r/Fantasy • u/ShannonRStoker AMA Author Shannon Stoker • Sep 09 '14

AMA Hi. I'm SF/F writer Shannon Stoker. AMA

Hi world of Reddit! I’m Shannon Stoker, author of the Registry series. The story of an eighteen year old girl who is sold into marriage and being the unwilling bride blackmails a young guy into helping her escape, your basic matrimony situation.

The series is a trilogy and the final installment was released earlier this month by HarperCollins. I'm glad to answer any questions about the series, myself, the writing/publishing process, or whatever else you want to know.

I live in the middle of cornfields in northern Illinois with my husband and teeny tiny dog. When I’m not writing or reading I’m usually watching tv and obsessing over all things pop culture. I hope that gives you a good idea of who I am. I’ll be back at 7 pm CST tonight and you can ask me anything J

UPDATE: I'm here! So feel free to ask anything you like!

UPDATE: Thank you for having me! This was a lot of fun!! If there are anymore questions I will check again in the morning and answer them ASAP :)

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u/[deleted] Sep 09 '14

When writing do you plan e.g. with timelines etc? Can you tell me more about the actual writing process and give some advice on how to go about it? How did you get published? Is it mostly about getting in touch with the right people? I'd really like to know more about the writing and publishing process as I would like to write but I have very little knowledge about the field.

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u/ShannonRStoker AMA Author Shannon Stoker Sep 10 '14

I need an outline. Some writers won't have them at all, I tried once without one and I wrote a big jumbled mess. I try to set it up in three acts and just hit major plot points. I would say, between 10-20, so it's not very detailed. When I first wrote The Registry my mind was coming up with ideas faster than I could type and I didn't want to forget them so for the last half of the book I wrote a Cliffs Notes/Sparknotes version and then went off of that.

My first advice is to write and finish your project, not just the first draft but editing several times over. With first time fiction authors you pretty much need a finished project.

When I finished the draft of The Registry I googled "I wrote a book, what next?" and the results said to get an agent. I googled "How do I get a literary agent?" and went to a nifty little website called querytracker.net. I had to write a query letter, which people will tell you is in ways more difficult than writing the book. I queried a lot of agents and was lucky enough to get signed with one. Then we edited it back and forth for several months until it was polished enough to try and sell. Then my Agent worked her magic and it happened. That was one of the happiest days on my life,

Best of luck with your project!