Inspired By the Worlds That Horses Create

It can be daunting to embark on a niche endeavor. When I say niche, I mean really niche. Basically, I want to write fiction that is based around horses. Equestrian stories. Horse life.

Who stole the knight's horse from the inn's stable, and why? Why did the next-door neighbor's horses get loose and cause a small town raucous? Why is Sally gossiping about Steve's most recent round in the show ring?

Horses have been a part of my life since I could walk and they do say to write what you know. I know horses; I know all the juicy plot points that accompany spending time at a barn full of diverse riders and their mounts. I see the parallels that run alongside horses and humans that often don't get explored in fiction.

Years have flown by where I've realized I'd like to write fiction involving the equine world but, I never had the courage to actually try and dig into the niche for fear of failure. 2025 is already changing that narrative, though, and Vocal has helped me take the first step.

I posted a short story in the Fiction community that helped me break my silence and grow more comfortable with sharing my horse tales. It was a low fantasy story centered around a struggling beast hunter whose horse isn't exactly on-board with the idea of being anywhere near actual monsters.

Horses are prey animals so the idea of one having to figure out how to deal with a monster was inspiring to me. How does a rider deal with a horse's fear in a high stakes, fantastical situation?

It's a tale rooted within deeper themes I'd like to explore as I vow to just-keep-writing. So, with that, I've decided that my horse stories are quite literally my creative "pet" project of 2025, as they revolve around my world that has been shaped by horses.

But, the biggest challenge of a micro niche horse writer?

Getting eyeballs on stories. Surely, you're thinking, "Elle - there are over 7.2 million horses owned in America. Eyeballs on horse stories should be no problem considering the amount of people involved!"

You'd think. But, a booming horse culture doesn't necessarily spill over into the lands of fiction.

Horse people themselves don't always seem keen to seek out horse stories. Only the odd book seems to reach a general audience. The rest get a few reads on KDP and remain under the radar. So how do I build a readership interested in horses, if it's not comprised of the actual horse people?

I had to figure out the underlying currents of horse culture before I could truly answer that question.

Stories Build and Bind Culture

When you were a teenager, just being a teenager was the lifestyle. It had its traditions and stereotypes. Subgroups and expectations. We vacated that particular world when we aged out of it, but we hung onto the very human bases of culture that made it up:

The craving of tradition, subgroups, community and certain connectivity through a shared lifestyle.

It's a sort of united belief. It reminds me of church communities although I'm not religious at all. What I do identify with religiously, though, is horse culture. It holds my people. It holds everything that feels right. Its sweet smelling hay and hooves clopping on gravel are home. Its higher meaning?

To figure out how human lives fit with that of the horse from care to competition. It's always evolving just as its relationships within evolve, too.

Lives revolve around it. Industries subsist off it. Communities form subgroups based around a love for the animal. It's a melting pot of owners, riders, horses, workers, businesses and professional athletes.

Once you get into horses, you aren't just into horses - you're in to horses. It's a hobby or interest that can become a lifestyle. There is so much to it and so much good to see. To me, it represents a general good.

You care for an animal that, in turn, carries you. But it's not just about the riding. It's about the worlds that horses form.

Uncomplicated is the open prairie where feral horses roam. There’s something calming and beautiful about a knight and his steed trotting through an old growth forest somewhere in Ireland, as he moves according to King’s order.

That last example might seem overly specific and that’s because it is. One of my most vivid memories in the saddle comes from riding through an old growth forest beside Kinnity Castle. Ireland’s Slieve Bloom Mountains welcomed us through kissing trees as we plodded up a twisting incline.

As much as I thought I was enjoying my time simply because I was astride, the memory stuck with me as it did because of the atmosphere and feeling of truly being lost in nature, as would have been done as a knight rode off to battle upon some bluff or other.

It really isn’t just the act of sitting on a horse and communicating with it that is the whole draw behind horses. It’s the worlds they complement.

I'd wager people other than those submerged in the riptide of horses find peace and wonder in those complementary worlds, too. Every Geralt needs a Roach and every Gandalf a Shadowfax, after all.

Just as being a teenager bound groups of us together through a united sense of relatability, I realized that my stories can too.

Like the survival instincts of that beast hunter's horse that I posted over in the Vocal Fiction community? Sometimes it's easier to understand our own fears and instinctual reactions when presented through a different lens- through the eyes of an animal who can't speak in English.

So, step one towards my 2025 goal was realizing that relatability is amongst a writer's most powerful tools. I want to learn to better wield it as I pen my horse tales and aim to attract an audience.

Steps Towards Strides

In horse speak, a horse's canter stride is equivalent to four human steps. On my 2025 writing journey so far, I've taken step one of four to reach that final full stride for the year.

By understanding the relatable nature of the culture that binds horse people together, I found parallels that people outside of the horse world's bounds could relate to. Horse stories don't only need to be for horse people. The lessons that horses can teach are universal. So is the entertainment they can provide.

It’s almost as if my horse stories form a river that is just waiting to be crossed. Most people won’t just tread across a river as if it's no big deal, but the relatable pieces of the writing contained in each horse story will form the bridge that actually helps readers meander over.

So, yes! I'd definitely say that step one has its foot in the air, and is nearing final touchdown.

The Confidence to Continue

Vocal is one puzzle piece that will help carry my confidence through the remaining steps of my project. I'm hoping the platform's dedicated community will help me troubleshoot, improve upon and form those relatable equine ideas. I'm still very new to the site but already recognize its potential as a place of craft and innovation.

A surprise that I was thrilled to see is that Vocal has a Critique community that can help with finding that feedback on relatability I've been looking for.

• Step two is to practice in public and produce at least two short stories a month. All stories of this step will be posted to either Vocal's Fiction community, or Critique.

• Step three is to slowly work on building up a social media presence as I recognize horse stories aren't typically the picks of traditional publishers. To self publish, I'll need to market myself.

• The final step towards the full stride is to use the confidence I've gained, and critiques I've gathered from my short stories, to craft my first book of horse fiction by the end of December, 2025.

Fin.

The worlds that horses create are worlds that I want to create in fiction. Niche it will be. Particularly profitable, it will not. But, I've never really existed in the world of writing strictly for the money, anyway.

We've been creating because we simply have to, just like early humans in the Ice Age painted on walls. They felt the urge to create and found value in creation alone. No book revenue or paychecks muddied their motivations. They created to record and express themselves, while reinforcing that need for tradition, even relatability, that I mentioned earlier.

It's through building relatability that niche writing can shine. I'm certainly hoping my 'steps to strides' help reinforce that theory as I continue to pen my horse tales. Hitting that final stride is 2025's great enigma, and Vocal is a puzzle piece to that personal conundrum that I so look forward to finally solving.