Chelsie Derman

@chelsiewrites.bsky.social

✍️ low fantasy/magical realism/ sci-fi writer. 23. ✨Revising my YA Sci-fi

🎻Two women, each with different deals to the same god. Both on the same mission to steal a legendary violin out of a museum. But while one recognizes the price of failure, the other does not understand consequences. Can they sort out their differences before midsummer's end? #WSPit #WSPitQ #A #F #ND

Moodboard featuring four photos: 
Bottom left: view of a museum second floor. museum has columns and arches in the architecture. 
Left: closeup of a violin as someone plays it. 
Top right: Violin sitting on a dark surface. 
Bottom right: artistic music staff with notes. 
On the right is a color palette in browns ranging from dark to light. 
A sticky note in the bottom right says: Finn's Fiddle

My thread of pitches for #WSPit #WSpitQ #A #F #R

J. Sydney Zaruba ✨is querying ✨@jsydneyzaruba.bsky.social · 2y ago

Society said to sit down and shut up, so she became a privateer, joining the revolution. #WSPit #WSPitQ #A #F #R 🧡Lovers to Enemies ⚔️Swashbuckling Adventure 🧙‍♀️Witches & Faerie Folk ⚔️Overthrowing the Patriarchy 🏰 Castles & Pubs ⚔️ Based on the War of 1812 Vibe: Pirates of the Caribbean meets Poldark





Beduäfan - a 95k word fantasy novel
💪 Strong Willed FMC
⚔️ Swashbuckling adventure
🖤 Love triangle
🫂 Found family 
🗡️War & Social Revolution
📖 Historical Allegory
🏰 Castles, taverns & pubs
🏴‍☠️ Pirates
✨ Unique Magic System
🌍 Unique fantasy world
✨ Magical Transformation

🖤 Manor With a Mind 📖 Cryptic Diary 💀 Generational Blood Curse 🕯 Gaslight, Gatekeep, Ghosts 🏚 Slow-burn 🖋 Arranged? Lovers? Ghostly Trauma Bonding? 🔥 If the House Doesn’t Kill You, Love Might 🕰 1919 but Make It Haunted ⚰ Who Needs a Dowry When You Have a Death Curse? #WSPit #WSPitQ #A #H #P #Hi #M

A moodboard for The Last Heir of Bradbury Manor. It shows a spooky staircase, a decayed living room, a girl climbing out of a well, a book on fire, a lovely Victorian garden party, and a gothic dinner. There is the phrase "Breaking the curse means losing him forever. Embracing it may damn her soul"The comps for The Last Heir of Bradbury Manor

The House at Watch Hill with its dark inheritance and family secrets

The Hacienda with its unresolved grief, psychological unraveling, an supernatural dread

Crimson Peak with its decaying grandeur, gothic vibes, and betrayed loveThe pitch for The Last Heir of Bradbury Manor: 

This 96,000-word story set in 1919 blends the psychological unraveling and creeping dread of THE HACIENDA with the sentient, menacing estate of STARLING HOUSE. Perfect for readers who love haunted legacies, doomed romance, and houses that refuse to let go.

A dying estate. A bankrupt legacy. A suitor offering salvation or a love that could destroy her. A mother’s death shrouded in mystery. A father she can’t trust. A blood curse feeding the manor’s hunger.

Lottie Bradbury must face it all.

Summoned home after a decade at boarding school, Lottie is given an ultimatum: marry the man her father has chosen or face ruin. But when the gardener is found dead on the manor steps, she is drawn into a web of long-buried secrets. His son, Arthur, insists the estate itself is to blame—and that her mother’s sudden death was no accident.

Guided by her mother’s chilling diary, Lottie and Arthur uncover an ancient curse that doomed generations of Bradbury patriarchs to die after the birth of their heir. All except her father. The deeper they dig, the more the curse retaliates, twisting reality, conjuring the dead, and unraveling Lottie’s sanity.

But Arthur has secrets of his own. The closer Lottie gets to him, the stronger the curse’s grip tightens. Because Arthur isn’t just tied to Bradbury Manor. He’s bound to it.

Breaking the curse means losing him forever. Embracing it may damn her soul.

All summers end, but one did terribly... Teenage lust or the one that got away? Two exes reunite for a wedding ten years after family drama and a fatal accident tore them apart. She broke his heart & wants him back. He doesn't trust her, but maybe she shouldn't trust him either. #WSPitQ #A #R #wspit

An Agent’s Guide to
None of This Was Real
Adult Contemporary Romance
83,000 wordsThe Pitch
Was he the one who got away or was it just teenage lust? Two exes reunite for a wedding ten years after family drama and a fatal accident tore them apart. 

 She broke his heart. She wants him back. He doesn't trust her. Maybe she shouldn't trust him either.Comps
Every Summer After
Seven Summers
How to Hide in Plain Sight
Happy Placetrope board
Set in Quebec
Second-chance 
romance
Open-door romance (3/5 heat level)
Flawed characters who learn from their pasts
2010s nostalgia
Summer and winter romance
Dual timelines
Complex family drama
Will they, won’t they?
Characters who communicate

ARCANE x THE BLADE ITSELF Shadow of the Elders: Three people cast apart by fate. Each step they take drives them further apart and plunges the world into chaos. Can they find each other before they perish or will evil forces use them to break the world forever? 🗡️ 🩸 🌲 #WSPit #WSPitW #F #A

BildBild

GIDEON THE NINTH x FFXIV When magicless Mick agrees to go adventuring with his mage bff(/crush) Eleanor, the last thing he expects is to be stuck a dragon and bound to the gods' dead adversary. Now he and Eleanor must restore Mick's humanity, before his existence triggers a war. #WSPit #WSPitW #F #R

Moodboard of eight images.
Top left: A figure plays a violin in a dark room. The image is shot in such a way that only the violin and one of the player's hands is visible.
Center left: A man stands in darkness; his head is on fire.
Bottom left: A wireframe of a dragon against a bright orange background
Top/mid center: Alphonse Mucha's Emerald, featuring a woman staring intensely at the viewer as she leans against the head of a snarling serpent. A white line is drawn straight through the image to neatly divide the woman's head from the serpent's.
Bottom center: The Lovers, from the Art Nouveau Tarot deck, featuring a couple just about to kiss. The card is lying on a white space, surrounded by red/white roses.
Top right: A figure in white robes wanders through a very green forest.
Center right: A bolt of lightning arcs above a mountain range in a very violet sky.
Bottom right: A black hole swirls in a sea of violet stars and nebulae.