From Pen to Print: Annabel Campbell on The Outcast Mage

Celebrating today’s release of her debut novel, The Outcast Mage, Annabel Campbell walks us through the genesis of the book.

Name: Annabel Campbell (she/her)

Based in: Lanark, Scotland

What genres/subgenres are you drawn to?

Mainly fantasy – epic fantasy, folklore fantasy, portal fantasy, dark academia. I do enjoy a splash of science fiction too!

Is writing your full-time focus, or do you have a day job as well?

My day job is medical writing, which is working for an agency to write up big medical studies for other companies.

The book: from pen to print

What was the genesis of this book? Where did you get the idea from?

I started this book when I was 14, which is maybe a bit embarrassing to admit. But I put it aside for many years and didn’t come back to it for more than a decade (you’ll be reassured to hear it’s a very different book now). But back then, the original ideas probably came as bits and pieces that strung together – the Round Reading Room in London under its glass roof inspired my glass city of Amoria (problematic as The British Museum is, the Reading Room is a beautiful place). I was reading a lot of older fantasy and wanted to write books with more women in them, and I was also absolutely in love with the typical wizard mentor character, but wanted to write one that was a total mess.

How many drafts did you go through before you felt it was ready to query? How long did that take you?

So, I think I can ignore the versions from when I was a teenager a) because they were awful and b) because I completely rewrote the whole thing without looking at them when I came back to it in my thirties – it was just some core ideas and characters that I kept. From there, there was a first draft, and then I sort of go back and edit chapters as I go. That probably took a year or two. In terms of querying though, it gets a bit weird here because I submitted to a mentorship with an agency with an unfinished manuscript. So I did a new draft of the early chapters, but not the bulk of the book (and I hadn’t written the end). Within that mentorship, I did completely redraft the book (and write the ending), and then there were some big structural edits and I rewrote the first two chapters again before I re-queried the book following the mentorship. 

Did you work with beta and/or sensitivity readers? How did you find them? How did you incorporate their feedback?

My early readers are amazing. They are the perfect blend of super supportive and super nit-picky when I need them to be. They’ve been with me through the whole process in a chapter by chapter way, so sometimes I need other readers at the end to get that ‘big picture’ edit. I would advise always waiting at least 24-48 hours after reading feedback before acting on it/discussing it. I quite often find that even if my initial reaction is ‘no way, I totally disagree,’ by the time I’ve waited, I’m starting to think ‘they have a point’ or ‘maybe I wouldn’t fix it that way, but they’re right that there’s a problem.’

Working with a sensitivity reader was scary but so incredibly useful. I was so nervous before I got their report, because I really had no idea what to expect. But sensitivity readers are more like specialist editors – they’re just coming to your book with their specific experience or expertise. The feedback I got was amazing and absolutely raised things I hadn’t thought of. Plus they had general suggestions which, in my opinion, made the worldbuilding so much stronger. I can’t emphasise enough how important I think this part of the process was.

What was your querying process like? How long did it take?

Okay, a bit weird! As I said, I applied to a mentorship scheme with an agency, and they were looking for unfinished manuscripts. As a part of that, you were assigned to an agent and the idea was that they mentored you through writing the rest of the book. As a part of that, I signed with said agent. In theory, anything that skips querying sounds amazing. In reality, I don’t know if this was the smartest decision I made. When you come to query with a finished book, you know so much more about your book, the market, and also what kind of agent you want to work with. It’s such an important partnership, and I think important that you pick your agent as much as they pick you.

I ended up leaving my first agent and querying for a new one (something that happens more often than you’d think). Querying sucks, there’s no way around it. There’s a lot of waiting, and a lot of rejection, but some of that rejection helped me improve the book’s opening. I think I was only querying about three months, but I was so miserable during that time, doubly so because I’d put myself back in that position. I learnt so much though, and it was totally worth it.

Once it was in the hands of Orbit, what was the process to get it ready for release?

I had an initial call with my editor which covered most of the changes my editor wanted to make to the book. There weren’t as many as I expected, but I’d already edited the book a lot before that point! Once they were done, it was passed onto a copy editor, who looks for things like repeated words, character names changing, that sort of thing. I think we did the sensitivity read and edit around that time. Then there’s the proofs stage, where everything is type-set and you need to check everything is still where it should be. You do exciting things like look at cover drafts, write acknowledgements, mock up a map for your editor to send to a map artist (the final one looks so cool). There’s biiiig stretches of time where nothing happens, and that can be hard to navigate, but here’s where your agent can reassure you and keep you in the know.

And now your book is about to be unleashed on the world! How are you feeling?

Scared! Confused as to how the time has come around so quickly (and also so slowly – it’s weird). Excited! No book is for everyone, and that’s totally fine, but I really hope it finds the right readers. It already has with some early readers, and I can’t tell you how special that feeling is.

What would you like us to know about this book?

Adventure! Magic! Disaster wizards (see previous blog for the BFS about these)! Characters I hope you’ll love, even when they make terrible choices! There’s a glass city on the brink of civil war, a young woman with mysterious powers, a wizard mentor who really doesn’t have the answers, and a growing menace in the world outside.

It’s my love letter to classic fantasy stories but hopefully brought up to date. There’s (I hope) a sense of fun and adventure, while also a plot that explores more serious themes which are – unfortunately – depressingly relevant right now.

Who’s the ideal reader for this one? What sort of things do they like to read about?

People who love second world fantasy and epic fantasy, who want to be thrown into a brand-new world and discover it as the plot unfolds. People who want characters to fall in love with, to be transported to far off places, and who like stories with magic and dragons.

Your writing process

Are you a plotter or pantser or somewhere in between? How do you do your first draft?

Just to be annoying, I’m a plantser. I do both. My first book was total pantsing and although I think this can be such an amazing way to write a book, it took me a long time, plus I had to rewrite a lot of it from scratch. Going forward, I’m doing more of a mixture. I have an idea of the main arc, and then I map out chapters with a heading of what the chapter is going to be about (and whose POV it will be from). I can’t do more than that in advance or I’ll get lost in the details (and these headings are super vague). Then right before I write the chapter, I bullet-point the main things I need to happen in that chapter. This allows these chapters to change massively as the rest of the book is written, which I need. I also need the rest of the process to be pretty organic or I’ll get myself stuck. Lastly, I do something called reverse outlining (I only recently learned what this is called!): I take the draft I have and then make a plan from it, and then I make notes about which bits need to move or change to get the book more into the shape it should be.

How do you approach writing? Are you the type of writer who needs to treat it like a job? Is there a particular time of day you find best for you to write?

I do need to treat it like a job now, because I’m writing books under contract. Before I just wrote when I wanted to, which was a lot – I would write at 6am (or 5am for like two ambitious months) before work, then after work when I got home (I have no idea how I did this). Once I had my contract, I dropped a couple of days from my day job to write, and I’m so lucky I could do this, because I was heading straight for burnout. Now, I am old and tired, I have a young child, and really I can only write when he’s in nursery. Evenings are a no go because I’m so tired. So I have to treat those writing days like a job just to get enough done.

Geek out about stationery: do you use a notebook? A specific type of pen? Or are you computer all the way?

Aaaah! Stationery is my favourite thing! When it comes to writing the actual book, I have to do it on a computer, because apparently otherwise I forget what a book looks like. How long is a paragraph in my handwriting? I have no idea.

But for planning, I use notebooks and longhand, because it gives my brain time to think through things. I loooove fountain pens and beautiful inks, and I love the PageONE writers notebooks (pictured), because they’re lovely quality and they let me noodle about my characters and what horrible things I want to do to them.

Is any of that different for editing?

Editing is usually also on a computer. I make a new document and call it draft 1.1/1.2 or draft 2.1 etc depending on how much I’m changing. For reviewing later versions or proofs, I like to have that on some kind of eReader – particularly one I can take notes on. I use a Supernote, and it’s great for seeing your book in a different way and therefore spotting all the errors you’ve missed. Another (cheaper) way of doing this is reading aloud, changing the font, or dumping it in a different app like notes.

Where do you work? Do you have a comfy, creative space at home or are you someone who has to grab the moment wherever it comes?

I’m so lucky that we live in the countryside and so we have lots of space. During Covid lockdown, I turned a room in our house into my study. I painted it dark library green and filled it with dark wood furniture and bookshelves and book related nicknacks. I also covered the walls in art I like. This is also the office for my day job, as I work permanently from home now. I’m very lucky to have this space and I absolutely treasure it.

What’s your writing soundtrack?

Music is SO important to me. I listen to instrumental scores, mostly. The soundtrack of His Dark Materials and the Arcane score are now so heavily associated with my writing for me that they’re basically The Outcast Mage soundtrack now (sorry guys, they’re mine now, muahaha!). I also used The Crown a lot, oh and some of The Witcher! I make playlists which are for certain settings/moods. There’s an ‘Amoria’ playlist, which is the main city in The Outcast Mage, but there’s also an ‘Amoria drama’ playlist, for those tense moments. Certain character pairs have their own playlists too, which is fun, cause then particular tracks evoke a specific relationship to me.

Do you have a writing ritual?

Go to my study, brew a pot of really nice coffee (yes, I put a cheapo coffee machine in here, I am ridiculous), light a scented candle if I have one (budget permitting), put on my writing playlist and write. Chocolate biscuits are optional but definitely help.

Where can we follow you / find out more about your work?

• You can find me on Bluesky or Instagram as AnnabelCWrites.
• I have a website which I forget to update all the time: www.annabelcampbell.com
• I also have a newsletter on Substack – DisasterWizardsAnonymous.

The Outcast Mage is out now through Orbit!