As of last month, YES, YOUR SERPENTINE EXCELLENCY is officially out in the world! And I’m actually publishing my author’s notes in a somewhat timely manner! What follows are some of the building blocks that contributed to its making. If you’re curious, read on!
(Mild spoiler alert, tho. If you haven’t read the book yet, maybe come back later.)
Origin
The story idea germinated somewhere in 2023. The organizers for the Once Upon A Prince multi-author series asked if I wanted to be part of their next collaboration, which centered around the Forced Proximity trope. Although I was in the throes of burnout, I’d enjoyed working with them before. So, I gave it some thought.
I got nothing beyond a scrawny idea of a hero who was cursed but wasn’t mad about it, and a heroine his curse half-broke for. I created the Scrivener project that December, under the title “Shifter” and drafted a first chapter.
However, it wasn’t enough for building a story in the proposed timeline, so I declined the multi-author invite. They went on to release the Tethered Hearts series, and I delved deeper into my burnout. When I made my 2024 Project Inventory that January, I listed this scrawny idea near the bottom as simply “Dragon shifter.” I kept the file open, played with it specifically in April and July, then again in November, but I spent most of that year tinkering with the second book of a high fantasy trilogy I might never finish.
I published nothing.
Building Block #1: Aesthetics
One of the obstacles for this book lay in choosing its aesthetics. Because I write mostly secondary-world fantasy, my modus operandi is to select an era + region to catch vibes, and I world-build from there. I’m not trying to reproduce an accurate time period. I just want a plausible setting where my readers can come with a proper suspension of disbelief.
A lot of research still happens, particularly for when things were invented along the real-world technology timeline, but I don’t want to bog myself or my audience down with minutia irrelevant to the plot.
I am notoriously (and sometimes to my own detriment) a minimalist when it comes to world-building. I don’t flesh out a multitude of needless details for the sake of fulfilling others’ pre-writing standards, and even less of what I flesh out actually ends up on-page.
Thus, my main setting question typically amounts to this: “In what kind of environment can these characters exist?”
For this story, I kept running into Art Nouveau, bicycles, organized crime, the 1991 Sylvester Stallone comedy Oscar, about a crime boss who’s trying to go straight…
And I resisted. I write fantasy. All of those elements felt too incongruent. Who even is the audience for a fantasy book with that aesthetic?
But, like a dye, it stained the whole story. So I finally gave in.
Building Block #2: What’s under the hood
The book is in 3rd Person Point of View with Limited Omniscient narration, centering on Joanna, and it features a heavy application of Free Indirect Speech. I’ve dabbled with this technique in previous work, but having explored it in-depth when I was researching POV, I became more intentional about it here.
Everything the narrator says reflects how Joanna sees the world.
(Or, it’s supposed to. I’m still learning, so I won’t claim I applied this style to perfection.)
Because the narrative centers around Joanna as its Viewpoint Character, her knowledge and assumptions form the basis for both description and exposition. Thus, fallibility enters the picture. How she understands the other characters and/or the world itself might not be accurate to how those characters truly are or how the world actually works.
I mean, she’s right most of the time, but she also misses cues thanks to her natural biases. Tom’s origin is one of these. Even in Limited Omniscience, the narration drops a multitude of hints that he isn’t who she assumes. However, her assumptions override this. In contrast, the Reader can more easily pick up on these cues. My goal in crafting this facet of the story was not to keep his false identity a secret, but to obfuscate his real one.
I.e., I want the reader to say, “Obviously he’s not Crawford” while also failing to guess who he really is. (But if you did guess, bonus points! I certainly left a lot of breadcrumbs.)
Sneaky phraseology
Narrative ambiguity is one of my favorite tools. I love hints that fade into the fabric of the story as though they hold no significance because the Reader misinterprets them the first time around. I want my books to be as entertaining on a second read as on a first—maybe more so, because the second-time Reader can catch those hints and enjoy a healthy dose of Dramatic Irony.
(If I could cork Dramatic Irony in a bottle, I would. Delicious.)
The canny Reader will recognize the difference between truth and Truth. Just as not everything a given character says will be correct, not everything a Free Indirect Speech-styled narrator says will be objective. I chose this perspective because it allows the Reader to experience some plot discoveries alongside the main character.
Also, because Joanna is outwardly aloof, tying the narrative to her inner thoughts provides a means of aligning the Reader to her perspective without resorting to 1st Person POV. (Which has its place. Just not in this story.)
Building Block #3: Projected Length
My original goal was 80,000 – 90,000 words in a stand-alone novel.
The book is a whopping 124,000.
However, the pacing is proportional. The first hinge point hits in the 38,000 – 40,000 word range, and the second at the 80,000 – 84,000 range.
Because I’d mapped the book according to these thirds and expected 90,000 words max, this really messed with my mind. As I drafted, I kept feeling like the plot wasn’t progressing.
It was. Just, a lot of dominoes had to tumble for those hinge points to hit right. That the draft came to 124,000 makes me feel so much better in hindsight, whereas it kneecapped my sense of the story as I was writing.
These longer books tend to overwhelm me in the creative process. I gotta stop naming so many characters.
But! This was the first time I’ve intentionally mapped a draft according to two specific hinge points. As an intuitive writer, I feel like I’ve leveled up from this accomplishment alone.
(+1 Craftsmanship, woot!)
Building Block #4: That title, tho
I know. The title is ridiculous. There’s a skill to naming books, and I don’t possess it. But as with the book itself, I wanted to have some fun.
Fantasy title trends follow certain patterns:
- X of Y (and Z, opt.)
- [preposition] X and Y
- The [adjective] X,
- unique [noun+noun] compound
Each pattern has its own vibes. None of them suited this project.
This book is quirky. I leaned into my cynicism while writing, but playfully so. Because of this, I didn’t want it to blend in with my other stories when listed alongside them. There’s a different tone here than with THE HEIR AND THE SPARE (fantasy thriller), NAMESAKE (angsty portal fantasy), DEATHMARK (cozy plague fantasy, which really should have been re-titled before its release, hahaha), or even THE LEGENDARY INGE (fantasy comedy-adventure).
Plus, by Book #16, I think I should be able to branch out from the usual naming patterns.
A Minor Adjustment
Its working title was simply YOUR SERPENTINE EXCELLENCY. However, when I finished the draft and someone asked me what it was called, my soul shriveled up and died1. I couldn’t say the phrase aloud.
And that’s a problem when you’re going to release a book and, by obligation, have to talk about it.
I played around with SO many options. None of them fit. Too serious, too generic, too mismatched for the vibes. And when I looked back at my original, it sat there like, “I’m *almost* perfect.” So why not tweak it?
Adding a simple “yes” transformed the whole thing. It created direction and a hint of whimsy, not taking itself too seriously while also having serious undertones.
(The word “serpentine” has such beautiful gravitas. I love it and love that the rest of the title contrasts with it.)
And my favorite part? It serves as the answer to a question that’s never asked on-page, a nice little meta Easter-egg for those who have already read the book.
- Don’t worry. It revived. ↩︎