My name is Morgan Faire, and I'm a (recently realised/out) trans person living in England. My pronouns are He/They and They/Them. I've been writing for about as long as I can remember, and I focus primarily on fantasy, but some stories also include elements of crime/psychological thriller and sci-fi. I also write fanfiction and post it over on Ao3
My ask box is always open and I love being tagged in all the various writeblr tag games! I might not get around to posting my own answers to them, but I will always try to read through your excerpts!
With that in mind, if you're working on a story that you think I might like (one or more of the genres mentioned above), please alert me to its existence with a direct message or an ask with a link to any post you've made about it so far, OR just tag me! I promise I won't ever find that annoying.
Current projects
This is by no means an extensive list; I have probably close to twenty different stories in my head at any given time, and I flit between all of them like a moth trying to decide which light source is The Most Appealing. Sometimes my ideas get together and make new baby ideas without telling me.
(this got way too long so it's all under the cut!)
If you're interested in learning more about anything listed below, please let me know and I'll get you on a taglist!
THIS NOBLE LIGHT (TNL)
Set in the sole city of the frigid northernmost island of Ersse, Pholis is a city with a strict religious doctrine and a rotting heart.
Kadyric Alart, a lightbringer captain, must navigate the politics of the organisation he's dedicated his life to when his child is arrested on suspicion of heresy.
Help comes in the form of an unexpected ally; a nightstalker named Kalassar Vion who was once his best subordinate.
An urban fantasy story with queer characters and elements of found family and enemies to lovers.
LEGENDS OF ERSSE (LoE)
A collection of short stories exploring the myths and legends of the world of Ersse, including:
The Legend of Corroneau's Landing
A new landmass is created for Etrios when one of the Great Beasts drops one of Its many horns into the ocean. The people celebrate and flock to shrines to honour the Horned One.
However, another of the Beasts--a dragon named Corroneau--knows that the Horned One had ulterior motives behind creating the peninsula and seeks to undo It's work.
Other titles in the collection:
The Long Dark & The First Dawn: A story of two parts set on the island that will one day become the sprawling city of Pholis.
The Endless Garden: The vast home of the Great Ones is too big and too lonely; this is what happens when one of the immortal beings invites a mortal to the garden.
The Spine of Remhul
The Blood Marshes of Tresyt
The Sunken Crypts of Baanzi
Modern Tales of Ersse (MToE)
Another anthology of short stories created to further explore the vast world; all with ample world building and interesting characters with intriguing stories to share.
Included titles:
Always a Thief: The Metropolis of Moate's most notorious thief falls in love rather unexpectedly.
The Last Librarian of Kinnoden: The University of Kinnoden recently announced that their vast archive will be opened to the public, and the owner of the very last independant book repository wonders if they should shut up shop. The person who may well be their final guest helps them to decide.
Time of Descent: In order to survive The Heat, a small community in the south of Rotesh retreat each year to a cave system under the surface of the lake their village was built around. For the first time in recent history, they will have a guest.
Bound to Remain: An expedition through the Forest of Grevia leads the group to a mysterious cave; the Scholar they were accompanying insists on entering alone, and asks that they remain outside. A strange magic descends over the area.
Quick question for anyone who's more sexually active than I am atm; have you ever described yourself as being "fuzzy" after a day of, uhh, The Activity?
There was the customary samovar with its pot of burnt honey, vol-au-vents with mushroom and shrimp filling, stinging nettle blini smothered with lingonberry compote, and lemon tea cakes.
On her back was a sack filled with snacks rolled tight in banana leaf—chunks of arrowroot and dried mango pieces sprinkled with chilli, a glass bottle of mint-infused rosewater in a woven basket cover.
Amira prodded one of the strawberries crowning her puff pastry with her fork. A light dispersion of berry blood squirted from the fruit, trickling down the tower of whipped cream. She lifted the fruit to her lips and chewed softly, sampling its sweetness. Then she placed her fork to one side.
Figs stuffed with white cheese wrapped in dry-cured ham; raw oysters with strawberry mignonette; saffron rice bejewelled with pomegranate seeds. All were arranged around the steaming main course: a whole roast swan stuffed with oysters and dipped in rose petal sauce, set alongside a boat of pomegranate reduction.
She brought the porridge to boil until it was creamy and thick, then spooned it into three bowls, adding chopped dates, apricots, a few slices of banana, and some pansy flowers.
If you haven't heard, the em dash has been getting a lot of attention lately…
Because it was trained on pirated work—including freely accessible online writing (like fanfic, academic texts)—ChatGPT picked up patterns and quirks native to human writing.
Including (sigh) the em dash.
There are other victims here (RIP tapestry and delve 🫠), but the appropriation of the em dash—a punctuation mark beloved by writers everywhere—feels especially personal.
A kind of low-grade panic is ensuing. Writers who once memed their own em dash overuse—the greatest punctuation mark ever to grace the control-freak’s lexicon, frankly—are suddenly backing away to avoid accusations.
No. More. We have centuries of dash-abusing writers behind us. We will not sit quietly while AI repurposes our beloved stilted aside—or the just-one-more clarification the sentence demands—or the dramatic pause your comma could never—etc.
You don’t write like AI—AI writes like you.
Defend the em dash.
(Feel free to download/share/stick it where it matters!)
My current project WHAT THE TIDES WON'T WASH AWAY is a novel about student archaeologists who uncover more than they bargained for...
A remote Scottish island.
An unexpected burial.
A romance that endured for millennia.
When a group of archaeology students begin their summer dig, they expect bad weather, midges, and maybe some pottery if they're lucky. What they find instead sets off a chain of paranormal events, and unearths a secret that someone will do anything to keep hidden.
I'm a first time fiction author and I'm gonna need all the help I can get. Please follow along if you're a writer and looking for community or just if you like romance, eerie mysteries, and atmospheric landscapes.
I know some people have seen the news recently and may be doubtful of it. To the uninformed, Google Docs has started using AI to find "inappropriate" and "problematic" content, scraping your documents and deleting it. I know some people are unsure if this is real or think this is not going to affect them.
I regret to inform you that this is real.
As I was on a call with some writers and we were moving our documents as a precautionary measure, one person discovered entire pages missing that they did not delete themselves. This is happening to us, it's not a hoax or a rumor, it's happening right now. You need to move everything if you want to preserve it.
If you're a writer with writer mutuals, please reblog this so they know. I rarely write on Google Docs anymore, but I started my fanfics on there, and I would be devastated if I lost works more than ten years old because people decided marketing appeal is more important than creative freedom.
I got pretty fed up with looking for words to replace said because they weren’t sorted in a way I could easily use/find them for the right time. So I did some myself.
I’M DRUNK OR JUST BEING WEIRDLY EXPRESSIVE FOR A POINT/SARCASM
Hooted
Howled
Yowled
I WONDER
Pondered
Voiced
Wondered
OH, YEAH, WHOOPS
Recalled
Recited
Remembered
SURPRISE BITCH
Revealed
IT SEEMS FAKE BUT OKAY/HA ACTUALLY FUNNY BUT I DON’T WANT TO LAUGH OUT LOUD
Scoffed
Snickered
Snorted
BITCHY
Tattled
Taunted
Teased
Edit: People, I’m an English and creative writing double major in college; I understand that there’s nothing wrong with simply using “said.” This was just for fun, and it comes in handy when I need to add pizzazz.
In addition to a little pizzazz in the dialogue tags, these are also super useful as part of the narration, or summing up/paraphrasing something that has been said, or even in a character’s dialogue as they describe how someone was talking!
Aspiring businessman-turned-thief Aleksander Fox has stolen the enchanted cloak of the Swan Prince. When it falls into the hands of the assassin Vératre, both find themselves entangled in a much grander conspiracy.
🍖 How to Build a Culture Without Just Inventing Spices and Necklaces
(a worldbuilding roast. with love.)
So. You’re building a fantasy world, and you’ve just invented:
→ Three types of ceremonial jewelry
→ A spice that tastes like cinnamon if it were bitter and cursed
→ A holiday where everyone wears gold and screams at dawn
Cute. But that’s not culture. That’s aesthetics.
And if your worldbuilding is all outfits, dances, and spice blends with vaguely mystical names, your story’s probably going to feel like a cosplay convention held inside a Pinterest board.
Here’s how to fix that—aka: how to build a real, functioning culture that shapes your story, not just its vibes.
─────── ✦ ───────
🔗 Culture Is Built on Power, Not Just Style
Ask yourself:
→ Who’s in charge, and why?
→ Who has land? Who doesn’t?
→ What’s considered taboo, sacred, or punishable by death?
Culture is shaped by who gets to make the rules and who gets crushed by them. That’s where things like religion, family structure, class divisions, gender roles, and social expectations actually come from.
Start there. Not at the embroidery.
─────── ✦ ───────
2.🪓 Culture Comes From Conflict
Did this society evolve peacefully? Was it colonized? Did it colonize? Was it rebuilt after a war? Is it still in one?
→ What was destroyed and mythologized?
→ What do the survivors still whisper about?
→ What do children get taught in school that’s… suspiciously sanitized?
No culture is neutral. Every tradition has a history, and that history should taste like blood, loss, or propaganda.
─────── ✦ ───────
3.🧠 Belief Systems > Customs Lists
Sure, rituals and holidays are cool. But what do people believe about:
→ Death?
→ Love?
→ Time?
→ The natural world?
→ Justice?
Example: A society that believes time is cyclical vs. one that sees time as linear will approach everything—from prison sentences to grief—completely differently.
You don’t need to invent 80 gods. You need to know what those gods mean to the people who pray to them.
─────── ✦ ───────
4.🫀 Culture Controls Behavior (Quietly)
Culture shows up in:
→ What people apologize for
→ What insults cut deepest
→ What people are embarrassed about
→ What’s praised publicly vs. what’s hidden privately
For instance:
→ A culture obsessed with stoicism won’t say “I love you.” They’ll say “Have you eaten?”
→ A culture built on legacy might prioritize ancestor veneration, archival writing, name inheritance.
This stuff? Way more immersive than giving everyone matching earrings.
─────── ✦ ───────
5. 🏠 Culture = Daily Life, Not Just Festivals
Sure, your MC might attend a funeral where people paint their faces blue. But what about:
→ Breakfast routines?
→ How people greet each other on the street?
→ Who cooks, and who eats first?
→ What’s considered “clean” or “proper”?
→ How is parenting handled? Divorce?
Culture is what happens between plot points. It should shape your character’s assumptions, language, fears, and habits—whether or not a festival is going on.
─────── ✦ ───────
6. 💬 Let Your Characters Disagree With Their Own Culture
A culture isn’t a monolith.
Even in deeply traditional societies, people:
→ Rebel
→ Question
→ Break rules
→ Misinterpret laws
→ Mock sacred things
→ Act hypocritically
→ Weaponize or resist what’s expected
Let your characters wrestle with the culture around them. That’s where realism (and tension) lives.
─────── ✦ ───────
7.🧼 Beware the “Pretty = Good” Trap
Worldbuilding gets boring fast when:
→ The protagonist’s homeland is beautiful and pure
→ The enemy’s culture is dark and “barbaric”
→ Every detail just reinforces who the reader should like
You can—and should—challenge the aesthetic hierarchy.
→ Let ugly things be beloved.
→ Let beautiful things be corrupt.
→ Let your MC romanticize their culture and then get disillusioned by it later.
─────── ✦ ───────
📍 TL;DR (but like, spicy):
→ Culture is not food and jewelry.
→ Culture is power, fear, memory, contradiction.
→ Stop inventing spices until you know who starved last winter.
→ Let your world feel lived in, not curated.
The best cultural worldbuilding doesn’t look like a list.
It feels like a system. A pressure. A presence your characters can’t escape—even if they try.
Now go. Build something real. (You can add spices later.)
—rin t.
// writing advice for worldbuilders with rage and range
// thewriteadviceforwriters
Sometimes the problem isn’t your plot. It’s your first 5 pages. Fix it here → 🖤 Free eBook: 5 Opening Pages Mistakes to Stop Making:
✦ A free (and actually helpful) guide to leveling up your first 10 pages ✦If you're unsure whether your opening is ✨doing enough✨ to hook re
🕯️ download the pack & write something cursed:
A gothic prompt pack for writers who love cursed universities, secret societies, and scholarly rot.✎ Write the Darkness ✎A 75-prompt horror
someone on twitter is trying to claim that use of an em-dash is an indication of AI-generated writing because it’s “relatively rare” for actual humans to use it. skill issue
