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Rob Mortell Interview - Indie Author - Fantasy
Description
Dozens of agent queries, mostly form rejections. So he took his fantasy novel to Substack.
We sit down with Rob Mortell, author of the indie fantasy TALES & TREASURE, for a full author interview.
Rob explains how a quirky bard named Vatis, a bards guild, and bard tourneys became the spine of a four-year discovery-writing project. We get into soft magic versus Sanderson-style hard magic, a haunted Fangorn-style forest he invented mid-draft, why he wants fewer morally gray protagonists, and why he can't stand first-person present tense.
Then the publishing side: six months of querying, serializing the finished book chapter by chapter, releasing a lost prologue and cut bard stories, and what changes in book two, BARDS & BARGAINS: three POVs and a more traditional plot.
Rob Mortell
Book: https://a.co/d/5yYruJV
Website: https://storiesofemre.com/
Substack: https://robmortell.substack.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/robmortellwrites/
- (00:00) - Intro: Meet Indie Author Rob Mortell
- (01:15) - From Dr. Seuss to the Quirky Bard
- (04:06) - Book It and Becoming a Storyteller
- (05:31) - Why Stories Make Us Human
- (08:40) - From Sports Journalism to Fiction
- (10:02) - Bards Guilds and Bard Tourneys
- (12:18) - Putting Himself in the Antagonist
- (14:22) - Is Magic Real? Soft vs. Hard Magic
- (15:52) - Side Quest: Are Dragons Real?
- (17:52) - Pantsing and Stories That Never Stuck
- (21:36) - The Fantasy Trope He's Tired Of
- (24:29) - Keeping Characters Fresh
- (25:47) - Overrated Writing Advice
- (29:59) - When the Author Steers the Story
- (32:50) - How a New Character Is Born
- (34:57) - Why He Hates First Person Present
- (36:49) - Querying Agents and Handling Rejection
- (42:01) - Finding a Writing Group
- (44:02) - The Indie Author Community
- (45:23) - Serializing a Novel on Substack
- (48:43) - The Lost Prologue and Cut Chapters
- (50:11) - What's Coming in Bards and Bargains
- (52:27) - Life After the Trilogy
- (55:02) - His Biggest Flaw as a Writer
- (57:04) - Indie Authors Worth Reading
- (59:26) - Where to Find Rob Mortell
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Hosts: Slava and Jonathan
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Music: HoliznaCC0
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