiz. Every single cover he makes is just incredible. He's had a lot of attention on him recently because he makes a lot of covers for self-polished authors. And it could be argued that his work has contributed a lot to the success of some of those books. Who would be your dream author to do a back cover blurb for your next book? I feel like I would have to say Brandon Sanderson, not even that he's my favorite author or anything. He's definitely one of my favorites. But just because he is probably, in my personal opinion, the best author putting out fantasy stuff right now and he's definitely the most popular modern fantasy author. And if you wrote a fantasy book and you had a blurb written by Brandon Sanderson on the back, I think you could sell the book on that alone and still be wildly successful. So yeah, Brandon Sanderson. Plus, I adore the guy. I have a lot of respect for him. I'm someone who's fallen into the seemingly common trap of doing my world building and character development before fully developing a plot. Now I'm not sure how to throw my characters together. I'm spending too much time frustrated with this project and I can't think when I try to do other writing. Have you encountered a similar issue and did you overcome it? If so, how? That's a super interesting question and I think you would be surprised by how many other authors do the same thing. I don't really think that's necessarily a problem doing the world building and character development stuff before you actually have an idea for a plot. So to speak, a lot of stories, not just fantasy, but horror, whatever, a lot of stories start with an idea for a character rather than a story or a plot, that's fine. But once you've done the world building and the characters coming up with a plot is a very, very tricky thing. And it's not something that could be fixed by me just giving you a bit of advice. Unfortunately, this is the part that will separate the okay writers from the great ones. It's the creativity part. This is something you need to kind of imagine and come up with and be creative with. I know that seems like a cop out answer, I'm sorry, but it's unfortunately true and it's a situation I have been in before. So I know how you feel. I won't just leave you on that though. I will try to help you out a little bit. I suppose what I would do is when you're doing the world building and the character development and you need a plot, think about the danger. Let's say you've done the world building because I feel like that's easier for coming up with a plot. Danger and conflict is always going to be the main crutch of the plot. That's what drives it along is knowing that there is a danger or a risk or stakes or a conflict and how are they going to overcome that? So if you've done the world building, what is something there that could be posing a danger? Could it be enemy kingdom or could it be evil God or a plague of monsters? Who knows, just come up with a danger. And once you've done that, you can kind of reverse engineer and work backwards. Maybe go back to how that evil kingdom rose or how it became evil or what that kingdom is up to. Once you have an idea for a danger, you can start narrowing down their motives. So let's say evil kingdom, what is their goal? I feel like that's a lot easier to come up with rather than coming up with a major plot because once you have their goal, then you know quite simply that the protagonists need to oppose that and then you can just kind of fill in the middle. How do you deal with writer's block? And when you get inspiration for another story while you're working on your current one, what do you do? Those are the problems that I'm currently suffering with to be honest. There have been writers that have done completely fine with writing multiple stories at once. Me personally, I know that if I start on something else, I won't finish the first one or at least I won't finish it for a very, very long time. So at a certain point, you have to set boundaries for yourself. And one of the boundaries I set for me is that I will not start another story until I've finished at least the first draft on the one on one now. You just have to set that as a rule if you know that it's a problem. As for how I deal with a writer's block, I think I mentioned before that usually I'll just dive into some of the media that inspired me with the story I'm working on. What genres would you be interested in getting into or writing in the future? Second, will you do more book reviews in the future? I would love to hear your opinion on some books. So I'll answer your second question first. I actually do have a separate YouTube channel where I review fantasy and horror stuff. It's called Wolf the Story Nomad. So if you wanna check that out, go ahead. This channel here is purely just for the writing side of stuff. As for other genres that I'd be interested in writing in, fantasy and horror is really all I'm thinking about right now but I guess in the future I would like to, this is gonna be a complete 180 but I would like to write kind of a contemporary not necessarily a romance but just a simple, very, very vanilla plot story about just people doing something that a lot of real life people could relate to. But just something kind of cozy. I would like to write a story like that just something short where you can just kind of, you know, like a rainy day book where you just sit on the couch and you read it and it's just about simple people having a very simple, I don't even know how to describe what I'm talking about. You know what I mean? I'm currently in the world building character development stage of a fantasy novel. The problem I'm having is tying it all together into a plot that matters to my characters, brings in setting and magic ideas I have in a way that is world-paced and feels natural. How do you pick plots that will fit into your world with your characters? So the question here about world building and character development, I feel like I already kind of answered that in the other question about this exact thing. But you mentioned that, but you did ask, how do I pick plots that will fit into my world and with my characters in regards to my episodic fantasy series? What I will say is that it's very not easy, but it's a lot easier for me to come up with plots for this episodic fantasy series because of the characters. So the characters are essentially sell sorts. That's not what they're called in the books, but they are given jobs by people to fulfill. That can be hunting monsters, pulling off a heist, basically just jobs that are technically outside of the law kind of thing. And because I know that's the premise of these books, it makes it pretty easy to come up with stuff. Also makes it pretty fun to come up with stuff. I can just say in this book, they'll be hunting a monster and then I come up with the monster and then I try to come up with a unique scenario as to how this monster ended up where it is. What is the monster doing that's causing issues? That could be one book. The next book could be that they need to steal something that someone else lost. A fun spanner to throw on the works I usually find is by the end of the story, a fun question is, are they doing the right thing? So let's say the characters have been tasked to steal something from this mansion and it used to belong to a town's person. So they get there, they go to steal the thing and then they find out that the town's person isn't who they said they are. Doing a little bit of a twist at the end and having the characters kind of multiple choice it, kind of like a video game, like do you give the thing to the town's person? Do you give it to the person at the mansion? Do a little multiple choice a fun thing where the reader can be a bit interactive I find is always fun. The characters are faced with a choice that isn't exactly simple to answer. That way the reader can kind of pick a side. Do you favor a specific kind of environment when writing? Are you quite relaxed about it? I do. So I don't know how people can just like sit on the couch with a laptop and write. I hate that. I need to be at an actual desk. I also like it to be kind of dim and like very, very like cozy. My ideal writing environment would be when it's like storming outside. I know that's like a basic bitch answer, but yeah, that's kind of my thing. I like it to be very cozy. I need to be very comfortable and like sitting back on a couch with the laptop rocking back and forth while I write just definitely isn't comfortable for me. How did you push forward and finish your first draft when all you see is mistakes and other writers' first drafts are amazing? So I kind of answered this one a while ago as well. What I'll say is if you read someone's first draft and it's amazing, that's not their first draft. I don't buy it. I don't buy that for a second. If you read someone's first draft and it is amazing then I would be willing to bet both of my nuts that they have been going back every now and then in fixing things along the way. This is called live editing. Basically just means you are literally doing the editing stage of the process while you write your first draft, which is fine. That's okay if you do that, but I think it does raise a question as to is that really a rough draft, a rough first draft? But how do I push forward and finish it? I just think about the finish line, baby. Very best thing you can do, I promise you, is just to sit down and start writing. I know everyone says that. I know it's a cliche, but it is so true. Once you sit down and once you start clacking keys, at least for me personally, it's very easy to just keep going. The hardest part is just starting. I'm not a professional writer, man. I'm just a YouTuber who likes writing and will hopefully one day have a career in writing. So I'm not an expert. I don't want to pretend to be. There it is. There's my Q and A for today. The videos run on much longer than I expected. So I'm going to end it here. But as always, thank you for tuning in just to check in with me on my little writing journey. And hopefully I'll see you in the next one. Catch ya.