Photo by Linus Sandvide on Unsplash
Me having an idea for a flash, nice and simple: fees, taxes, and charges being applied to travel based on age, previous travel, educational needs, and the like in response to climate control, using up resources which cannot be renewed, and those in control of the government using those excuses to actually restrict and track travel and reduce accurate communication what is happening in various places within the country. Cool, cool.
So I start typing can come up with Taxing Dreams (see Flash from 8/23/2026), and Georgia takes over and starts talking about her family and everything is somewhat fuzzy on what was supposed to be edgy.
I needed to take it darker. The results is Taxing Dreams Version 2 (see Flash from 9/6/2026).
Don’t be afraid to take things to the extreme. One author I worked with, in the second book, while developmentally editing, I could see where he was going. I could feel the teeth nibbling at the edges, carefully, carefully. I told him to go for it. Have the teeth chomp and tear. Don’t hold back. He changed the scenes and the series went from Dark-ish High Fantasy to Splatter-body-horror Fantasy. (If Grim Dark Fantasy is you cup of tea, check out Drew Bailey’s Giftborn Chronicles series.)
I wish we could go back and fix the first book to match the direction it should have been going from the start. He knew he wanted to do a politically-oriented Fantasy, but he always loved horror so he added a few elements to his story about royal siblings. The second book, after I told him to go for it, changed the vibe to a horror with fantasy elements. And then, book 3, he found his voice and his stride. He stopped writing it to reader expectations and started writing the way he always should have been writing. Drew Bailey’s voice, now that it is found, is incredible and the rest of this six-book series (finished, except for the last book which is on schedule for publication before the end of the year – completely written and edited, just needs a cover and formatting).
So this editing rant is – take it darker, or lighter, or twisty, or kissy. Stop holding back. Stop writing to expectations. Go. Run naked through the woods, singing at the top of your lungs.
It is your voice. Your story.
Not what is trendy, not what society expected.
Write the scene where someone goes to the trouble of finding your author page on Facebook and posts “You M-F’er, how dare you. On page 174.” Create the plot twist where the person listening to the audiobook while driving screams or cries or starts laughing. Write the book that goes too far. Don’t be safe.
Be the writer you want to be.