Author | Lightnews

R.M. Grant @filmatra.bsky.social · 14h

A different WIP today; a short story I've been tinkering on for years but am finally attempting to finish and submit.

Today's word appears in the very first paragraph... That feels auspicious.

#WIPSnips #writingcommunity #amquerying

I found God’s name scrawled on a flagstone behind the woman’s lavatory. I was chasing the sounds of your battle, the steel clashing calamitously upon steel, when I was caught up in the tide of clamor and footsteps, of voices jeering and cheering. “What’s happening?” “Prince Indira was peeping on the women’s bathhouse!” “Prince Shura is actually going to kill him!” “Good!” It was in the tumult that I was thrown from my feet and tumbled forwards to the ground.

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R.M. Grant @filmatra.bsky.social · 1d

Doing #questpit Wednesday, finishing some edits to my first seven chapters, & sending a few more queries 🙏

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R.M. Grant @filmatra.bsky.social · 3d

Some of my favorite beta reader feedback so far on my #darkfantasy Saintfire
#writingcommunity #amquerying

A series of quotes:
- i want to write daud/thahira fanfic so bad it makes me look stupid
- OUGH
- THAHIRAA
- THIS SECTION HAUNTS ME AND I AM OBSESSED WITH THE POSSIBLE IMPLICATIONS
- CHILLS. WHAT [redacted] SAID. GOOD ENDING LINE.
- Oh Thahira you will always be famous
- day #37 of daud on the brain
- this whole scene is just so crazy. Obsessed
- rosemary i ate it, i ate your book. i liked it so much i ate it
- the fact im so agonized should be a compliment to you

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R.M. Grant @filmatra.bsky.social · 5d

#AgentsGuide to SAINTFIRE, an adult dark fantasy inspired by Berserk, Poppy War, Starving Saints, and The Salt Grows Heavy.

Blood-stained action. Plus-sized, morally-gray witch x sweetheart, scarred transmasc knight turned assassin. Enemies to doomed lovers. Lots more!

#GhostPit #A #C #F

A sword-saint's guide to SAINTFIRE: an adult dark fantasy complete at 125,000 words. "They were forged by cruelty... Now they'll set the world alight."

PITCH: "Vengeance is the only prayer they have left."
When a tormented former concubine trained in dark magic and a scarred trans swordsman are forced to fight side by side in a gladiatorial arena, their shared hunger for revenge ignites something far greater than themselves: a fire that could burn angels, kings, and their own humanity alike.

COMPS:
The Starving Saints by Cailtin Starling: Twisted queer love, horrific sacrifices, monstrous villains, and esoteric fantasy.
The Poppy War by RF Kuang: Dark bildungsroman, grim setting, and philosophical interrogations of magic
The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw: Trans and queer protagonists, found family, tragic ends, and blood-soaked imagery

SNEAK PEAK:
"Very well. How does one free the soul?"
This question, Thahira had thought, was the simplest. Death, of course. Death frees the soul.
For a time.
Every faith around the world agreed that there was life beyond death. The shaman and scholars of Mircalla believed in the churning moon-wheel of reincarnation. The heretics of the west believed in a conquered heaven, ruled by a long dead man—absurd.
Both systems, every system, simply rearranged the deceased from one system of control to another. Even death was not freeing, she realized. It was merely the shuffling of feet.
So. How does one free the soul?
“By shoveling so much divinity inside oneself that you cannot help but rise, like a balloon filled with fire,” she said. “By capturing so many gods within your stomach that your soul is made divine itself.” So that the maggot can become the fly.
Madra’s eyes shone brighter, as if the oblong moon burned from inside each of her twin pupils. Moonlight, silver and blue, reflected off of her teeth from the water beside.
“Well, then, my girl. How do you capture a hidden god?”
Thahira barked out a single laugh.
“Isn’t it obvious?” she asked. “You eat it.”

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R.M. Grant @filmatra.bsky.social · 5d

SAINTFIRE

🔥 Sacrifice-based magic system
🔥 Struggling against fate
🔥 #ownvoices plus-sized + trans MCs
🔥 Enemies to rivals to doomed lovers
🔥 "only one bed in the gladiatorial cell"
🔥 Reconquista inspired setting
🔥 Found family
🔥 Vampire aes

#GhostPit #A #DF #querying

A 3x3 grid of images including:
- two bloody, clawed hands
- a sandy medieval alleyway
- a burning hand
- ominous red stained glass
- two hands embracing
- a full moon mirrored over water
- a body with a burning head underwater
- candles
- a black haired woman in repose

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R.M. Grant @filmatra.bsky.social · 6d

Absolutely -- I'll DM you!

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R.M. Grant @filmatra.bsky.social · 6d

Got some feedback from a beta reader who just finished Saintfire.... Oops? 🤭 I warned her it had a tragic ending!

#writingcommunity #amquerying

"but yeah like. exceptionally well written, great characters, enjoyed it to pieces, ending felt like watching a loved one get splattered by a freight train"

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R.M. Grant @filmatra.bsky.social · 6d

🛑 CW: severe burns mention 🛑

Archbishop Marcellon investigates Daud as a potential candidate for recruitment while he tends to his sweeping and tidying.

#WipSnips #WritingCommunity #DarkFantasy

The blacksmith’s apprentice was lean and underfed, as slaves so often were, but he was also hard, made so by hardship. He was burnt on the right side of his face, and where the flesh had melted it had set like wax, the gray-brown color of an old tree. His right eye was a squint. His right ear was gone, as was part of his lip, baring pale teeth through the darkened skin. The scar ran down under the collar of his tunic and bloomed again on his hand.
He was a bit short for a young man of twenty, which would hurt his reach in a fight. Corposance could make up for that, if he had the knack for it. His grip on the broomhandle seemed strong as he swept, even on the weaker right hand.
The apprentice’s eyes were both cautious and curious, focused intently from across the room even as he tended to his tidying and sweeping.
Good, Marcellon thought. An apprentice can get far on keenness alone.

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R.M. Grant @filmatra.bsky.social · 7d

Thahira
🚩: Spiteful, catty, mean for fun
✅: FIERCELY loyal, will absolutely kill for you

Daud
🚩: Super religious in an unaware way
✅: Sweetest most chivalrous most devoted man you'll ever meet

#writingcommunity #ghostpit #amquerying

GhostPit @ghostpit.bsky.social · 7d

Hello writers! It's almost that time---#GhostPit is just three short days away!

Question 4: What is one red flag AND green flag your MC has?

(Sorry I thought this went up yesterday. 🫣)

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R.M. Grant @filmatra.bsky.social · 7d

🛑 CW: nudity, burn mention 🛑

Daud recalls his first encounter with the Witch's Manikin, a costumed, heretical knight

#WIPSnips #writingcommunity

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R.M. Grant @filmatra.bsky.social · 7d

At the same time, "taking reflection" is similar to something like taking communion. Intentionally and privately viewing your reflection is seen as a holy act to clear the mind

#amquerying #writingcommunity #darkfantasy

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R.M. Grant @filmatra.bsky.social · 7d

#OctoberWorldbuilders 28:

In the west, sharing a reflection with someone is the same as sharing nudity. Fountains are made to froth, metal is forged covered in grit, windows stained or non-existent, all to make reflections harder to encounter by accident

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R.M. Grant @filmatra.bsky.social · 8d

Saintfire has not one but two gender-affirming-magic sex scenes (top and bottom ""surgery""). Now I just need to find my audience LOL
#queerwriters #amquerying

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R.M. Grant @filmatra.bsky.social · 8d

In Saintfire, Thahira's weapon is her breath made magic through sacrifice.

Daud's is a sword, though he goes through three: The first is humble and hand-forged, the second the glass sword of a desert assassin, and the third the legendary crystal blade of a saint.

#amquerying

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R.M. Grant @filmatra.bsky.social · 8d

🛑 CW: animal and people violent death 🛑

When confronted with horrific violence, Thahira is reminded of a blood-curdling memory.

#WIPSnips #writingcommunity

Thahira thought of Isogul. In the heart of the city was a moonless camp. A culture made on the fringe. Floors and walls built of thrown-out blankets. Broken furniture carved into divine idols. Constant prayer. Kindness, even from those who were shown no kindness.
In the heart of the camp was a pen peopled by fowl. Nearly sacred. Their eggs were collected and handed down, one to every woman and child. When the town was wanting and the merchants tightened their belts, when the storefronts kept even their fatty scraps to render into tallow, some of the birds were caught and slain. Every part of the body was used—bones for stock, blood for curd. The meat was pared out into gifts and handed around in offering, palm to waiting palm. Thahira remembered the first time she brought a scrap of the meat up to her lips, warm and crisp, juice rolling down her chin. She’d never eaten something warm before. It was lifeblood. It was salvation.
Then Thahira thought of the screams.
Embers danced up into the black sky like fall leaves in the wind. The moonlit men bundled up the salvaged blankets and threw them into the heap, swallowed up into the flames.

They didn’t even eat the chickens. They led their dogs, barking and scraping and white in the mouth, to the pen and kicked it open. They set them loose.
She watched through splayed fingers as the dogs ripped around the pen, catching and thrashing, catching and thrashing. The sacred chickens screamed and died, the sacred blood pooling into the dirt. Wings and feathers torn away, chomped to pieces in the mouths of dogs.
Even as people were beaten that night, even as they were killed, it was the chickens that she couldn’t forget. Lifeless bird eyes, used to being treated so tenderly, staring helplessly up into the churning black overcast.
Thahira thought of the chickens as the Bared White Fang tore his way through the guards and the noblemen of the Pit. Caught and thrashed, caught and thrashed. The Vapour on his hands was flared like fire, and every body he touched kindled and caught aflame. Most of the men fell to pieces from his attacks. They were lucky. The others died screaming, burning away to ash as they still lived.

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R.M. Grant @filmatra.bsky.social · 8d

#OctoberWorldbuilders Day 27:
Saintfire is about (among other things) finding community / love after trauma, and the difficulties and joys and sheer importance of that experience. I hope my readers hug their best friends after they put the book down.
#writingcommunity #amquerying

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