This article comes to you from a personal complaint. A deeply frustrating, deeply personal complaint.

For over a year, I was waiting for the release of The Poet Empress, which is one of the few books I have found that uses poetry magic. The other one I have found is A Shadow In Summer, which I found unbearable.

I was hoping The Poet Empress avoided the mistakes of A Shadow In Summer. It did not. I kept pushing through to see whether the mistake was ever fixed. And it was not.

What was the mistake?

There were barely any poems. In a book about poetry magic.

Both of these books/series are framed around magical poetry … but the authors do everything possible to dance around actually having to do the poetry magic.

As of now, I have written over 100 original poems for The Eirenic Verses. While the first and second books don’t have that many, there are enough to ensure readers that no, the series doesn’t avoid poetry, and yes, there are likely to be more in the future. As the series continues, there are more and more poems included in each book, carefully integrated into the text so as to feel natural.

This is simple for me because I have been writing poetry for over 20 years at this point. And it deeply frustrates me that others won’t commit to their book’s premise but still expect a readership.

There will be people who like the work, but they likely aren’t the ones you wanted.

Now, I will note that The Poet Empress does have a good rating on Goodreads. But I also know that big publishers make this possible through nefarious means, and frankly, I don’t really trust star ratings much anymore. There have been far too many books that everyone screams about but that I find atrocious for me not to consider that, just maybe, publishers ensure their books never get poor ratings.

Still, people seemed to love it because it was, well, shallow, as I noted in my post about tradpub being cooked. It contains extremely graphic content but is written in an annoying YA style that is both very slow and very fast at the same time (strange, I know). And I suspect that many of them gave it such a high review because they liked how the book looked.

And they didn’t care that the book doesn’t have any poetry because they didn’t give a shit about that aspect anyway: they wanted the doomed romance and the evil MMC.

But more discerning readers clocked the exact same thing I did: there’s nothing about the power of writing itself. At all.

Others, while still glowing and squealing about it, did acknowledge that there’s almost no poetry magic at all.

And I am not glad about that. It’s a structural issue that the protagonist cannot do poetry magic: a convenient way to sidestep doing the very thing that the book is supposed to do.

Readers often seem to act as if a book’s structure was inevitable and there was no way to avoid its pitfalls, but that’s not true. The author here intentionally chose a structure that would avoid delivering on the premise, precisely so that she did not have to learn how to write poetry.

Which I have to ask, then: what’s the entire point of writing a book about poetry magic if you don’t like poetry?

If you don’t like something enough to explore it, then you don’t like it enough to write about it.

Simple as that. Do not write a book about a topic you don’t care about because you want dibs on a fresh idea.

People may like your book if they don’t know much about the topic. They’re not going to like if they do know a lot about the topic. The very people who could have become your champions are going to turn away in disappointment, never recommending your work to others in the field.

There’s a reason why certain books become cult classics and others don’t: because the author actually understood what they were talking about. C.S. Lewis was a mathematician who was fed up with weird math, so he wrote Alice in Wonderland to complain about it. Even though the story is allegorical, non-math people can still sense the logic behind it and feel there’s a greater theme, which builds intrigue.

Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi is iconic because he was a steamboat operator before writing the book. It feels grounded and real, a genuine travelogue by someone who understood each twist of the river.

You cannot fake that authenticity, and adept readers will feel that you don’t know what you’re talking about.

You have to show the premise of the book, not simply describe it.

Someone coming to a book about poetry magic is not going to expect poetry magic every single page, but they’re going to expect at least one example. Or at least some poetry.

I think I remember there being three singular poems in The Poet Empress, which is almost 400 pages. So one poem per 133 pages. And, most importantly, none of them were magical. We were simply told that poetry magic was happening but never allowed to see it.

Even in the climax, where the protagonist wields this supposedly incredible magic poem, we don’t get to see it. We’re told it has amazing effects and that it solves the problem, etc etc.

Then why can’t the author narrate it for us?

I’m assuming two possibilities. First, the author simply doesn’t feel comfortable writing poetry and so would rather say it happened. Second, the publisher asked for the poems to be removed. But I’m leaning toward the first, because I would assume a publisher would realize the significance of poetry – and had allowed several other poems.

This leads to an important lesson, obviously. The premise must be visible. You must show it happening, not just say it happens.

If your character loves horses, they have to interact with horses. If they are a physicist, then have them talk physics. Otherwise, it seems like you don’t know what you’re talking about, which automatically reduces trust.

Authenticity matters in fantasy, too.

Other reviewers complained that The Poet Empress also did not accurately depict the court dynamics it was based upon, leading to weak and confusing worldbuilding.

I’m sure that some will hand-wave this away by claiming that it’s fine because the book is fantasy. In fact, I suspect this is why so many younger writers want to pursue fantasy: they think it means less work since they don’t have to research anything.

But I do not ascribe to the idea that your worldbuilding can just be whatever you feel like, especially when you’re clearly working within a remix of a real-world place. This makes for chaotic, muddled settings that feel cobbled together rather than coherent places.

For example, if you have a setting that is meant to be a fantasy version of ancient China, why would you have corn? It’s indigenous to North and South America. Ancient Chinese people weren’t eating corn because they didn’t know what it was. Corn didn’t arrive to other continents until the 1500s at the very, very earliest.

Breme is based on Mongolia. It is not a perfect one-to-one depiction and I never claim it is. However, I work hard to imbue authenticity through the climate, the produce, the foods, and so on. There’s a little Easter egg in Funeral of Hopes where I reference a smoked herb from traditional Mongolian medicine that is meant to improve sexual stamina.

Did anyone else catch that or care? Probably not. I don’t think I have a big Mongolian readership. But these little details matter, if only to suggest a certain relationship to herbal medicine. People don’t need to know what exactly that is to feel authenticity; it creates a subconscious sense of, “Oh, okay, this is something unique to the world and the culture.”

You don’t have to be perfect and you don’t have to adhere one-to-one with whatever culture influenced the setting. But readers will sense something is off if you regularly introduce things that don’t quite fit into the atmosphere you want to portray.

I am not an expert in every single activity from the Eirenic Verses, but I’ve tried almost all of them, which includes:

• Archery
• Poetry (of course)
• Swordfighting (via Kendo)
• Horseback riding
• Rock climbing
• Rappelling
• Kayaking (briefly mentioned in later books)
• Caving

And, as I mentioned in my post about therapeutic writing, the mutilation and near-drowning scenes lean into my own past.

There are several sailing scenes in the eighth book, so I intend to take some sailing lessons this summer. Thankfully, I live right next to Lake Erie, so though sailing is expensive, the conduit for it is accessible.

Writers often complain about the whole “write what you know” mantra, claiming it’s classist or that people are assuming you have to spend two decades learning something. Not true. You just have to try it at least a few times. That’s all.

No one is expecting you to become a perfect expert in things you write about, especially if you keep it a little bit vague. Understanding the movements and the feeling of it is what really matters, and much of the more technical aspects can be glossed over. After all, if your readers wanted nonfiction on the subject, they would pick up a different book.

So just give it a shot. Find a cheap or free class in your area and commit to at least a few lessons.

If that’s completely impossible, then watch videos of people doing it and lurk on Reddits about the topic.

On some topics, guided coursework can be valuable.

I am not vain enough to claim that I’m a world-class expert in my themes, but I do have professional training in the things I discuss. I have a Master’s degree in International Relations and a Bachelor’s in English Literature. I’ve taken courses in gender studies, postcolonialism, political economy, and world religions.

I don’t use IR terms in my books because readers would not care and don’t want to have to look those up. It’s the setup and structure that matters here. The political systems are coherent but background figures. There is subtle tension between agrarian and nomadic communities. Spycraft is ubiquitous. People get eaten up by systems they don’t fully understand.

I’m not saying you need to get a PhD in whatever topic you’re writing about, but you need to be somewhat familiar with it. Write down a list of all your themes and come up with an action plan to learn more about them.

At least read some nonfiction books on the subject. Take a free course online. Consider how this can make your work deeper.

Everyday life and relationships can provide valuable intel for your books.

And lastly, here’s something accessible to everyone. The subtle sensory details you infuse in your books can provide incredible richness that can’t be faked.

For example, have you ever noticed how when it’s extremely cold, you can hear snowflakes falling? They tinkle a little bit. Having lived in the Midwest my whole life, I’m highly familiar with this. Or when leaves are turning and some of them are halfway green, halfway red.

Consider how people don’t say what they really mean most of the time. Half of conversations are just people sliding across one another, both trying not to share too much. There is plentiful shorthand we use to avoid talking about serious issues, as I discussed in my avoiding therapy speak post.

Or think about all the ways people say “I love you” without saying it, whether that’s making someone their favorite meal or promising to be back soon. These moments are far more impactful than simply saying “I love you” all the time, as that tends to lose its polish after a while.

Consider the ways you can tell someone has a crush on you but won’t say anything, and how you encourage or avoid the subject.

Again, these are things that sort of need to be experienced; textual knowledge can’t suffice. If you want someone to feel the feelings in your book, you need to feel them first.

This is another reason why I caution people from debuting too early – unless you’re leaning toward YA. I would argue it becomes more difficult to write YA the further you get into adulthood because it’s hard to embody that feeling unless you have a bunch of teens in your life. Things get foggy and confused with your adult feelings over time.

There are few things I hate more than being burned by a book I was excited to read. It genuinely stings. Perhaps people have experienced that with my books, too, but I would hope not.

If you do not know what you are talking about on a deep level, you will burn some readers, and they won’t want to read anything else you produce. I will not be reading any further books by that above mentioned author because I recognize she isn’t willing to delve into her subject matter.

Writing is hard. I wouldn’t have over 140 blog posts on this website if writing were easy and anyone could do it. Mastering the craft doesn’t just take time writing and practicing, but also time learning and experiencing a plethora of other things that can inform your work.

At a certain level, writing is no longer a hobby or occupation but a lifestyle, one that requires consistent, sustained focus. I have dedicated my entire life to it. Maybe some don’t want to do that, and that’s reasonable, but the commitment is what creates high-quality products. Not something that will disappoint the very people you wanted to woo.