Once Upon A Time... a mini rant

Strange Girl Book Reviews

“The scariest part of indie writing isn't marketing or sales. It's trusting your imagination when no one else has validated it yet. Remember that every epic started as a whisper someone dared to put on paper. Your "once upon a time" is enough. Start there.”

— Anonymous X user

‘There was no story with a [insert quirky twist] wizard, so I had to write my own.’ Wow. Revolutionary.

Or how about: ‘My dragon spits ice instead of fire. Fresh, right?’ Sure, buddy. Groundbreaking.

Most indie fantasy writers are still trapped in the same comfortable bubble—repackaging the same three-act redemption arc, the same chosen-one (who doesn't want to be chosen until the plot demands they do) tropes, the same safe emotional beats—while patting themselves on the back for surface-level window dressing.

They call it innovation. The rest of us call it creative cowardice.

But what if the real work of fantasy isn’t ticking off checklist differences? What if it is… chasing the stories that actually hurt to tell, even?

Once Upon a Time…

Here’s the harder, quieter truth that rarely gets said out loud: True imagination is what fiction—especially indie fiction—seems to be starving for right now. We have more writers than ever. More tools, more platforms, more “you can do this” encouragement. Yet so many stories feel like they were written inside the same room with the doors locked and the windows painted over. The same power systems. The same brooding love interests with the same trauma arcs. The same “chosen one who doesn’t want to be chosen” beats. The same aesthetic mood boards pulled straight from the current trending BookTok or bestseller list. Even writers who proudly call themselves indie are often operating inside a bubble they didn’t choose but also never questioned. The bubble is made of what the algorithm rewards, what sells in their genre right now, what their critique partners and ARC readers already expect, what feels “relatable” or “marketable.” It’s comfortable. It’s safe. It gets likes and (some) pre-orders. The real tragedy isn’t that the bubble exists.

The tragedy is that most writers inside it genuinely believe they’re being imaginative. They don’t see the walls because every voice around them is echoing the same thing. They mistake variation for originality. They think adding a new magic system or swapping the gender of the love interest is breaking new ground, when they’re still painting inside the lines someone else drew years ago.

The real first step should be admitting the “bubble” even exists. Most of us grew up swimming in the same cultural waters: the same blockbuster plots, the same viral tropes, the same algorithmic recommendations, the same critique groups praising what already sells. When that’s all you’ve ever known, stepping outside doesn’t feel like freedom at first — it feels like drowning. You don’t have ready-made maps. The voices in your head keep pulling you back toward what’s proven. That’s only human. But demanding more of ourselves starts right there: with the honest admission that we’re in it. Only then can we begin the harder, slower work of asking the questions that actually hurt: What human ache have I never seen named? What quiet contradiction in the soul has no neat three-act redemption yet? What truth feels too strange or too personal to pitch in a single sentence? It is hard. Some days it’s terrifying. But that discomfort is the signal you’ve finally left the bubble. And that’s exactly where the next stories worth remembering are waiting to be written.

We don’t need more competent remixes. We need writers brave enough to admit the walls were there, and then brave enough to walk through them anyway.

Real imagination doesn’t ask for a trend report first. It doesn’t check what’s working on Amazon or what readers are “asking for.” It shows up as something slightly off, slightly uncomfortable, slightly unclassifiable. It might not have a neat comp title. It might not slot neatly into a sub-genre. It might even make early readers say, “I don’t know what this is.” That uncertainty is exactly why it’s terrifying. And that’s also why it’s necessary. The stories that eventually become the next generation’s classics won’t come from people who got really good at coloring inside the current bubble. They’ll come from the ones who were willing to sit in the dark with their own strange, unvalidated whisper and keep writing anyway.

If you’re an indie writer right now and something in you keeps pulling toward an idea that feels too weird, too personal, too “no one’s asking for this”… listen to it. That discomfort might be the first sign you’ve found the door out of the bubble.

Your “once upon a time” doesn’t need permission. It just needs you to write it before the noise tells you it’s not worth it.

👊💜