When I first buckled down to seriously try writing after graduating from college, I dreamed of crafting epic fantasy similar to books by George R.R. Martin and Joe Abercrombie. Their works were breaths of fresh air. Unlike the novels of Tolkien or Robert Jordan, these authors eschewed the black-and-white worldview of good versus evil for shades of gray. I wanted to write just like them.

Of course, I eventually discovered that there’s a reason Martin and Abercrombie are best-selling authors, and Martin takes many years between books. What they do is really, really hard.

Switching to Young Adult

Discovering that writing epic fantasy is a monumental task was the first step in finding my authorial voice. My critique group told me that my writing was more suited to a young adult audience. At first, I was dismissive of this observation, but I came around when I started reading more young adult fantasy and science fiction. I soon appreciated these books possess an intoxicating sense of adventure and discovery.

Eventually, I abandoned my quest to craft an epic fantasy for adults to attempt a young adult fantasy. A theme that fascinated me was the sense of estrangement and otherness that young people often feel at one time or another. At least, I recall feeling that way as an adolescent. My interest in this topic was enhanced by my experience traveling solo to Japan while a young man.

I have been fascinated with Asia, especially Japan, from a young age. My initial interest in Japan stems from the original Shogun miniseries and my father’s fascination with the country. Even now, close to twenty years later, I vividly recall visiting Japan’s ancient capitals, Kyoto and Nara, and traveling to Himeji to tour the majestic castle there. It was a fantastic trip that enhanced my interest in Asia and taught me a lesson about how people who find themselves in the minority for whatever reason feel.

Growing up in the Pacific Northwest in the 1980s and 1990s, I always found myself in the majority. Most of my classmates and friends looked like me and had similar upbringings. The struggles of minorities, either in race, gender identity, ideology, or social standing, always seemed distant. These people and their challenges were something I only experienced on the nightly news, never firsthand.

I can’t claim to know precisely what it’s like to be a minority because I’m not one. But in Japan, I came about as close as I probably ever will. Kyoto is a touristy city, but most tourists are Japanese. While meandering the grounds of ancient temples, I was often the only foreigner, a gaijin. I attracted attention wherever I went, especially from school children with assignments to speak English to a foreigner. None of these interactions were negative, but I was very aware that in this environment, I was in the minority, that I was the other. For someone who had never experienced that before and was naturally introverted, it was uncomfortable at the time. I look back at it now as a wonderful experience. It gave me an inkling of what it is like to be a minority and taught me firsthand that the Western view of the world is only one perspective among many.

Later, I would draw upon my experiences in Japan and Southeast Asia in my writing for young adults.

Weaving in Themes

Feeling like the other and being caught between two worlds are themes that come up time and again in my young adult fantasy series, The Allison Lee Chronicles. Being a fantasy series, in some ways, the themes are apparent. Allison discovers she is a shape-shifting monster. Eventually, everyone knows she’s different; some people are fans, and others are not. However, I wanted to express these ideas more subtly, too, and that proved a difficult task.

While working on Dragons Walk Among Us, the first novel in the series, I was fortunate enough to read Seraphina by Rachel Hartman and EXO by Fonda Lee. These authors explored themes similar to those I wanted to investigate. Their protagonists were caught between worlds with divided loyalties and experienced feeling like the other due to their heritage and outlooks, and the novels’ antagonists weren’t evil villains. In many ways, the books were as morally gray as George R.R. Martin’s and Joe Abercrombie’s works without being relentlessly grim.

Reading the novels of Hartman and Lee helped me express Allison’s internal struggles of feeling like the other and being trapped between two worlds more subtly than I would have otherwise. I owe these authors and their books a debt of gratitude. They helped open my eyes to how wonderfully imaginative and thoughtful the young adult genre can be.

Conclusion

If I’ve learned anything on my writing journey it’s that your authorial voice can differ from what you expect or want it to be. When I first started writing, I never anticipated ending up as a young adult author. I also didn’t think my travels as a young man to Japan would have a thematic impact on my writing. But it did.

As a writer, I have benefited from being open to new experiences and perspectives and willing to reinterpret old ones. It helped me craft my authorial voice and find success.

Author Bio

Dan Rice pens the young adult urban fantasy series The Allison Lee Chronicles in the wee hours of the morning. The Wrath of Monsters, the third installment in the series, will be out on June 19, 2024.

To discover more about Dan’s writing and keep tabs on his upcoming releases, check out his blog and join his newsletter.

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I sat at a desk that I shared with two other people as a piece of paper was handed to me from my boss. I was nineteen years old, my boss was my dad, and the paper was an estimate for repairs for one of our clients. I don’t recall for what repairs exactly or even the cost, except that this client was going to be pissed at whoever was unfortunate enough to deliver the expensive news.

“You need to call them,” I was told. And that was that.

My father had started his pool company from scratch one year before I was born. I had worked a few jobs before joining the family ranks, but eventually landed there out of convenience and a false notion that it would be a simple job””answering phones, taking messages and the like. Perhaps even a little filing. Having just dropped out of university that year, just having any job at all was my only career ambition at that moment.

So, the estimate in hand, I called the client with zero idea just how to properly approach the topic of “I know money is tight for you, but here’s an estimate for lots of money and, oh, your pool won’t work until it’s fixed”. It did not go well. I said something stupid. Then I spent the next hour or so apologizing to both the client and my boss/dad. And right there in that moment of customer service hell, I also began to understand the cunning power of words.

I continued to learn through multiple failures, out of self-preservation to not get yelled at. I learned about words through phone calls and faxes and emails, through hirings and firings, through employee reviews and business acquisitions. I learned by drafting proposals and contracts. I learned while attending conventions and conferences and pool industry galas (yes folks, this is absolutely a thing).

Being the poster child for introversion and working in one the most customer facing industries on the planet, I taught myself how to articulate properly in order to get people out of my personal space bubble as quickly and efficiently as possible. This meant knowing how to talk to them, knowing how to manipulate the situation, how to arm myself with just the right word at just the right moment to mitigate shit blowing up in my face.

At nineteen I wasn’t even sure I wanted to be a “real” writer yet. I was still in the mapping-out-battle-scenes-in-my-journal stage of writing. I hadn’t even the faintest idea of how to structure a basic scene, let alone a novel. Yet there I was, getting a crash course of the versatility of words, whether I wanted it or not.

At a speaking event I attended recently, author Kim Stanley Robinson touched on the benefits of day jobs for writers. It was a refreshing take, considering the engagement was hosted by Arizona State University and attended in bulk by students, of which I was not. Nothing makes you feel more like a flame out loser than surrounding yourself with a room full of MFA candidates, and as I was shrinking into my seat, feeling woefully outclassed as a full time pool lady, part time writer, Mr. Robinson began to speak about yet a second creative benefit to day jobs””mining the work place for inspiration.

I immediately perked up, piecing together all the ways I was already doing just that. How I used the eccentricities and flare and dynamism of the people I work with, incorporated so many of their quirks, their smiles and their hair styles, to turn my characters paper skin to flesh””The grandfather that kept a dedicated drawer in his work desk for Hillshire Farms meat, the coworker that interrupted a work meeting to announce the name of his car (Trixie), the mother (me) whose kid brushed his teeth with a highlighter one day when brought to work with her.

Authors sometimes see a day job as a hindrance to their writing life. The goal is to eliminate it, but in actuality it can be fuel. It’s life, it’s robust and strange and frustrating and chaotic. The characters are literally kicking down the doors, smashing their faces against the windows, and begging us to buy some girl scout cookies from their kid.

I always joke that the second I could make a living wage off of my writing all you’d see is a me-shaped cloud of dust in my office where I used to sit. And maybe I would dial it back a bit, work part time, but I’m finding more and more that to ditch the day job entirely is not part of my ideal future. It’s far too lucrative.

Or perhaps I’m just saying that to convince myself that it’s totally cool that I haven’t sold a book yet. Time will tell.

Author bio for Tiffany Meurat: Tiffany is a writer and desert dweller from Phoenix, Arizona. Her work can be found or is forthcoming with Four Chambers Press, Eunoia Review, Collective Unrest, Martian, and others. She is most often found wasting time on Twitter as @TMeuretBooks

Enjoy this writing advice and want more content like it? Check out the classes Cat gives via the Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers, which offers both on-demand and live online writing classes for fantasy and science fiction writers from Cat and other authors, including Ann Leckie, Seanan McGuire, Fran Wilde and other talents! All classes include three free slots.

If you’re an author or other fantasy and science fiction creative, and want to do a guest blog post, please check out the guest blog post guidelines.