Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Kirk Rafferty ✨is editing✨ 📖

@kirkrafferty.com

4.9K followers 5.1K following 1.1K posts

Dad, husband, award winning author, killer of darlings (he/him) Links: https://linktr.ee/kirkraff Represented by @jessicaberg.me at Rosecliff Literary Co-host of the podcast @badlitfriends.bsky.social ‬with @thecrumpet.bsky.social‬

linktr.ee

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Kirk Rafferty ✨is editing✨ 📖 @kirkrafferty.com · 3d

Oh hey! New BAD LIT FRIENDS is in the world!

Prologue Court may be my best idea ever. What other writing rules should there be a court for?
#WritingCommunity #Podcasts #WriteSky

open.spotify.com/episode/1eMk...

Bad Lit Friends @badlitfriends.bsky.social · 3d

NEW EPISODE OF BAD LIT FRIENDS IS UP!

Wherein we talk about writing rules and why every single one of them is complete trash. (not really)

Bad Lit Friends is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts!
#WritingCommunity #Podcasts

open.spotify.com/episode/1eMk...

Kirk Rafferty ✨is editing✨ 📖 @kirkrafferty.com · 2h

From my short story YELENA, a prequel to THE COSMONAUT.
#WIPSnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky

Lena stands in the hallway, tense, her eyes red.
“What happened?” Vika says, pulling her inside. “What did he want?”
Lena’s eyes moves to where Pyotr Vladislav, Vika’s father, has appeared in the sitting room doorway, his expression shifting to polite concern.
“Good evening, Pyotr Vladislavovich,” Lena says.
“Yelena,” he replies in greeting. “Welcome. You look like you could use a drink. Brandy?”
“No, thank you,” she replies.
Vika takes her friend’s arm, glancing at her father. “Let’s go to my room.”

1 11

Kirk Rafferty ✨is editing✨ 📖 @kirkrafferty.com · 23h

On the next Bad Lit Friends, we’re speaking with Amber Hamilton, author of Seven Deadly Thorns! We were so excited to have Amber be our first interview, and it was an absolute joy speaking with her. Drops Wednesday!
#WritingCommunity #ReadingCommunity #Podcasts #YA

Kirk Rafferty ✨is editing✨ 📖 @kirkrafferty.com · 1d

#WIPSnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky

She shifted her gaze back to where Raymond stood, his hands in his pockets, a victorious smirk on his face. He thought he’d won. He’d come here to claim her like a stuffed prize at the county fair.
Over my dead body.

2 21

Kirk Rafferty ✨is editing✨ 📖 @kirkrafferty.com · 1d

😂

Kirk Rafferty ✨is editing✨ 📖 @kirkrafferty.com · 1d

If this gif were a chapter, he would have used up half his adverb allocation. 🧑‍⚖️

(And don't tell me it's dialog. I don't see no quotation marks!)

😂

1 2

Kirk Rafferty ✨is editing✨ 📖 @kirkrafferty.com · 1d

😂 I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL

1 3

Kirk Rafferty ✨is editing✨ 📖 @kirkrafferty.com · 3d

From my #ColdWar #espionage novel. Even though I have "basement" in this snippet, I'm substituting "dungeon" for "Lubyanka." The Lubyanka was (and still is, unfortunately) an actual dungeon of horrors.
#WIPSnips #WritingCommunity #historicalfiction

Could Anna be this naive? Does she expect Jo to receive a trial? There won’t be any courtrooms. Just a basement room in the Lubyanka, pain, and questions until they’ve extracted everything. Then a bullet to the head, if she’s lucky. And yet…they’re out of options. The church has only two entrances: the main doors, barricaded, and the rear, where the militiaman’s body now lies. Both are certainly covered. The windows are either boarded or too small and too high.
Six or seven rounds in the Tokarev, four in the revolver. Against how many men? Twenty? Thirty? The math is brutal, unforgiving.

2 28

Kirk Rafferty ✨is editing✨ 📖 @kirkrafferty.com · 3d

Hell yeah, congrats!! 🔥

1 1

Kirk Rafferty ✨is editing✨ 📖 @kirkrafferty.com · 3d

Bad Lit Friends @badlitfriends.bsky.social · 3d

Kirk Rafferty ✨is editing✨ 📖 @kirkrafferty.com · 4d

1 1

Kirk Rafferty ✨is editing✨ 📖 @kirkrafferty.com · 4d

From my short story (if you can call 16,000 words "short") prequel to THE COSMONAUT.

There's a saying in aviation: there are old pilots, and bold pilots. But there are no old, bold pilots.
#WIPSnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky

Vika’s hands tighten on the controls, making constant minor adjustments to maintain their course and altitude. Then the first downdraft hits, a powerful current of descending air that seems to grab the aircraft and pull it earthward. The altimeter unwinds alarmingly as they lose dozens of meters in seconds. Vika responds, advancing the throttle and pulling back on the stick to arrest their descent.
The engine roars in protest as the aircraft struggles to climb back to a safe altitude. They level off at just 250 meters. Too low for comfort, and the first moment Vika realizes they’re in trouble.

2 26

Kirk Rafferty ✨is editing✨ 📖 @kirkrafferty.com · 5d

Happy Monday! This guy is seriously bad news.
#WIPSnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky

A dank waft of cheap bourbon and mint assaulted her.
“Howdy, Miss Tabby,” Raymond Lee said. “I just dropped in to see if there was anything I could do to help you out. And look here, I got you some daisies.” He thrust the wilting flowers out.
She didn’t bother concealing her dismay. “Those are dandelions, Mr. Lee,” she replied. “Thank you kindly for the offer, but we don’t need any help just now. Maybe check in on the Black ranch. I hear they’re digging a new well.”

2 25

Kirk Rafferty ✨is editing✨ 📖 @kirkrafferty.com · 5d

I didn't even remember the season number, and I still know exactly what you're referring to.

Kirk Rafferty ✨is editing✨ 📖 @kirkrafferty.com · 7d

Such high praise! 😂

Kirk Rafferty ✨is editing✨ 📖 @kirkrafferty.com · 7d

h̶i̶b̶e̶r̶n̶a̶t̶e̶ sleep
#WIPSnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky

It was a ridiculous story. Valentin Tarasenko was no more a spy than Anna was. But sometimes the Sodium Thiopental induced illusion and fancy instead of truth.
Vasily broke Valentin Tarasenko into something less than a man, before finally standing him up before a bullet-ridden wall. He’d never found any evidence Valentin had been telling the truth in his confession. No contacts, no camera, no microfilm. A good man had died, but Vasily had saved himself and his family. He had saved Anna.
He tells himself these things when sleep evades him.

2 18

Kirk Rafferty ✨is editing✨ 📖 @kirkrafferty.com · 8d

"Hobbits really are amazing guinea pigs." - Gandalf, probably 😂

Kirk Rafferty ✨is editing✨ 📖 @kirkrafferty.com · 8d

Gandalf pulled the ring from Frodo's fireplace, still unsure if this was the One Ring. But he tells Frodo to hold it anyway. Because on the off-chance it wasn’t the One Ring, and had given Frodo a third-degree burn, well, at least we know.
#lordoftherings

Gandalf holding the One Ring with tongs after he's pulled it out of Frodo's fireplace.

1 1 5

Kirk Rafferty ✨is editing✨ 📖 @kirkrafferty.com · 9d

No salmon, but fish and caviar. When you're a Soviet cosmonaut who crash-lands in rural Texas, breakfast is still the most important meal of the day.
#WIPSnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky

Tabby served the stack of griddle cakes with butter and jam. The coffee was hot and strong.
“All I got to put on top is peach jam. I hope you like it. You got anything like this? Where you come from, I mean?” Tabby asked, spearing a bite of her own.
Vika nodded. “Blini. It is…thin.” She pinched her fingers together. “To put jam on, yes. Also…I don’t know English word. Smetana. Or…” She searched for the English word again. She was still tired and a little disoriented. “Ikra…eggs in fish.”
“Oh, I know this…um…caviar?” Tabby asked.
“Caviar, yes.” It hurt to smile, but she was glad to connect with the girl in a way she wasn’t able to with her brother.
As if on cue, Giles appeared at the top of the landing, dressed in his overalls. His scowl shattered the easy atmosphere Tabby had carefully constructed.

2 23

Kirk Rafferty ✨is editing✨ 📖 @kirkrafferty.com · 9d

There is a bit of writing advice that says to chase your main character up a tree, then throw rocks at them.

But what if there was a hornet's nest in the tree? And fire ants? And a KGB agent strapping them to a chair to interrogate them with pliers and needles?

This is my book.

#WritingCommunity

Kirk Rafferty ✨is editing✨ 📖 @kirkrafferty.com · 10d

One microphone, three hosts who decided it would be a good idea to record a podcast at 10pm after a long conference day. New Bad Lit Friends is up on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen!
#WritingCommunity

Bad Lit Friends @badlitfriends.bsky.social · 10d

HEY #WritingCommunity, NEW EPISODE OF BAD LIT FRIENDS IS UP!!!!

Coming to you live (recorded!) from the RMFW #ColoradoGold conference, held this last weekend. And we're talking about--DUH!--conferences! Have a listen wherever you get your podcasts!

open.spotify.com/episode/0EBW...

Conference Confidential: Rocky Mountain High Anxiety (S01E09)

open.spotify.com

1 16

Kirk Rafferty ✨is editing✨ 📖 @kirkrafferty.com · 10d

A quieter moment from The Cosmonaut.
#WIPSnips #WritingCommunity #WriteSky

Vika stood beneath a white oak, its branches heavy with snow and ice. She inhaled the winter air that stung her nostrils. The stillness was broken only by the groaning ice floes and surging undulations of the Columbia River, whose shore she stood along. The frigid water lapped against her galoshes in a soothing cadence. If she closed her eyes, she could imagine she was standing on the banks of the Moskva River again, or maybe the edge of the little lake she and Leo had spent so many days beside in each other’s arms.

1 4 26

Kirk Rafferty ✨is editing✨ 📖 @kirkrafferty.com · 10d

I guess being an alcoholic SecDef is just fine though.

1 2

Kirk Rafferty ✨is editing✨ 📖 @kirkrafferty.com · 10d

Read what you want to read. Always.

But this is why agents advise reading widely within your genre. If your project is going to stand out, you have to know what it's standing out from. Otherwise, you risk imitating the same thing everyone else is reading.
#WritingCommunity #amquerying

Helen Lane @helenlane.bsky.social · 10d

Some patterns I've noticed in queries tonight:

I often talk about similar book openings and why queries get turned down for not standing out.

Tonight I have read 13 queries that start with 'I didn't know today would be the day I died' or 'death is never what you expect it to be' variations.

2 12

Kirk Rafferty ✨is editing✨ 📖 @kirkrafferty.com · 11d

You make a good point that a character being morally gray just to be edgy can come off as trying too hard. As with any character, they still need to be well-rounded. I don't have to like them, but I do have to believe them. They have to make sense.

1 1

Kirk Rafferty ✨is editing✨ 📖 @kirkrafferty.com · 11d

Seeing more complaints from some authors who don't feel they can write morally gray characters without blowback.

Unless your characters are actually morally disgusting and irredeemable, nobody is opposed to this. Morally gray characters are "in." I'd argue they were never "out."
#WritingCommunity

1 1 5