That time I wrote a romantasy action novel on AO3

Live long enough, and you may overturn your past self’s Internet bullshit.

I’m a case in point.

Me circa 2015: “Fifty Shades of Grey is the hottest thing in publishing and I have formed negative opinions about fan fiction.”
Universe (grinning): “Hold my beer?”

Unpacking bullshit can be a long process

I’ve spent a lot of my middle adulthood digging out of elitism as a life choice. I’m also old enough that parts of that journey are visible in my Internet long-tail.

I grew up excelling in academics, and liked both school and learning. I won scholarships, awards, and medals. My family valued my achievements.

As I approached the end of my undergraduate degree, I had no idea what would make a viable career. What I wanted to do was write books. I didn’t believe that career would pay for my life, and neither did my family. At a loss, I leaned into earning a PhD in Science Fiction & Fantasy.

That way, I’d meet the writers I admired and study the books that I loved. Win-win, right?

Diligently, I earned a Master’s degree in Literary Theory. At some point on that journey, I realized I was more interested in writing books of my own than in talking about other people’s work for a living.

I started working, first in communications and then in marketing, and writing on the side.

Like many creatives, my ambitions and opinions about what makes a great book exceeded my ability to execute for a long, long time. It was frustrating. I despaired and felt envy for people I perceived as having what I wanted.

During this time, I wrote some unfortunate, judgemental things about fan fiction. The original essay isn’t worth your time.

My karmic turn in the river

In 2016, I read Liz Gilbert’s Big Magic. In it, she brings a non-elitist approach to creativity’s importance in our lives, while pointing the elitism that exists in how we’re taught to think about how art and how it gets made.

During this period, I was also active on Twitter, which expanded my creative horizons. I listened to a lot of conversations about how widely people read, what participating in a fandom can mean, and why folks like what they like.

Reflecting on both experiences and my first essay after finishing Gilbert’s book, I realized I was doing nothing more profound than letting my fears about my writing prospects grab the mic while crapping on other people.

So I wrote “Death of a Fan Fiction Snob” to take myself to task.

For years, I thought that was it—lesson learned.

The muse had other plans.

The Switch game that changed everything

In 2019 and 2021, I played Fire Emblem: Three Houses (FE3H) for the Nintendo Switch.

It’s a strategy game set in a fantasy world with great characters, some heartbreaking choices, and a high degree of re-playability. I was quickly hooked. As I played the first of four possible routes, my passion for the game prompted me to read fan fiction for the first time.

Last February, I started rewriting the game as a romantasy action novel on an Archive of Our Own, one of the biggest non-profit sites for fan fiction. (Fantasy author Naomi Novik is among the site’s founders.)

The novel is called Into the Fishpond: A Three Houses Alliance. And it’s finished.

While Fishpond has a small yet kind following (~7,000+ hits), I’ve had some wonderful interactions with its readers (~170+ comments). Since it’s over 215,000 words, Fishpond is the longest book I’ve ever written. It taught me lots about writing faster, structuring scenes, and building sexual tension.

Like Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, which loosely inspired the title, Fishpond is a portal story about someone from our world who ends up in the portal world.

It’s also got:

• A romance between two people dealing with grief (if you know FE3H well, Fishpond is loosely a Setleth ship)
• Found family
• Dragons
• Intense battle scenes (surprise!!)
• Magical twins (again!?) whose sibling bond low-key powers the whole thing (picturing your shocked face)
• My first non-binary character
• A lot of non-canon lore that I made up as I went along

Want to know more? Here’s the plot teaser from Fishpond’s intro on AO3:

Zara has just finished playing Fire Emblem: Three Houses for the fourth time when she’s struck by the injustice of watching her favourite characters die time and again. Why can’t she save all of them?

Fortunately, the Goddess Sothis agrees that this is a problem worth solving.

Into the Fishpond by E. M. Williams

Getting over your Internet Bullshit

My Internet bullshit almost stopped me from writing Fishpond. I was embarrassed to have once held negative opinions about an activity to which I was now devoting so much time. At first, I spent a lot of time minimizing this new novel and what it meant to me.

Some kind friends pointed out how deeply sad I got writing Chaos Armor, and how much joy came into my face when I talked about Fishpond. I’m glad I listened to them.

Besides great joy, this creative side quest proved I can build an audience entirely separate from my social circles and professional network.

And, since I tracked the shit out of my progress, I’ve also released A Growth Marketer’s Guide to Making the Most of A03’s Stats for other writers on the platform to use.

I don’t expect the crossover audience for Fishpond to be high. Without game context, I’m not sure how much sense the story makes to Xenthian Cycle readers, although I did get comments from some people who’ve never played the game and enjoyed it.

Either way, I’m proud of the work and wanted to share that it exists.

Here’s to living long enough to set your Internet bullshit on fire.

P.S. Ebook plans for Into the Fishpond

I’ll be formatting Into the Fishpond as an ebook and releasing it for free with cover art + some exclusive bonus content.

Heads-up: Since Fishpond isn’t my intellectual property, it will always be a free book. That means it doesn’t make financial sense for me to have it professionally edited. You may find grammatical errors, though I do my best to fix them.

Watch for this project in 2025!