2024 was a year of experimentation, diving into worlds both familiar and stranger in the hopes of broadening my creative backlog.
It's no secret that I'm always working on other projects ( novels ) in the background and that most of my fictional work on Vocal usually takes inspiration from those already established worlds. But, in 2025, I want to expand my Vocal original work to showcase my world-building and character growth chops that I normally don't get to!
So, let me show you the projects I had in mind to expand upon, and how exactly I'm going to do that using Vocal as my platform of choice!
High Fantasy Epics: Plantsing to Victory
I am already quite familiar with writing epic fantasy, and it is one of those genres where you will spend most of your time world-building and plotting rather than actually writing the story. It takes TIME.
But on an online platform like Vocal, being consistent is what is going to see the most growth, so how the heck do you post an epic fantasy story that's multiple chapters long consistently?
Easy: write by the seat of your pants!
In the business, we call this pantsing: a process by which something is written by making it up along the way.
"Now, wait a minute, that sounds like a terrible idea!" You might be saying, and normally I would agree with you, except for when you add in a dash of actual planning and turn pantsing into PLANTSING!
I would show you examples of plantsing but all of them would spoil these upcoming projects so just use your imagination!
Along with shortening the planning phase, plantsing also allows me to get creative with my world-building and relying more on action beats and cliffhangers to keep readers engaged. Sure, there's gonna be other Tolkien fans out there who love deep lore and long, expanded character diatribes, but again, this is Vocal, and unless your writing is super engaging, longer stories won't do as well.
Plantsing ( for me at least ) requires minimal planning; a basic outline summary of what you want to happen, and maybe a small cheat sheet of terms on the side to keep track of what's canon in your world or not.
And that's it! The rest is up to your own creativity and whimsy, which leaves a lot of room for exploration...and maybe going off the rails, just a bit?
I already have both Queens of Sorrow & Shadow and The Dead Don't Rise nailed down as far as plot, concept & characters. So all that's left is putting the words to the page!
Collaborations: Breaching the Gap
If I had a nickel for every time a collaboration fell through, I would have two nickels, which isn't a lot but it's still setting an unfortunate precedent.
This year I want to change that. Not only is it super fun to collaborate with others, but I despise leaving anything unfinished that clearly had potential to go all the way.
Precipice: Dreams of the Fall, was the first serious attempt at a collab with my friend, Ian Read, who is also a Vocal writer. Our announcement got Top Story recognition, and readers from both of our pages were excited. Sadly, unforeseen circumstances halted progress after chapter 3, and the project was dropped.
What was the take away? Be prepared for collaborations to fall through, but don't give up. Looking back, I could have picked up Ian's workload and kept the engine going so-to-speak, but it doesn't do anyone good to linger on 'what-ifs'.
Instead, we try again! I am currently in talks both Ian and a mystery writer on doing collaborations once more, and I am open to exploring other ideas as well with new and old partners!
I do have a dream collaboration list? Can we call it that? Here's a few that have been on my mind:
Fantasy GENIUS. I think our nerdy brains could come up with something super epic.
The BIGGEST sweetheart who I would love to do a community project with. Either that, or some sort of short poetry series!
Poetry QUEEN. I think I've wanted to collab with her since the very beginning, but was too nervous to ask. <3
I would also love to do another multi-writer collaboration like Judey Kalchik's Birthday Mystery Challenge. Whether Judey runs another one or I decide to finally break the ice and do my own challenge, I just think the whole experience was super fun!
With Vocal being a hub of writing nerds, it makes sense to bring in more authors together on a single project. Plus, it draws the community together, turning each of us into enthusiastic readers for one another!
Experimental Fiction: Marrying Lyrical Prose & Narrative Plot
One thing I love about Vocal is that there really aren't any requirements for what form your work takes in its specific community. For example, in the poetry community, you can very much write a free-form poem that takes on a more micro-fiction mask, or in the fiction community, you can create a poetic short story that uses creative breaks in the lines and paragraphs.
I've done some similar shenanigans in the past, but lately, I've been wanting to push the envelope even further!
I've got two projects in the wings for this: one that I already teased, and one that I've been keeping secret.
An End of Gods & Dust is going to be a project that focuses more on a character-driven narrative where the environment is the vessel for which these characters will either grow or falter.
It will be written like a post-apocalyptic fantasy, but with a flourish of lyrical prose to make it feel a bit more dream-like. Not too sure at the moment how far this will be pushed as what I have written so far is over a year old, but I have every intention of bringing these 'To the End' teasers to life!
As for my secret project...can't really say much at this stage, but I will say it is being heavily inspired by the writing style found in "Song of the Sparrow" by Lisa Ann Sandell, one of my favorite young adult books of all time.
2025, Here I Come!
I think that about wraps up all my ideas, hopes, dreams and goals for the new year on Vocal. Obviously I will be writing more than just fantasy fiction this year as there are lots more communities on the site that I've been wanting to dive into.
No matter how much of this gets finished, I'm just grateful to have a place like Vocal to give these ideas life.
Want to read more? You can check out my other stories below:
About the Creator
Amanda Starks
Fantasy writer, poet, and hopefully soon-to-be novelist who wants to create safe spaces to talk about mental health. Subscribe to my free newsletter at www.amandastarks.com for updates!
RE:SURGENCE now available for download!
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Comments (5)
Damn you've got quite a 2025 lined up! you sure you want grumpy, cynical but hopeful arsey old me to collab with you? I am a bit odd about collabs cos Im a control freak but honoured you put the idea out there and now thinking how it might work and what surreal leftfield poetry journeys we could go on! it would have to be later in the year as the next couple months for me will be the vocal book and my second poetry collection! but Im not saying no, so we're off to good start!
Wow what a shout out! I could maybe, possibly, probably even be convinced to go on a quest
Yes, we do need to do another collab (also, maybe we can pull a Frankenstein on Precipice? Muahahahaha)
Good luck with everything this year!
You already had me at this gem "If I had a nickel for every time a collaboration fell through, I would have two nickels, which isn't a lot but it's still setting an unfortunate precedent." And then you went an gave grace to the Mystery Challenge (Thank you and it WAS fun!) I'm excited to see the way you will use the Vocal platform- it's so versatile, and I included in my just-published entry for that reason. Thank you for an entertaining and informative read. Best to you.