Tessera

M.E. Ulleland @meulleland.bsky.social · last mo.

Writers don't we need more punctuation options? I propose a fancy m-dash: ~ Perhaps to indicate lying or half-truths? #amwriting #writingcommunity

Randy Orton Punctuation Shock Meme

ALT: Randy Orton Punctuation Shock Meme

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M.E. Ulleland @meulleland.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Finished a first draft in two weeks. The obsession is real. #Amwriting #Obsessed

Ace Ventura Obsess Much Meme

ALT: Ace Ventura Obsess Much Meme

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M.E. Ulleland @meulleland.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Temporal Fallout: 🕰️Friends Turned Enemies 🕰️Antihero Villain 🕰️Tragic hero 🕰️Timeline Rewriting 🕰️Stranded in Time - Found Family 🕰️Undercover Betrayal 🕰️Time Travel Requires Sacrifice #Questpit #Q #A #U #S #T

M.E. Ulleland @meulleland.bsky.social · 3mo ago

#Questpit #Q #A #U #S #T

M.E. Ulleland @meulleland.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Betrayed by Blackcroft, Hawk hunts his former friend through the centuries to stop him from changing their timeline—but as lives are saved and wars dissolve, Hawk begins falling for the dangerous idea of Blackcroft's utopia. #Questpit #Q #A #U #S #T

Gert Ramm 🦋@rammwriter.bsky.social · 3mo ago

The UK government frames an intelligence agent for a temporal disaster, putting him in the crosshairs of ruthless state assassins. To save his skin he must seal a lethal time rift, before a Russian spy from the future uses its secrets to start a war that will destroy everything. #QuestPit #Q #A #SF

Florrie Auclair - Querying and Drafting @florrienne.bsky.social · 3mo ago

ARRIVAL X PARKS & REC A burnt-out lawyer escapes Earth expecting to build humanity's future, only to discover first contact is just another office job—with stranger coworkers, messier politics, and exponentially more paperwork ✨ Monet Inspired Planet ✨ Flirty Bi Alien ML #QuestPit #Q #A #SF #R

An Agent’s Guide to MEETING OF HONESTY by Florrie Auclair

A 100K romantic science-fiction novel

Title slide shows two characters in a romantic dip: an angry human woman in modern clothes and an alien man with flowing, iridescent hair against a soft pink gradient

Pitch Slide:
First contact has more paperwork than Gloria ever imagined.

When aliens arrive on the same planet Gloria's crew intend to colonize, of course they want the same land: the Sunny Spot, the only area with enough light to grow crops with a unique biome. But their territory dispute is moot if a toxic moss ravages it first. Gloria must now facilitate first contact and work with Emeric, the charming alien leader, to manage their shared collaboration.

From alien strangers to bickering rivals, Gloria finds herself developing feelings for Emeric. Until secrets shatter their growing bond. Now she must weaponize bureaucratic red tape and enlist the help of her crew to negotiate—but it means coming clean about her own secrets. At the risk of losing the only people she cares about (including the alien causing her problems), Gloria must be honest with them—and herself—to ensure humanity has a home and its autonomy.

Comp Slide:
The Left Hand of Darkness
Arrival
Parks & Recreation
I Was a Teenage Exocolonist
Translation State
Overruled

With the text: diverse cast, examination of cultural values, alien diplomacy & communication, bureaucratic satire, lush colony planet, legal conflicts, workplace rivals-to-lovers, and prickly FMC

Excerpt Slide

Image of Gloria, a human woman wearing business clothes with a clipboard obscuring the bottom half of her face

Text:
His other hand pointed to their adjoined palms. Beginning at their pinkie fingers, he bounced to the next digit and enunciated a new, unintelligible word. Each finger anointed until reaching her thumb. This was the oddest difference between their hands; his was longer with an extra joint. Clarity crashed into her. Her inhale sharpened.

Five fingers.

Across the universe, she met a new lifeform and they both had five fingers on each hand.

"Oh my god," Gloria breathed. Ironically, it was their shared features that overwhelmed her. Comfort should accompany commonality, but instead, it made this fever dream of an experience harder to deny. It was tangible that she was standing here with a bipedal humanoid with five fingers, even if his skin was blue and he had rainbow hair and feathery moth antennae. Either she was going to start laughing hysterically or throw up.

Warble, the alien agreed (she had no idea if that was an affirmative).

Catherine Winters @catherinewinters.com · 3mo ago

Nia Moredi just wants to look out for her little brother. Miss Laval needs to attend a governess-teacher meeting. Baarsin Dorvierre's being watched. Pickpocket Wren needs to recharge her misdirection charm. If only Nia could remember which of them she's supposed to be today. #QuestPit #YA #F #LGBT

A Pickpocket's Guide to High Society
(And Higher Mathematics)

YA Fantasy 80K words
Catherine Winters dot com

Against a subtly textured background of mathematical formulae and a hexagonal summoning grid feature a collection of intriguing objects:

The outstretched hand of some mechanical clockwork automaton made of white porcelain.
A purple and gold masquerade mask.
A set of brass architect's tools: a compass, a protractor, calipers.
A set of gears laid out, pulled from some kind of mechanism.

The Pitch
When she picks the wrong pocket, sixteen-year-old Nia unlocks a magical talent she didn’t know she had and catches the attention of people she doesn't want to know. Blackmailed into stealing a mysterious box, Nia accidentally awakens a living clockwork doll—that promptly runs away.

Accused of betraying the blackmailers, Nia and her band of would-be thieves go on the run, pursued by magehunters, street gangs, and the secret police.

When the doll returns to make a deal, Nia turns to the man whose lucky coin unlocked her magic, only to find him missing. Caught in a lie, Nia’s soon posing as an heiress, in the clutches of the man’s elderly landlady—who's intent on introducing the girl she knows as “Baarsin” to high society.

As Nia finds herself disappearing into the role, she and her friends must race against time to track down the people behind it all: a secret society of mathematicians whose influence reaches all the way to the governor herself.

Excerpt
Caz tensed. “There’s someone following us,” she hissed.
“I know,” Nia said. The man had been tailing them through the crowd for almost six blocks now. “He won’t be the only one.” She tugged Caz into the empty foyer of a boarding house and pulled out her misdirection charm. “Take my hand and stay quiet!”
“That won’t work on me,” Caz protested.
“No,” Nia said, willing herself to believe. “I can do this.” With all her strength, she pushed more of herself into the charm, the equation unfolding in her mind’s eye. She reached out, and as the world darkened around them, turned the doorknob, Caz clutching her arm. Nia pulled the taller girl close as the man pushed past them, failing to notice the door was already opening.
On the busy sidewalk, Caz let out a breath. A small boy leaning against a nearby lamppost glanced in their direction, an uncertain expression on his young face.
Caz cringed. “Sorry!” she mouthed.

Comps & Tropes
Includes the covers of four books:

Never Ever After by Sue Lynn Tan
Den of Liars by Jessica S. Olsen
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo's
Beyond the Black Door by A.M. Strickland

"Tropes" is loosely used here and includes:
Stealing is magical (literally)
Fish out of water (you probably guessed)
Working for the wrong people
Ancient magic (in over their heads)
The MacGuffin is blackmailing us
"Aren't you a little young to be a criminal?"
Metaphorically dyslexic LI (she's also dyslexic)
Creepy clockwork doll that complains all the time
Good at magic, as long as she has a compass & protractor
Grifter vs. con artist
Sword lesbian (in training)
Lying (a lot)
Found family of scoundrels
Ace protagonist (who hasn't had time to think about that)
One big job and then we can retire (oh no, somehow everything went wrong)
Let's break into a data centre!
No chosen ones, no choosing ceremonies, just hard work and practice.

M.E. Ulleland @meulleland.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Temporal Fallout: 🕰️Friends Turned Enemies 🕰️Antihero Villain 🕰️Tragic hero 🕰️Timeline Rewriting 🕰️Stranded in Time - Found Family 🕰️Undercover Betrayal 🕰️Time Travel Requires Sacrifice #Questpit #Q #A #U #S #T

M.E. Ulleland @meulleland.bsky.social · 3mo ago

#Questpit #Q #A #U #S #T

M.E. Ulleland @meulleland.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Betrayed by Blackcroft, Hawk hunts his former friend through the centuries to stop him from changing their timeline—but as lives are saved and wars dissolve, Hawk begins falling for the dangerous idea of Blackcroft's utopia. #Questpit #Q #A #U #S #T

Catherine Winters @catherinewinters.com · 3mo ago

When she picks the wrong pocket, Nia unlocks a magical talent she didn’t know she had. Now she’s posing as an heiress, a con man’s gone missing, and Nia and her band of would-be thieves are on the run from magehunters, mathematicians, and the governor herself. #BluePit #YA #F #LGBT #W #BluePit📖

A mood board of eight tiles and a centre square with lockpicking tools and ancient writing:
1. Always have an escape plan.
2. A swindler never lets herself feel like a fraud.
3. Don't look for the easy grab, look for the easy mark.
4. Never get involved with golems.

The pictures depict, clockwise from upper right:
A) A city of canals and towering footbridges. There are minarets and steeples and red-tiled roofs.
B) A market selling elaborate lanterns, all aglow.
C) A porcelain and gold hand, reaching upwards.
D) Two figures leaping across rooftops against the coming dawn.
E) A pocketwatch--or is it? Constellations and continents cover the front, the body of the watch engraved with runes. It's sitting on ancient parchment.
F) A wax stamp with removable chits that function as coins in a card game.
G) The lords of the city overlooking grand canals and issuing edicts. They are dressed in fine red robes and silks.
H) Assorted bones and shells used for divination and more.

PJ (he/him) is querying...@pjwrites.bsky.social · 3mo ago

PROJECT BONES After being accused of inviting the plague into a royal summit, a necromancer priest has to work with his only alibi, a cagey nobleman, to clear his name. 🦴 Death magic 🏰 Locked-castle mystery 🕯️ Medieval fantasy 🏹 Robin Hood trope 🏳️‍🌈 MM romance #BluePit #📖 #W #A #F #LGBT #DIS

A moodboard containing imagery of ghosts, bones, foxes, the night sky, and a palace. The title says "PROJECT BONES."

PITCH

Necromancer Nevell of Farlay cannot die, not since surviving the plague as a youth. Now he works as a priest to the god-king, summoned to protect His Majesty during the plague season. But when a mysterious spirit is sighted and nobleman is found dead, Nevell’s reputation gets called into question. His only alibi is the cagey, annoyingly handsome Lord Hargrave, whose reluctance to help Nevell clear his name threatens Nevell’s clergy rank—the only thing protecting his home from the horrors of the plague.

EXCERPT

“Have you no sense?” Nevell stepped between the man and the dying girl’s bed. His magic persisted, but the man carried a lantern that brought too much light into the room, threatening to wash out the spell. “A priest is at work. You should not be here.”

The man paid him no mind, instead peering over Nevell’s shoulder. “I’ve been called senseless before,” he said, speaking with the same grace his attire implied. “Is she…?”

“Dead? Nearly. The spirits are about her. You may have let them out.”

“Her mother has tended to her since this morn.” The man still didn’t look at Nevell. “The spirits will have fled already, if they intended to.”

“Spirits often lack intention.”

“You would know best.” The man took a few steps toward the bed, only stopping when Nevell grabbed his shoulder. He tried to shrug out of the grip, but Nevell held fast. “Father, we can save her—”

“Nay,” Nevell said. “She’s gone.”

INSPIRATION

This image contains inspirations for this WIP, including:

A serious of T. Kingfisher books ("A Sorceress Comes to Call," "Nettle & Bone," and "Hemlock & Silver) labeled "T. KIngfisher's horror-fantasy blend.

A picture of Robin Hood from Disney's Robin Hood, labeled as such.

An image of a necromancer with skeletons from Bioware 4 labeled as "The Country Nevarra from Dragon Age 4."

"The Tainted Cup" by Robert Jackson Bennett, "The Gentleman and his Vowsmith" by Rebecca Ide, and "Green & Deadly Things" by Jenn Lyons, all labeled as "potential comps."

Millie Abecassis @millieabecassis.com · 3mo ago

JANE EYRE x STARLING HOUSE 🌹 Historical fantasy 🇫🇷 France, Belle Époque 🩸 Body-based magic system 🗡️ Family feuds 🗝️ Gothic vibes A LEGACY OF BLOOD AND BONE offers a unique magic system and swooning sapphic romance. Available in ebook and audiobook 🎧 #BluePit #📖 #P #A #F #HS #LGBT

Cover of the audiobook version of A LEGACY OF BLOOD AND BONE by Millie Abecassis, showing the silhouette of a woman over a red and gold background.

Tylor E Kunkle @tylorkunkle.bsky.social · 3mo ago

🍂 THE VAGRANT OF AMBERWEALD 🍂 When hobo deer wizard Edwin Batcher discovers that the forest is under attack by a parasitic force, he embarks on a quest to stop it. But to save his forest home, he'll have to brave its darkest depths, and the village that abandoned him. #BluePit #📖 #W #F #A #LGBT

An aesthetic board for the plot of The Vagrant of Amberweald. Featuring the images of:
A rustic medieval town nestled at the base of a mountain
Herbs and bottles
The silhouette of a deer against a misty autumn forest
A man in a poncho looking up at a forest
A misty autumn forest
A pair of adventures hiking down a hill
An animal skull under a rotting log
A dark, spooky, misty forest with a long figure facing a trail

PJ (he/him) is querying...@pjwrites.bsky.social · 3mo ago

THE EVERWINTER KING Desperate to find his missing sun god, a former holy king returns home to compete in trials meant to bring his god back, and stop the onslaught of an endless winter. 🏳️‍🌈 Queer norm world ☀️ Light-based magic 🏳️‍⚧️ Trans love interest 👑 Hidden royalty #BluePit #📖 #Q #A #F #LGBT #DIS

Title page for an agent's guide to THE EVERWINTER KING. The title is placed over a moodboard featuring a Mediterranean inspired setting and royalty imagery. In addition to the title the page reads "Adult Fantasy Standalone. Queer normative world. MM romance subplot. 99,000 words."

THE EVERWINTER KING's pitch.

PITCH
A former holy king does the one thing he swore he’d never do in search of his missing god. He goes home.

Malachi was born with God’s voice in his head. When God vanishes in the midst of a decade-long winter, Mal breaks the oath he made to himself and returns to the home he abandoned—the city where he was raised to be king. There, he’s marked to compete in trials meant to select God’s new emissary. His replacement.

After succeeding in the first trial, Mal demands entry to the royal temple, where he learns the skies are empty. God has stopped speaking to his priests and Mal alike. With no other avenue for answers, Mal must win the competition for God’s favor and assume the throne he never wanted, or risk losing his oldest friend for good and damning the world to a worsening everwinter.

An excerpt from THE EVERWINTER KING. Next to the excerpt is character art of the main character. He has light bright skin, dark brown hair, facial hair, and a simple jerkin over white shirt. His eye is glowing like the sun.

EXCERPT STARTS BELOW

“My head hurts,” Malachi mumbled into his drink.

“They say King Ridaris’ eye glowed like this.”

Did they? Malachi shuffled through his memories for any mention of that from his mothers, or the history books, and found nothing.

“I think it means God knows who you are.” Sen lowered her voice, eyes shifting toward the surrounding priests. Kinder to pretend she did it out of concern for his headache. “You need to be careful.”

“Aye.”

“It hasn’t stopped glowing. Everyone else’s did.”

He raised a hand to cover his eye, pausing to marvel at the light pouring over his fingers and palm. It spilled into every crack, crevice, and scar his hand had to offer, like liquid pooled against his skin. Malachi closed his fist around the cold light and pressed it to his face. “Hurts.”

“Close your eyes,” Samara offered. “Rest. We’ll handle it from here.”

For once, he did just that.

A page listing comp titles.

Comp titles for THE EVERWINTER KING include: "The Raven Scholar" by Antonia Hodgson, "The Raven Tower" by Ann Leckie, "WITCH KING" by Martha Wells, and "The Red Winter" by Cameron Sullivan.

Similarities include: godly shenanigans, political trials, queer-norm worlds, queer male leads, messy homecomings, and a second chance subplot.

Bonus comp! Dragon Age 2.

K.A. Hela ✨ Finally Querying✨@jundlife.bsky.social · 3mo ago

THE EXORCIST X DONNIE DARKO Chris is plagued with seeing shadow people, but an encounter with a powerful Eldritch being known as The Hatman, leaves him possessed and desperate to exorcise the entity attached to him before he loses control and becomes a demon himself. #BluePit #H #Q #📖

'Hat' - 81K, Cosmic Horror Querying Soon.
Pitch: Chris is obsessed with light and nature's patterns after a Shadow Person nearly killed him as a child. He tries to focus on important things, like finding a way to get his goth girl crush Mel to share a joint or two. Until the Hatman. He imbues Chris with his essence, bonding them. If Chris was haunted by Shadows before, now he is possessed.
Tropes: 2000's set
Spooky New ENgland
Amature Witchcraft
Nature, moon stuff, Stoner Goths
nu-Metal Playlist
Comps - The Possession of Alba Diaz. Slewfoot. Backrooms

M.E. Ulleland @meulleland.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Good morning #Bluepit An agent's guide to Temporal Fallout #Bluepit #📖 #A #U #SF #Q

M.E. Ulleland @meulleland.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Good morning #Bluepit Thrilled to share my first post of my upmarket time travel thriller: Temporal Fallout #Bluepit #📖 #A #U #SF #Q

M.E. Ulleland @meulleland.bsky.social · 3mo ago

#Moodboard for my #Upmarket #Timetravel #Thriller #Querying #Litagents

M.E. Ulleland @meulleland.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Betrayed by Blackcroft, Hawk hunts his former friend through the centuries to stop him from changing their timeline—but as lives are saved and wars dissolve, Hawk begins falling for the dangerous idea of Blackcroft's utopia. #Agentsguide #Querying #UpmarketFiction #SciFi #LitAgent

M.E. Ulleland @meulleland.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Currently reading: Doomsday Book: A novel of the Oxford Time Travel series by Connie Willis

M.E. Ulleland @meulleland.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Anyone else feel like the pitches get buried inside the agent guides when you have to click to read, while the text only pitches disappear between all the agent guides? What if we merged the two? A single image agent guide pitch? #Questpit

M.E. Ulleland @meulleland.bsky.social · 5mo ago

A reluctant operative must lead his team through a series of heists to regain the memories their handler erased—but as the system tightenes its control, he begins to suspect they have no intention of letting him remember who he was. Cyberpunk 2077:No_coincidence X Severance #Questpit #WIP #U #S

M.E. Ulleland @meulleland.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Betrayed by Blackcroft, Hawk hunts his former friend through the centuries to stop him from rewriting their timeline—but as lives are saved and wars dissolve, Hawk begins falling for the dangerous idea of Blackcroft's utopia. The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August X Recursion #Questpit #Q #U #S