RACHAEL STAPLETON

Have you heard of online pitch parties? Many take place on Twitter. If you haven't then you may need to crawl out from under your pile of manuscripts. That is if you want to get your novel in front of actual agents and editors. There was definitely no shortage of great pitches flying through the Twittersphere yesterday thanks to Dan Koboldt who hosted the #SFFpit contest for works of fantasy and science fiction. For those of you living under your desk. You "pitch" your book in 140 characters... and you thought writing a book was tough--wait til you try and whittle it down to just the hook. Lurking behind the scenes are agents and editors. If an editor or agent likes your pitch, they will favourite it with the little yellow star button. Based on their instructions, you send a query with a partial/full/synopsis, whatever they want. Here are a few of the different styles of successful pitches that not only won me the invitation to query but eventually led to re...

Since time travel seems to be a common thread in my writing, I thought it would be a fun to have an intelligent conversation about it. Just kidding. I'm no expert. Of course philosophers, physicists, and people all smarter than me have put forth a number of viewpoints; from the idea that history cannot be changed to the notion that it would create a paradox thus by destroying the universe. These are all very deep concepts that as a highly professional writer I researched—and by researched I mean Googled, read and considered for all of 10 seconds before my brain cried out in piercing agony. This left me to create a time-travel story based on my own warped imagination. And of course in my opinion to do time travel right, you need some version of the age old time machine. Doc Brown had the DeLorean. Diana Gabbaldon had the stones. And Sophia? She has the Purple Delhi Sapphire. Voila! No explanation necessary.  This is the mysterious stone here. Changing the look of it was a must...

Are you a dreamer? I am. According to psychologists, everyone dreams—sometimes five times a night and more than half of us dream about work once a week. I dream constantly and in fact I get some of my best characters and plot twists in my slumber so I love dreaming about my work. I recently visited a Psychic Medium in the Durham Region for research purposes and found out that one of my spirit guides is a character from my last book: Rochus—the 19th century alchemist who I thought I had dreamed up. Apparently he helps me with my writing and decided to give himself a cameo—I thought that was pretty neat. She told me spirit guides are always with you and will most likely reach out to contact you in your dreams. All you have to do is ask! In fact, chances are you’ve already had some contact with your guides in your dream life and just haven’t recognized it. Think about it. Have you ever had a “stranger” who felt familiar to you visit you in your dreams? If you’re interested—t...

You're running through the forest. You can barely make out the branches as you weave your way through the fog. The only sound you hear aside from the ringing in your ears is your own labored breathing. You look behind—to see if the homicidal maniac is still chasing you—with his sharp pointy dagger but he’s disappeared. Relief floods your nervous system as you swivel your head back to the front -- just in time to watch as he steps out from behind the tree directly to your left. You trip… Who hasn’t read or watched a thriller like this and maybe had a scary dream or two about it, but what if this was your reality? What if your soul was tied to an evil spirit? How far would you go to get away? Would you travel through time into your past lives if you were given the option – back to the beginning to hunt the hunter? That’s the dilemma Sophia Marcil faces. Cursed by a magical family heirloom, she is destined to be murdered in each life by someone close to her. Her only hope to bea...