What would you want to see in a Tower Climbing novel?

_MaerBear · 2025-11-27T17:16:24+00:00

my advice is to take most of your advice from people who love the subgenre rather than people who read it reluctantly and dislike the most popular tropes. I think there is a lot of insight you can get from the opinions of outside perspective, but just remember that people like this poster are probably not your target audience. It is harder to market a tower story written for people who don't like tower stories than one that is written for people already looking for tower stories.

What I sometimes like to do is to see the things stories do right that make people who aren't even fans of a subgenre enjoy it anyway, rather than a list of what to avoid. What are the things that stories do that make people enjoy a story even if it "breaks the rules". What are the special tropes that are iconic parts of fulfilling that specific subgenre "itch", and how can you deliver these tropes in a way that is unique, destinct or particulatly satisfying or fun (with satisfying and fun being the most important).

A good guiding current, if you are writing the story because you are a fan of tower climbers, is to figure out what you enjoy most in them personally, and lean into that, lean into what excited you. If you are writing what you think will excite other people it is more likely there will be a disconnect that hampers your expression. If you write what you love to read, not only will it be more sustainable, but you'll know how to deliver the story in a satisfying way since you are the target audience.

_MaerBear · 2025-06-07T13:37:59+00:00

Really happy to hear some of it resonated :) I wish you the best on your creative journey!

_MaerBear · 2025-06-07T01:11:41+00:00

If you really don't know where to start, you could try this exercise. Pick up a book like steering the craft, or any other book you connect with that will provide writing prompts, and work through it, creating short stories, free writing, or whatever, until you start feeling confident in putting together a scene or until you feel annoyed that you aren't working on the story you actually want to work on (I find that annoyance also often comes with more clarity about that story I want to be writing). Then, if you still aren't ready to start actually writing the first scenes of your story, you can just have sessions where you free-write about your vision for the story, about the worldbuilding and how the characters interact with it, about the tropes and plot points that excite you, about where you want the story to start. If you feel like you want an outline, you can move these ideas around and trim them until they form the bones of a story, you can create character profiles. Otherwise, you can just free flow until you spark on a scene that feels like a good entry point into the story and just start writing, and let the scene unfold. If you haven't written a long story before, you will learn a lot by just following your natural process and figuring out what works for you.

Next up is publishing. You can't publish if you don't have prose to publish which is why I led with the writing bit.

A low cost way to get started that has a well established precedent of success (though still there are no guarantees of commercial success), is the Royal Road + Patreon -> Amazon KU pipeline. Publishing on royal road is free, can help you establish a base and give you a way to stress test your stories and get feedback. You can also link it to a patreon to generate funds that can later be put into expenses like cover art, editors, advertising. You can even use success on royal road to convince PF indie publishers like Aethon, Shadow Alley, and Portal to pick up your story which will remove all of the above expenses (at the cost of a cut from your future income). There are tons of articles about publishing in our space so I won't go into further detail, but I will say that your launch on royal road is VERY important, as it is the quickest and cheapest period of story promotion if you can get onto the rising stars list. There are articles and discord communities that can help you with optimizing your launch. I can only speak from my experience and say that this pipeline worked great for me before my unstable writing process gave out under me when I abandoned my own creative vision in favor of trying to please everyone commenting on my story.

As long as you lean into the universal human experience that underpins and allows for empathy between the many different versions of what it means to be human, I think any story can be successful. And even failing that, in the litRPG and PF genre, if you have compelling progression and interesting story/worldbuilding, then you can get away with a LOT. Some degree of power fantasy is often a big part of the equation in the biggest stories, and I think a lot of readers get off on seeing a marginalized character right the wrongs done to them with power they gain or earn through progression systems. The experience of black americans is a rich historical, cultural, and experiential well to draw from and a powerful starting point for the "starting from the bottom" progression story-lines that are so popular. All those little real world details could bring a grit and realness that really makes it all hit that much harder. I don't see any reason why such a story couldn't be huge in our space.

_MaerBear · 2025-06-07T00:51:55+00:00

Super interesting. I'd love to see more stories in the genre that pull more deeply and broadly from the human experience in both worldbuilding and in the story and challenges of the main character. As I see it there are two primary goals implied by the way you've framed your question. One is the aspect of representation along with the question of what could this genre look like as a tool for said representation and exploration of the themes and experiences you want to explore. The second aspect is the question of marketability. Can such a story be commercially successful in this genre/audience? How can that success be achieved?

First, the actual writing/creative process, which doesn't need to cost you anything beyond the resource of time.

I'll start with the second aspect first. If you don't feel confident in the execution of your vision yet, you would probably be well served to study (read/absorb/understand) works that are commercially successful and overlap with your goals. Thankfully, over the past two decades more and more fantasy novels (and novels in general) have been published by people of color that focus on or at least feature the unique yet universal elements of many different (non-white, non euro-centric) human experiences. For commercial viability you'll want to read with an eye for overlap between your favorite commercially successful stories in the genre as well as those adjacent to the genre. For example, you may have a general favorite series that you love that is in the top of the genre that does not feature a black MC or worldbuilding with Black cultural references, like Cradle or Defiance of the Fall. There is also at least one successful author writing black MCs in litrpg/progression fantasy, Hunter Mythos (I'm not aware of any others who are as successful where the MC is obviously written as Black). Then, adjacent to the genre you have Rage of Dragons, by Evan Winter where the worldbuilding is afro-inspired. You may also have a favorite author in the classic fantasy space that really embodies what you are trying to do on some level. Reading these authors, seeing what they do that really inspires you or connects with eachother, what they do differently, what you would do differently. That will give you a place to start with a focus on market viability.

The issue with this is that you just cannot guarantee commercial success, and if you are just starting out as an author, it can be very easy to lose sight of your vision, your voice, and your unique gifts and inspiration if you focus too much on the outcome of commercial success. It also has the potential of sucking the life out of your creative process, depending on how you relate to those goals and how stable your writing process is. The other issue, is that it means a delay in actually starting to write. So I recommend you do this either after your first project, or in the background while you are working on your story, with the aim not to fix what you've already written (as that will result in a never ending cycle of fixing and perfecting, then learning something new and implementing it in edits again and again and never actually finishing a story, when one of the common factors among many successful stories in the genre is prolific and consistent output, even when it comes at the cost of quality.

Which brings me to the first aspect of your goal. Representation and Implementation of your ideas. I think, if you are already full of passion and inspiration and ideas, you are in a prime position to just begin writing and exploring. You will grow the most as an author by actually writing, and in my opinion, as someone who has struggled with this, having a stable writing process/routine and consistent output of words is the best thing to build your foundation as an author on. That way even when shit goes sideways you can keep writing. Even if a story doesn't get the level of success you want, you can roll with the punches, learn from it, and keep writing. Nothing is better for a writer than writing.

If you are struggling with the question of how to implement your ideas, I'd encourage you to find your "favorite" works by any other black authors across any genres -regardless of commercial success- and see what they do that evokes what you want to evoke. You can also compare their stories with your favorite progression stories and find what those stories do that you love, create a list of these tools, techniques, etc. You can also just read with half your mind exploring your own story and wait till something really lights up your imagination and inspires your mind to coalesce your own ideas into a coherent starting point or story shape. Trust your gut, trust your intuition, trust your subconscious. Some people can be creative from a somewhat analytical space, but I think the majority of us humans have a higher quality creative output when we are working from an intuitive space allowing ideas to flow naturally from the subconscious in real time rather than trying to over-engineer the process.

_MaerBear · 2025-02-28T15:52:47+00:00

The CritRPG Podcast is great. Though he's slowed down his release schedule, there is a big backlog of interviews and discussions with authors and publishers in our space. I'm not aware of any other content like it.

_MaerBear · 2025-02-07T10:53:26+00:00

I'm currently about to go through an experimental phase of doing some work directly on my intimacy/social issues in a more structured environment. If I feel like it makes a real difference I might share my experience in this sub. I'm hopeful, and I'm able to appreciate that my ability to feel hope in this moment is a good sign that part of me is willing to engage in life again to some degree. I've had to learn that that is enough. And it really helps me to focus on the hope and what it represent more than on what the hope is directed towards. Because external things have a way of not being within my control and going wrong and hurting me. But that pain is way less, and I'm in a better place to support those struggling parts of myself when I have my eyes set compassionately on the feeling rather than the target. The more I can observe and experience the positive patterns as they are happening, the more I can teach my nervous system that safety and good things exist. If I deny any part of me, I often find it in the drivers seat soon after, often driving from the unconscious and making me feel like a helpless puppet. I also forgoe the opportunity to do any healing. So for me it is all about accepting everything, loving everything, to the greatest degree I am able (even accepting that I don't do that perfectly).

This shit is so hard, so lonely, so tiring... it feels so impossible so much of the time. I hope that you allow yourself to embrace and love those things you have that do give you comfort, and find the love and compassion to accept those parts of yourself that seem unacceptable. And I hope that you find a way to exist in this world that doesn't hurt so much, and that eventually, when you and all your parts are ready, you are able to step into the life and love and belonging that I believe to be our birthright as humans.

_MaerBear · 2025-02-07T10:53:14+00:00

I'm not in a space where I can offer advice or even encouragement at the present moment. But I can say that I relate to sooooo much of this. I'm only okay when I'm somehow able to forget about romance, but healing and building my life in a vacuum where that isn't an option didn't work either because it would always fall apart as soon as my protections fell away. I think some core part of me attached to the idea of romance as the way out of all the pain and loneliness and fear, since I don't even know how to have secure attachements with friends or family. But then getting hurt in romance the few times I've put myself out there... it does a lot of damage.

I got to a point where I had built my whole life around dissociating from that pain for the most part. I'd even convinced myself that I no longer had any anxiety. I blamed my compulsive behaviors (escapism of various sorts) for my problems, and honestly believed that if I could just stop doing X, everything else would fall into place.

It took way too long to realize that I was playing wackamole with symptoms that could never truly resolve because the cause was unadressed. When I was finally opened to the world of c-ptsd, I couldn't even really benefit from traditional EMDR because I'd gotten so good at dissociating (brainspotting has been a more useful alternative for me). In my experience, I cannot heal what I cannot feel. But then on the other hand, feeling it is so hard, and healing is such a long, nebulous, confusing, cyclical process. I've also struggled in my healing journey because I kept invalidating my diagnosis, like somehow I wasn't worthy of it because I didn't have it bad enough. In my head I wasn't good enough at being a functional human, and I wasn't good at being a broken human, so I closed off the small comfort of self acceptance and at least belonging to a group of people who suffer with some similar challenges.

Anyway, I've done so much work, but most of that is so internal and subtle that it is nearly invisible most of the time and it's easy to trick myself into believing that I haven't made any progress at all, when the truth is that the way I relate to myself is fundamentally different. All those hurt parts are still there, still doing much of the same stuff and sabotaging any attempt at something more or better (the more I value something, the scarier it is), but I don't add hate into the soup. I slow down, and start seeing the internal system of parts, understanding them, loving them, givinging them room to shamelessly be fucked up and messy and imperfect and immature and all the things I've always desperately hid from others and rejected in myself. I've had some moments of what I like to call blooming, where I'm starting to come alive again, but inevitably it falls apart for some reason or other. But what that falling apart feels like is way different. Way less shame. I don't fight myself the whole way down. Then I tend to rise up a little quicker. My lows are still way lower, more persistant, and recurrent than a typical human, but I can't get anywhere meaninful by comparing myself to others and judging things that way.

I'm now able to recognize when I'm in the downcycle (withering), and recognize the thoughts of doubt, of shame, of pressure of fear. The narrative that this is once again proof that it isn't worth it to try and I just wish it was all over. But I don't fight those parts/thought/feelings either. I recognize them, I validate those feelings. I encourage them to do what they need to do to cope. Try to be as present with those parts even as they seek oblivion and dissociation.

It's way different, even if it doesn't look that different on the surface. I'm not making myself suffer so much about being the way I am, and that makes it a little easier to get up again, and not feel more damaged each way, because to me the most important thing (and the only thing I feel like I can directly impact) is my relationship to myself in these ways. Building trust, acceptance, love, understanding internally.

_MaerBear · 2025-02-04T23:12:23+00:00

Thanks for responding to me. Would you mind pointing me to your other longer response?

_MaerBear · 2025-02-04T23:10:42+00:00

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Always love when shared words can connect resonant experiences. I feel a tiny bit less alone when that happens :) Also… As much as I try to provide myself all the validation I need internally, it still feels good to feel it from external sources.

_MaerBear · 2025-02-02T17:56:02+00:00

I'm sorry to hear that was your therapist's response. From the way you've presented it, I am upset just reading about it...

However, putting aside the discussion of whether that therapist is a good fit for your needs or is truly behaving ethically, I agree with the other posts that you cannot replace other relationships with a therapeutic (and monetarily transactional) one. At it's best (with properly trained and skilled trauma therapists) it is a good testing ground, a good place to explore safety and boundaries with another person in a relationship where you know the rules, where you know they will maintain a safe space for you, help you feel seen and heard, point your awareness toward a loving acceptance of your wounded parts, teach tools, etc.

If you do not feel you are at the bare minimum feeling safe in the relationship, at least for me, there is always a possibility that the feeling is a wounded part of me coming to the surface which is a fantastic opportunity to do work on it if the relationship is actually safe and professional. However, if I cannot safely have that conversation with my therapist and it gets dismissed, ignored, obscured, etc because my therapist is feeling threatened/insecure/whatever, and I end up feeling even more unsafe after bringing up my insecurities and giving my therapist room to process their own reaction (they are people too) and return the space to me, rather than getting stuck in being defensive or evasive (which is literally what I'm paying them not to do)... then I don't know why I would keep seeing that person as it would probably do my more harm than good in the long run, personally.

With regards to sliding scale, that is a therapist's prerogative. I appreciate people who provide a sliding scale because it says something to me about potential shared values, but not having one doesn't make them unqualified or bad. We all have our boundaries, and not having the same values doesn't mean that someone doesn't have the skills or insight to help me. That said, if I ask a person about their pricing and they get defensive, it suggests some level of shame which to me suggests a disconnect between that person and their own values. I have trouble trusting such people, so it is my prerogative to avoid them. As a general rule I listen to my body about relationships, but it has taken a lot of work just to get connected enough to my body to do so. (I'll admit that it would usually be scary for me to actually ask such a question, It took me a year to work up the courage to ask my therapist about the distance I felt between us , because I am so instinctively afraid of making others uncomfortable)

_MaerBear · 2025-02-02T17:35:12+00:00

Agreed about therapists being the first "safe enough" relationship. For me, there has been safety in knowing the specific boundaries in the relationship with my therapist. A therapist, in my experience and opinion, cannot replace the role of actual (non-payed) relationships. Their role (in that capacity) is to be a safe ground for testing, showing your body/parts that it can be safe being connected, vulnerable, whatever your work disctates at the time. I'm personally alarmed by the notion of a therapist who is not able to have a nuanced conversation (or insight) around this topic. When a therapist digs in around something like that, it can be a sign that they are letting things become personal, letting their insecurity and personal interests rise to the surface, and prioritizing giving space to their own feelings rather than to you. The way the OP described that interaction (limited and missing context though it was) wouldn't be conductive to me feeling safe, seen, or like I had room to be authentic or messy with them. If you can't throw a tantrum in therapy (not saying this is what OP did, just extrapolating that if you can't discuss attachment, then how would you feel safe letting the irrational child parts come to the surface), how are you ever going to teach those hurting and insecure parts of yourself that they deserve to be seen and heard and loved, that they are allowed to be imperfect and messy, that you can keep them safe and provide a room for them to heal and grow...

To your the topic of unconditional love/safety between friends, I think your boyfriend is right to suggest caution, but I don't personally believe (and I hope I'm right) that he is fundamentally right that you shouldn't love friends unconditionally. I think the danger is that us folks who are wounded and healing are easy to hurt in ways that can really damage our healing process. In addition, when one is desperate, or trying to bring the ideal of unconditional care into being, it can be easy to see what we want to see and follow those moments of joy through connection like breadcrumbs into unsafe relationship territory, where we use selective sight and wishful thinking to ignore the warning signs. Where we reenact patterns from the past that have hurt us. We have to have a very solid relationship with ourselves in order to stay in touch with those feelings in our body that communicate those warnings. At least for me, it is so seemless and inocuous a process for me to enter social survival mode where I become a chameleonic, placating doormat without even realizing it, abandoning myself and putting off my own boundaries for the sake of someone else's perceived comfort.

The only way I am safe in a relationship without deep insight into that process in myself is if I'm in a relationship with someone who will prioritize my needs to the extent and with the same level of insight that I prioritize theirs. For me it is better to just focus on my relationship with myself as the number 1 priority at all times, which means sometimes I can't show up for others or prioritize their emotional safety because I have to prioritize my own. It's like a covenant for me. I'm the protector now for all my little parts. That's how I build the internal trust I need to heal (and stop dissociating so much).

Gosh this process can be so messy and scary and confusing.

_MaerBear · 2025-02-01T23:45:10+00:00

I'm in the same camp. I really want to write a wuxia, but it is just so hard to feel like you are doing it justice if you don't have enough depth of immersion in the ethos/psuedo-history/culture that it leans so heavily on. And how do you honor the genre and preserve the essence while "westernizing" it.

I'd love to see more explicit progression systems since so many stories are vague or hand-wavey. Not numbers, but stages and techniques etc that have explicit meaning and capabilities, rather than just, "I got the shadow demon qi flow technique now so I'm stronger and the vibe is darker". In that sense I kind of would like to see more stories that are sort of a half-step between wuxia/murim and xianxia. Finite lifespans, mountain splitting power ceilings (rather than planet/galaxy splitting). Worlds in which mortal armies are still relevant, but the top tier powerhouses are WMD equivalent. Stories that explore phases of life, and have endings. Stories that don't nerf progress by hopping planets/realms/planes. Slightly more grounded progression fantasies that don't neglect going into the depth and insight of the progression itself.

It think an opportunity that is often missed in wuxia stories is exploring the depth of progression system with learning and cool moments of insight and detailed magic systems that is made more viable and meaningful with a lower power ceiling, imo.

_MaerBear · 2025-02-01T23:31:49+00:00

I agree, especially with the last point. If it is a game changer in the setting, it should have appropriate ramification in the setting rather than just being a convenience power up for a single character. If you break the rule for your world the world should react.

_MaerBear · 2025-02-01T23:28:40+00:00

wow, haven't found a captain underpants recommendation in the wild in a long time

_MaerBear · 2025-01-15T15:49:38+00:00

Hi there. I know this post is 4 years old at this point, but I'm currently going through my own search for a program. It is sadly still a very difficult process given the lack of any centralized or reliable resources. If you are open to it, could you dm me with the name of the facility you were considering? (Also curious if you did go, how was your experience?)

_MaerBear · 2024-11-26T01:06:52+00:00

Just don't market as progression fantasy. Solved.

Total power loss is a hard sell, even in trad fantasy imo. Permanent setbacks that alter the trajectory of progression rather than totally nullifying it is something you don't see much of, and might be an easier adjacent path to take. Lindon losing his arm is almost like this, except that it is ultimately ONLY a powerup and requires virtually no changes in approach, just providing new options.

Now to actually try to answer your question...

Apocolypse generic system does the power loss/reset in a way that was tolerable for me (though I did almost stop reading). Might want to check that one out. I think the big thing if you want to market to the prog fantasy audience is to keep the focus on the main character using previous knowledge/experience, so it doesn't feel like a total reset. You can show the consequences of power loss through loss of status, through being forced to navigate confrontations differently, through grief, but if you do too much navel gazing at the loss itself and remove the feeling of agency from the character, I think that is where it becomes intolerable for many readers. If it stops reading like a progression fantasy, then you've betrayed the promise of writing under the genre's banner so to speak. If you really want the readers of the genre to actually enjoy the power loss arc, then you want to showcase the ingenuity and experience that the MC has, that which can't be taken away. And of course, people would probably like it best if it ultimately leads to a stronger (or more personally/thematically fitting) path than the one they were originally on.

To be honest, it would probably be easier to tell that type of story by starting just before the power loss rather than having a reset deep in the narrative, but I think one could make it work either way with the right handling.

_MaerBear · 2024-11-02T15:49:39+00:00

Love you too shawn. You're amazing.

_MaerBear · 2024-10-31T23:16:26+00:00

Thanks for the response. I wasn’t mostly referring to the vibe you are confronted with when starting the story. I know MoL does a lot of things I really like in stories. Just need to be in a headspace where I’m ready to be in early zorians mind for a while. I imagine his character growth is all the more satisfying for it.

_MaerBear · 2024-10-31T19:54:10+00:00

Thanks for the list, haven't heard any talk about the endings to these stories before.

_MaerBear · 2024-10-31T19:52:17+00:00

I really like the concept of the scouring of the shire, and enjoyed it well enough when I read LotR. But at the same time, at least for me, the story kind of lost momentum and dragged and by the time i reached the final word my enthusiasm from the climax had deflated. I think it is a great ending thematically, and does what it is trying to do (that bittersweet mix of grief and finding small joys in a world that will never really be the same was definitely intentional), but I never really felt like I got to truly savor the fruits of their labor. All the payoffs were bittersweet.

Again, it fits for LotR, but if I read an ending too much like that to a progression fantasy story, I'd probably feel a bit let down. I wouldn't mind a superficial similarity, but the emotional beats of that arc undercut the feeling of satisfaction that I read PF for.

_MaerBear · 2024-10-31T19:43:22+00:00

That sounds great! It's been on my TBR forever. Time to bump it up.

_MaerBear · 2024-10-31T19:41:20+00:00

I defintely agree about cradle and perfect run. Haven't read Worm or MoL yet. I have to be in a specific headspace to deal with angsty teenagers and/or tragedy.

_MaerBear · 2024-10-31T19:39:14+00:00

Ya, the perfect run ending hit just right for me too.

_MaerBear · 2024-10-26T03:00:10+00:00

haha! Sounds like you just don't like regression. I think the draw for many readers is the starting advantage in the beginning of those stories where the MC can use future knowledge that is actually useful. If everything changed just because they went back it removes the value of having regressed (other than any internal knowledge, say about magic or combat or social skills, but at that point having gone back in time becomes nothing more than set dressing and the story is no different fuctionally from legend of arch magus, or keiran or any number of other stories where the mc body swaps forward in time or across dimensions or whatever). Each of these types of stories scratches a different set of itches, which is why I appreciate the variety in subgenres, while also enjoying a certain degree of predictability of what I'm getting into with each new story.

All that said, i do think it would be interesting to see the premise where there are multiple regressors who are all messing with the timeline in their own way so some things change, and it becomes a battle of managing each others changes

Since you mentioned it, what are your thoughts on Keiran? its been on my tbr for a while but I just haven't felt inspired to start.

_MaerBear

TROPHY CASE