Tanya Lisle

  • I always like helping people figure out how to write stories and how to put their narratives together in a cohesive way. And I’ve also had a surprising amount of time on my hands lately, so I made a thing!

    The Storyteller’s Workbook is a journal designed to help you to plan and write your novel with simple worksheets for characters, setting, plots, and writing session tracking. However you plot and plan your stories, this workbook has spreads that will work for you.

    This Journal Contains:

    • A table of contents that you can fill out for easy reference
    • Story planning spreads
    • Setting and location spreads
    • Character spreads
    • Writing session tracker
    Get The Storyteller’s Workbook

  • I know, it’s been a while on this one! I’ve been working hard to finish off the series and I’ve gotten a little distracted. My bad! But I finally have the title and cover more or less finalized for the next book!

    If there was one thing Alice was good at, it was lying.

    When Alice swears that she is done with Wonderland, Adrianna wants to believe she is telling the truth. Alice has stopped going to Wonderland, stopped vanishing at a whim, stopped ignoring her teachers in class. It’s like she’s a whole new girl, one that is ready to move on with her life and start working toward her future.

    But there are cracks appearing in the mirrors–and in Alice’s facade. There is more to that growing illness than she is letting on. But Adrianna has other problems, from Arthur blackmailing her into a relationship to her brother still being possessed. It’s only a matter of time before Wonderland comes knocking again, and someone will answer its call.

    Get the story so far on Amazon!

  • You guys know I love a good reimagining, and this one is Peter Pan! IN SPACE! I haven’t done a lot of science fiction lately, and it felt like it was calling to me. Like a transmission from deep space. Or my phone. One of the two of those.

    Fair warning, there’s spoilers in the footnotes this time around. You’ve been warned.

    The story focuses largely on Peter, a mechanic on the Jolly Roger who discovered that the dear Captain Hooke was a traitor and getting the ship stranded on a strange planet in an unexplored sector of the universe. While he and the Lost Boys that he rescued from the ship have learned to survive on the planet away from the remainder of Hooke’s crew, he eventually learns that Captain Hooke has gotten a transmission out, one that might cause problems and might also be their way off the planet of Neverland.

    This is when we meet Wendy, brightest of the Academy and recently promoted to Captain and given the mission to recover the renown Captain Hooke, who has been missing for 100 years. She and her crew, including Johns and Michael, make their way to the strange sector of the universe and promptly get stranded themselves.

    The story follows a very different pattern, with Peter helping Wendy and her crew so that he might be able to get home, and a fantastical element being brought in with the introduction of the Natives and the strange god that they must make a sacrifice to.

    I really liked the way it was done. There are a lot of nice nods and homages to the original story that you do really feel like you’re being brought into a version of Neverland, with very similar characters. The story still feels very unique, however, and it follows some of the patterns that I’ve gotten more comfortable with in Neverland retellings. ((The shadow as a bad guy, and Peter and Wendy falling for one another))

    I have my problems with the resolution, but it worked really nicely for the story and I assure you that it is not a problem that anyone else is going to have. ((Peter has fallen in love with Wendy and that’s what really saves the day. Which. Well.)) It didn’t take away from my enjoyment of the book, which is ultimately the most important thing.

    Overall, I really liked it and I’d say it’s definitely worth adding to my list of great retellings.

    Get Second Star on Amazon!

  • A while back, I did a reading for a podcast. Since I can’t find the podcast any longer, and I still have the audio, I thought I’d throw it up here! Let me know if you want me to do more of these and… I’ll probably keep doing more of them, honestly. It’s fun.

    Check out City Without Heroes

  • Magic can end up in the hands of anyone if they know where to look. Magical items litter the streets if you know where to look, and will work for anyone who happens upon them. While the Syndicate tries to keep them from falling into the wrong hands – or any hands at all – even they don`t know how many remain outside of the Evidence Locker at the back of the office.

    Evidence looks at the stories of some of the magical artifacts that the Syndicate has yet to track down. Wands and pendants often find their way into the possession of people who don’t fully understand their potential or the consequences of using them.

    The Evidence paperback is out at last! I’m slowly getting this whole series into print and I’m getting so close to done! For now, though, enjoy getting your very own paperback of my Canadian supernatural horror anthology series!

    Get Evidence Now!

  • Like my cat, characters can be a pain. When you don’t really want them to help you out, they force their way into whatever you’re working on. When you want them, they disappear on you for ages and you don’t know where they are until you hear them meowing at the bottom of the stairs pleading for you to come down to watch her eat.

    Okay, maybe that’s more my cat. 

    Where was I? Right. 

    Characters are strange beasts. And it can be really tricky to make sure that they come across as realistic people. One of the tricks I like to use to make a character feel more well rounded is to give them a habit of some sort that I can refer them to doing when they are stressed or bored. ((Because I write a lot of stressed characters)) Whether that’s tapping, becoming very still, or something else, they fall back to that action to reveal emotion. 

    I find that’s also a really good way to reveal character. The ways different people react to stress can show things like how they will then react to danger or imply how they will react when they are happy. Seeing the reaction show up in a scene can also show that a character is stressed without making it obvious to the perspective character. ((Which you know I love doing))

    And, well, it’s nice to be able to show that a character is bored in a scene without having to tell it. Small things can show a lot, I found, and it’s fun to figure out what kind of person a character is when they aren’t actively thrown into peril. 

    What sort of small things do you like reading that make a character feel more rounded? 

    Write Your Story: Unlock Your Creative Potential

    Are you ready to embark on a journey into the world of storytelling? Look no further! Introducing Write Your Story, a comprehensive resource designed to fuel your imagination, enhance your storytelling skills, and bring your characters to life. Whether you’re an aspiring writer, a seasoned author, or simply someone who loves crafting stories, this workbook is your ultimate companion.

    This Workbook Contains:

    • Story planning spreads
    • Setting and location spreads
    • Character spreads
    • Writing session tracker

  • I know, I haven’t announced when the next book is coming out yet even though I said I would. I’ve been having a personal life crisis and I don’t want to pick a date without knowing that I can hit it. I will say that tentatively April, though. And until then, I have a few books for you to check out to get you in the mood for the next release!

    Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

    Of course! Check out the original and see where the original ideas all came from! It’s a bit of a strange read, but very worthwhile! It’s remarkably both similar and different from a lot of the movie adaptations, and it’s fun to see where the original story went. 

    The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert

    Alice being a bit of a loner and being called to another world? Yep! Horror elements and questionable life choices? Check! A whole bunch of fairy tales that you didn’t really think belonged together but work surprisingly well in a single book? Bingo! 

    Every Heart a Doorway by Seannan McGuire

    I feel like this one is almost cheating with how similar it is. It follows a young girl going to a boarding school of other young girls who have all been to another world and are trying to either readjust to life in the real world or head back to their fantastical other realms. Also, it’s a lot of fun!

    Miss Mabel’s School for Girls by Katie Cross

    Bianca’s story of going to school to save her own life and the lives of her family from a cruel curse has echoes of a similar journey to it. Also, the universe is a little fun, though I would warn about that one chapter involving a cat for anyone sensitive to that. 

    Sawkill Girls by Clare Legrand

    I know this is a bit of a weird one, but this one has a very similar feel to it as the second half of The Looking Glass Saga. Each of the three girls has elements of Alice or Adrianna to them, and the demon definitely feels like some combination of the Bandersnatch and Cheshire Cat.

  • I’m finally reading again! It took a bit for me to get back into it, but I’ve made my list of books in my TBR and I’m going to start working through all of them. To start off, Graveyard Shift by Angela Roquet, a book I have two copies of with different covers because I have been meaning to read it for that long. 

    The story follows Lana, a reaper who is passable at her job. She was created as a reaper and it’s a fine way to make a living, even if the pay isn’t that good and she is more inclined to bend a few rules if she likes a soul than follow them to the letter. She’s a fun character, with the personality of someone who’s sunk into complacency but doesn’t really want to be there. And when she learns that she’s going to get a promotion ((Despite knowing full well she doesn’t deserve it)) she looks at it with suspicion rather than as an opportunity. 

    The promotion leads into the bigger story, to the quest from Grim, the first reaper who acts now as their boss, and learning that Lana isn’t all she thought she was. She gets put on a quest and has to navigate some political intrigue ((which she’s terrible at)) in order to find the right soul to keep Eternity from devolving into a civil war. 

    Overall, it’s a really interesting concept and I really liked the way the world worked as a whole. The idea is Eternity is where all souls go, and they are shuffled off into their respective afterlives by the reapers. Every possible historical afterlife, from Heaven and Hell to Nirvana are all real, and they need souls to maintain their power in Eternity. During the story, for example, the Egyptian realm has been losing power and Grim’s been shuffling more souls off to them to appease them. 

    The story worked really well to reveal how the universe worked. You get a good look at the political climate of the world, of what does and does not register to who as an issue, and the worldbuilding really does work well in the narrative. I’ll admit to being more enamoured by the universe over some of the subplots, ((Lana gets a boyfriend, but it’s not a focal point)) but the universe is just so much fun. 

    Also, Lana gets two giant hellhounds pups and I love those babies. 

    I would recommend checking it out. I really enjoyed the story, the world, and am thinking about checking out the next in the series. 

    Get it on Amazon!

  • It’s that time again to bring back the quotes roundup for the month! In case you don’t follow me on social media, these are the quotes that got posted this month! These are all from The Looking Glass Saga.

    Also, I tried to make a meme.

    I tried.

  • One of my fellow Wylde Wooders put out a comic a while ago and I’ve finally gotten a chance to check it out! It’s also been on my pile for far too long, so… 

    Halfsoul is… well, not fun. It’s honestly a little dark and kind of depressing in places. It’s a story about a group of people who hunt down people who have traded in half their soul for power and kill them for that. At least, on the surface that’s what’s happening. We start with an execution without knowing what they’ve done. Later, we meet a kid who is being bullied and whose immortality appears to be getting paid for my taking the lives of her bullies. And we learn that Tale, our main character, is not quite the whole soul that he seems. 

    It turns into a story about finding yourself and some of the darker sides of Tale. He’s the youngest and most resentful member of the group, and he’s got a bit of a complicated past. We learn that he’s lost his brother, his parents are dead, and his sister blames him for just about everything. Meanwhile, he’s grown up acting out, becoming a half soul, and ultimately dealing with depression that eventually took his brother. 

    It’s a pretty interesting read and I’d say its well worth it if you can find the artist and get it directly from her. meanwhile, I need to read the whole thing…

    Read it on Tapas or check out the paperback!

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