R.M. Grant
filmatra.bsky.social
R.M. Grant
@filmatra.bsky.social
120 followers 870 following 35 posts
26, she/her | Adult Dark Fantasy Author #QueerWriters | Now Querying Saintfire | TTRPG Designer |
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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
Doing #questpit Wednesday, finishing some edits to my first seven chapters, & sending a few more queries 🙏
Some of my favorite beta reader feedback so far on my #darkfantasy Saintfire
#writingcommunity #amquerying
#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
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
Absolutely -- I'll DM you!
Got some feedback from a beta reader who just finished Saintfire.... Oops? 🤭 I warned her it had a tragic ending!

#writingcommunity #amquerying
🛑 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
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
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. 🫣)
🛑 CW: nudity, burn mention 🛑

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

#WIPSnips #writingcommunity
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
#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
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
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
🛑 CW: animal and people violent death 🛑

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

#WIPSnips #writingcommunity
#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
P.S.: his inspiration came from the question "what if Killua Zoldyck didn't escape his family until he was much older and even more jaded?" Iykyk
He's remarkably funny, affable, and kind for what he's lived through, and acts as the biggest ally to my MCs throughout their gravest challenges

I... love him a lot. Very dear character to me!
Caeus was the King's assassin until the job broke him, and he willingly spent six years as a prisoner in the royal fighting pits

Throughout the second half of the book, he learns (or relearns?) that he's more than a broken weapon when he joins the MC's found family

#writingcommunity #amquerying
25. Oh! I love this prompt. Gnosticism (esp valentinian) is a MASSIVE influence on the philosophy, religion, and magic of this book.
26. I did my best to be historically accurate to 12th-13th century Spain (and Gujarat India, for Thahira's 'backstory')
#writingcommunity #amquerying
24. Extremely dark and intentionally troubling, but with a silver throughline of humanity, mortality, friendship, love... I've always called it a found family story, but family sometimes means confronting the darkness inside of others
23. "Aoudegar was a city unlike anything Daud had ever laid eyes on. Red stone walls, tiled with geometric patterns, stretched over the hills of Rodan... The buildings at the top of the hill had been walled and then—like a child outgrowing his hose—spilled out only to be walled again, and again."
21 cont. In the city, many people might be crammed into one house or people may have individual rooms, depending on wealth level. Architecture and culture is very 12th-13th century Spanish
22. See my friend's beautiful art here: bsky.app/profile/film...
Beautiful art of my book #saintfire protagonists Thahira and Daud looking SO similar to how I imagine them in the early chapters (art by @galpalzzz on twitter) #amquerying #writingcommunity #DarkFantasy
20. The infrastructure was carved out by slaves during the Meridian occupation, and then repurposed after the Liberation
21. In the country, people live in family homes. Orphans might be squeezed in where they fit (e.g. Daud sleeps in a pigeon loft).
17. Food comes from farms surrounding hamlets and cities. Aoudegar, the capital, has been besieged so many times that its people have converted most rooftops into gardens
18. Wind and water powered mills (and beasts of burden) are the closest to automation in the setting
19. Aqueducts