Tag: fantasy

ELKs on YouTube

What makes you want to follow a particular YouTuber? My best answer is that they must be ELK: Enthusiastic, Likeable, Knowledgeable.

Merphy Napier is my first ELK. Merphy is a booktuber: she posts videos about books and authors, mainly in the genre of fantasy fiction. Here’s the video she posted earlier today, about her favorite authors as of late 2020.

If you watch the video, you’ll certainly see that she is Enthusiastic. I think you’ll find her Likeable, but that is of course very subjective. As someone whose reading overlaps with hers, I can testify that she is Knowledgeable about the genres she reads.

In future posts, I’ll post about other ELKs. Some, but not all, will be booktubers.

In the meantime, you are your favorite ELK YouTubers? Or what are your criteria for YouTube excellence?

First Draft of Novel

I followed Neil Gaiman’s advice. “Write down everything that happens in the story, and then in your second draft make it look like you knew what you were doing all along.”

I think I know what I need to do to make it look as though I know what I’m doing, including character development, subplots, physical description, more (though not too much) detail about magic system,…

Yes, it’s a fantasy novel. Or it will be, once I’ve add the above-described stuff to arrive at the second draft.

Then I’ll need beta readers. Any volunteers? I’m open to reciprocal beta arrangements.