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Today, Fable and the Verbivore are thrilled to share our conversation with fantasy fiction and short story author and poet Emily Barnett.

Emily hosts the weekly #FlashFictionMagic short story writing tag. She has short stories and poems that are being published in four anthologies this year, as well as stories in online magazines Havok Publishing and Spark Flash Fiction. Her short story Gone Fishin’ recently won the Havok Editor’s Choice Award. She has written five works of fiction and is currently querying her book Thread of Dreams to agents. She’s also a thoughtful, wise, and supportive presence within the Instagram writing community.

In this episode, Emily talks about what her writing process looks and feels like. She’s a planster who often writes with an idea in mind about the high concept, theme, or the ending she wants to work towards - asking questions that grow out of those first ideas and help build the world and guide the path of the story.

Emily also shares her boiled down approach to query letter writing. For the synopsis she answers these questions:

Who are they/what do they want?

What’s in their way? (Conflict)

What will happen if it doesn’t get resolved? (Stakes)

She ends this conversation with a reminder to just keep going. To find and build a community of people you trust and to share your work - even if it’s scary. That there are people who need your specific story. And to keep your eyes on your own paper, don’t compare yourself to others.

We hope you enjoy this episode. It was a conversation packed with great advice and we felt incredibly fortunate to have been a part of it!

Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore