Episode 122: A Shirtaloon Who Writes with Monsters - Travis Deverell

Travis Deverell was startled to discover that writing an internet story about an inter-dimensional kung fu wizard had somehow become a marketable skill when accidentally found himself to be a successful author. He's now quietly getting on with it while hoping that no-one notices the entire thing is ridiculous. Under the pen name Shirtaloon he has released several books in the ongoing He Who Fights With Monsters series.

Audio Title: Ep122 - Travis Deverell
Audio Duration: 01:03:43
Number of Speakers: 2

[00:00:00] Intro: Heroes of Reality Podcast, a podcast about the game of life and the hero's journey we all experience. Let's jump in with our host Dylan Watkins as he introduces today's guest.

[00:00:14] Dylan Watkins: Welcome young adventurer, Dylan here. And on today's podcast, I have Travis Deverell a.k.a. Shirtaloon. He started to discover that writing an internet story about an inter-dimensional kung fu wizard had somehow become a marketable skill when he accidentally found himself to be a successful author. He's now quietly getting on with it while hoping that no one notices the entire thing is ridiculous. Under the pen name, Shirtaloon, he is releasing several books in the ongoing He Who Fights With Monster Series. And so without any delay I'd like to welcome, Travis.

[00:00:49] Travis Deverell: Good day. Hey, how are you doing?

[00:00:49] Dylan Watkins: Hey, welcome brother. Doing great, man. I am so excited to have you on the podcast, man. You're one of my bedtime books. You know, those like books that you listen as you fall asleep and you just kind of let it quietly go in your subconscious?

[00:01:03] Travis Deverell: Yeah.

[00:01:04] Dylan Watkins: I absolutely love it. So, great job on the series and great job on continuing to kick out the content, man. You have a unique knack of somehow continuing to produce content online with this web series.

[00:01:20] Travis Deverell: Yeah.

[00:01:21] Dylan Watkins: And I'd love to like first find out just a bit about, like, how did you accidentally stumble into writing about an inter-dimensional kung fu wizard?

[00:01:31] Travis Deverell: Okay. So, I went back to university, so in my mid thirties. And – because you know, I was just going through a series of dead end jobs. And, you know, I always had a passion for writing so I went back to university, you know, did a lot of creative writing stuff, some media studies. And I got really caught up in that. So I ended up, starting on some postgraduate work while doing that, and kind of realized that not a huge fan of doing research and I am a big fan of writing ridiculous stories on the internet. And yeah, just had a revelation that no, I really am not happy, you know, writing this research paper about cross-generational masculinities in post-colonial Australia.

And, I really wanted to write a story about a guy with magic kung fu powers. So I sat down and so started writing that. And I just started putting it up on the internet for free.  And, you know, I'd always hoped that I'd be able to, you know, make a little money off it. Then I kind of made a lot of money off it, which, yeah, worked out very nicely. Just never expected the kind of success that I ended up having.

[00:03:14] Dylan Watkins: It it's a great book series. I mean someone who is like, I eat like Literal RPG books for breakfast, lunch, and dinner kind of thing. And I just somehow stumbled across it on Audible. And when I did, I was like, "Wow!" I mean, you have – there's some very good writing in there and that I can cross-section that with not only on the social level, but on the spiritual level, on the world building levels, the magic, like there's a lot of different areas in it that is very well flushed out. How did you get so good at writing? What –  like, was there anything that like really kind of allowed you to kind of find your rhythm and find your pace to become – to make such a well-rounded book?

[00:03:53] Travis Deverell: I don't think there's any big secret to getting better at writing other than, you know, lots of reading and lots of writing. Yeah, it's like anything else, you just, you get better at it. Like I did a lot – because I wrote this coming out of university, and one of the great things about working with sort of large writing groups that I had the chance to while I was there is that you can just write a short story and give it to 30 people. And then 30 people will give you like a huge stack of sort of edited, you know, heavily noted manuscripts. And that is fantastic for improving your craft. So, writing groups were amazing. And I got to work with a local award-winning author, Daniel Ward, who's fantastic. And I learned a lot from her.

But before I started this series, like, obviously I'd read goodly chunks of LitRPG myself. But I come – I came to it more through the serialization space, which is those online stories. And there's no gatekeeping there. It's incredibly open, which is fantastic for opportunities. But it also means there's sort of no quality threshold. And that's great for a lot of things, because it's a great space for hobby writers who are never trying to get a career out of it. They just, you know, want to write the stories and put them out there for people and that's amazing.

But, yeah, going into that space, I sort of worked on this story beforehand, like the world building and the system and all that sort of thing sort of came first before I ever started knocking out chapters. Also, there is a first version of volume one, which is like the first three books. It's really short. It is breathtakingly terrible. Like just aggressively, aggressively bad. Because at that point I'd never completed a long form story.

So, I was kind of obsessed with finishing it. So, I finished what eventually became I think 257 chapters in 66 chapters. And that short changes everything from story to plot to character. And the whole thing just screamed desperate to get to the end. So, once I was finished that went right out the window and I rewrote the whole thing from scratch. And that's, you know, where...

[00:06:48] Dylan Watkins: Did you publish it?

[00:06:49] Travis Deverell: No. No.

[00:06:50] Dylan Watkins: No, no, no, no.

[00:06:51] Travis Deverell: That one's staying in the drawer.

[00:06:56] Dylan Watkins: So you got to do a rough pass and the official, like, first pass on it. And then you realize that, I mean, really given it the time, given it the attention to allow for character development, plot development, power development, progression systems, things like that. It seem like it take – because I mean it is a well rounded and there's a lot of nuances.

And what I really don't understand is like, when you do this world building, when you do these kind of creations of this, you know, the Book 1, 2, 3, and all that stuff, how do you actually world build? Is that, are you drawing on like napkins? Do you have whiteboards? How do you, because it's a hard magic system. And like, can you talk to me just a little bit about how you actually build these worlds?

[00:07:34] Travis Deverell: Okay. So the magic system is probably the oldest part of the story. Because with LitRPG, especially, because that is where not only are you doing a hard magic system, generally, you also have to show your work like it's math assignment. In fact, some of them kind of read like a math assignment. But it means that if you make slipups continuity errors, people are going to notice and they are going to call you on it.

So the system for me, sort of came first. Mine's not number heavy. It's more of concept heavy. But I started off with a very, very sort of different system and refined it, because this is something I've wanted to do just knocking around the back of my head for a lot of years. So while I was in university, I just sort of – if I was going to do this, what kind of system would I do? And, and I just refined it and refined it and refined it.

And I had a system that I really loved. And, you know, when I sat down and started looking at how it works, narratively, I realized it was completely and utterly unworkable. Because I'd built this huge, huge, like, complicated, intricate, heavily synergized system. Where the first book would have no plot development, because it would be all explaining how the whole thing works.

And that's when I had sort of my big revelation, which is like, when you're making LitRPG, you're not making a game. Like your system isn't something you're meant to be able to game off of. It's a narrative tool that feels like a game. So, and that's when I started like simplifying and pairing it down and getting to the point where the system served the story instead of building a story to serve the system.

But how that sort of relates to world building is once I sort of had my system in place, then it just becomes about questions. So you take a world and you go, "Okay, well, this thing is true about my magic system. What does that mean?" And that's how I essentially did all my world building. I just go through and what are the implications of this? What are the implications of this? And it just keeps having knock on effects. As you keep answering questions until suddenly you've got a world that feels well, hopefully, sort of rich and integrated and cohesive.

[00:10:22] Dylan Watkins: Yeah, yours definitely does. I mean, and also the progression systems, the way that people gain their powers. I'm going to do my absolute best to have no spoilers this entire conversation. And if I feel one coming out, I will scream it out as fast as possible and have everybody do, you know, earmuffs to cover it up. But the way that people gain their powers and the way that they're unique to themselves and the way that they kind of choose their own path, like it choose your own power system and the way that it progresses. And it has a tiered progression system, it feels very, very natural and all that, but also tracking of that system.

So again, going back to it, you said you refined it, you refined it, you refined it into something that is a narrative tool and not a game mechanic. And being someone who is a – I build games and that's what I do. I understand that the complexities of those things that happen and the fact that people love to hack the system. As soon as you try to build something, people go, "Ah, but what if I did this, this and this?" And they immediately try to break your system in half, which the more details you give them, the more pieces they can grab onto.

And so, with you, how did you, again, not have someone call you on, yeah, fudging the math homework that you're turning in. Like, do you draw boxes inside things to map these things out? When you say refining the system, what does that actually look like for you?

[00:11:45] Travis Deverell: I use word, like I'm not a big spreadsheet guy, so I've got piles and piles and piles of, you know, just documents of, you know, this is what this does, this is what this does. It's not super efficient but it's quite comprehensive.

[00:12:05] Dylan Watkins: Cool.

[00:12:08] Travis Deverell: But yeah, no, it's eventually – because yeah, those questions you talk about, people are going, "What about this and this and this?" Yeah, people love doing that with my story mulling. Yeah. It's a huge part of my Discord community.

[00:12:23] Dylan Watkins: Yeah.

[0:12:25] Travis Deverell: They build up around people going, "Okay, what if you have this power and this power and this power?" Yeah. But yeah, for me, it's just piles and piles of documents.

[00:12:35] Dylan Watkins: Got it. So then you have your own kind of Almanac of how, your own Dungeons and Dragons guide kind of, or He Who Fights Monsters guide.

[00:12:42] Travis Deverell: Yeah.

[00:12:44] Dylan Watkins: That makes sense. And it's very curious, because like in my own mind, people that are able to – this narrative world that you crafted is so thoughtful. There's so much to it and so much complexity. I think people want to call it out because it now feels like it's a part of their world. There's something where you tell such a good narrative story that people like, it becomes tangible and real and it no longer be, it becomes words on a page.

It becomes a living breathing thing where you start to relate to these characters. You start to find these types of connections with these characters where you almost feel for them and you feel for moments in time that they have. Jason, the main character of the story, for people that don't know, I find it be very likable and very relatable for a variety of reasons.

But I'd love to know like how do you go to, like, what is your process for like making those characters and like say Jason, and how much of him is you versus other characteristics? Like I'm very curious to understand that.

[00:13:41] Travis Deverell: Yeah. So when I'm doing like character outlines, what I tend to start with is, where does the character come from and what do they want? And sort of everything just sort of grows out from there. And you know, this isn't LitRPGs specific, obviously like, you know, every author wants to have people connect with their characters. Well, unless they're really, really horrifying characters, but...

Yeah, and that's just sort of where I start. Like, I get asked how much of me is in Jason or Jason is in me? Quite a lot. And in a lot of ways, Jason's starting point is sort of me like 15 years ago. You know, there's a lot of naivety there, like a lot of sort of political passion, but in a very sort of untested principle kind of way. Because that's sort of this is something I wanted to explore a lot, which is the idea of he comes from a, you know, safe, happy, relatively affluent background. So he has a lot of sort of liberal principles. But he's never been sort of forced to stand up for them or, you know, try and protect them. So he gets put into situations where nobody does, and you know, how well do those principles hold up. How well does his, you know, moral stance manage to enjoy what he goes through.

[00:15:38] Dylan Watkins: Yeah. And there's something to the character of this defiant nature when he shouldn't be, and while also cracking jokes along the way. And even though that some of the jokes I get and I relate being a millennial child of the '80s kind of thing, but there's also some I don't, because I'm not a region specific to you. So there's some crossover.

But he – there's a... you're talking about who he is and what he wants, but there's also this balance into characteristics of having this incredibly willful and dominical spirit and this cockiness, and also loving of barbecues. And there's kind of dynamic mixture of character, which is a really weird eclectic thing that kind of bundle together that makes him a very, well-rounded character. Can you talk to me a little bit about the formation of that and like, is it necessary for him to have those traits to really be that the hero of the story? Or...

[00:16:37] Travis Deverell: I think it is. A lot of those elements, the loving Airwolf and the, you know, the barbecues and the being inappropriate in various situations that anti-authoritarianism.

[00:16:56] Dylan Watkins: Yeah.

[00:16:56] Travis Deverell: Though a lot of those are the aspects that sort of come from just me and sort of a general Australian attitude. Because there's – because I come from convict stock, so there's that sort of strong, you know, screw the British kind of old school, Ned Kelly kind of feel to, you know, how I grew up and a lot of the sensibilities I came up with. But... And I think that is important for Jason as a character.

And a lot of it is just pure defense mechanism. Like, you know, he gets thrown into another world and he feels completely lost. So, it's – one of the ways he protects himself is just by trying to make everyone else feel as confused as he is, you know, even if that's trying to explain the Karate Kid to a wizard, you know, with, with no context whatsoever, just so they're looking at him with no idea what's going on. And that's an important part of who he is and how he operates.

[00:18:15] Dylan Watkins: Does that ever blend into real life in real life?

[00:18:17] Travis Deverell: Yes.

[00:18:18] Dylan Watkins: Okay.

[00:18:20] Travis Deverell: Well, you know, I've never explained the Karate Kid to a wizard, but I have tried to explain LitRPG to my aunt Helen, which feels about the same.

[00:18:31] Dylan Watkins: Could you just real quick for people that don't actually understand LitRPG? Could you explain a little bit about it? The genre?

[00:18:37] Travis Deverell: No worries.

[00:18:38] Dylan Watkins: Yeah.

[00:18:39] Travis Deverell: So LitRPG is sort of a hybrid genre, because it can fall within different genres. It's usually fantasy but it can be, you know, science fiction, steampunk, whatever, where video game elements are explicitly placed into a game. Now there's a couple of terms there.

There's a GameLit, which is sort of video game elements within the story, which may be even visible to the reader or not. So like you have Ready Player One, that sort of thing. Whereas LitRPG is a bit more specific. It works off generally progression fantasy, except the progression is what you'd see in a video game. You know, there are levels, there are stats and you actually get to see those as a reader on the page, or read out in an audio book.

[00:19:46] Dylan Watkins: Yeah. It's...

[00:19:47] Travis Deverell: Yeah. So you usually game levels or skills or whatever. Most of them have levels. My particular system doesn't. It has effectively skill progression, but there's explicit hard video game elements, like literal screens popping up in front of people and leveling up and all that sort of thing from video games.

[00:20:12] Dylan Watkins: It just feels a lot like if – I don't know why, but I just – it's almost like I'm having this own personal experience of watching some person go through the most epic VR Twitch of all time. And you get to hear about his journeys and his missions and things like that as we go through and learn it. There's something that's very, very desirable. That's more desirable than a normal fantasy fiction novel as a Literal RPG where you can actually, you're hearing this game-like experience of the window screens popping up and reaching into their inventory and then collecting jewels and points along the way. And they have alluding skills and abilities.

And there's all this stuff in it that makes you feel like you're in the most epic, you know, D & D style experience that's gamified and you know, you can – and it's so well built out that, like, it just, it – I don't know, it just feels very much more immersive and it's – yeah. And then it's also, there's so much, there's so many life human elements that you have on it, right? From like the social layer to like the spiritual layer, to like the game layer. It all kind of integrates to itself.

[00:21:19] Travis Deverell: Yeah. Well, it hybridizes, you know, what everyone gets out of reading a book with what people can get out of a let's play, for example. So...

[00:21:32] Dylan Watkins: A what play?

[00:21:33] Travis Deverell: A let's play, you know, the, you know, like a Twitch streamer or whatever people just watch.

[00:21:38] Dylan Watkins: Oh yeah.

[00:21:39] Travis Deverell: A streamer just go through a game. And then you just take in all the things that make books amazing and you put them together. And so you get that sort of much more rich, you know, personal experience. So it's like, the joy you get for watching someone go through a game. But then, you know, the stakes are higher. The insight is greater. You, you know, you have characters to cheer and  hate.

[00:22:14] Dylan Watkins: There's both sides, right? You find – you create very likable characters, but also ones that you hate, which are, there are certain characters that come in and out of the game and they – in the game, in the book. Wow! And so, but you're going in and out of that, but if you look at those things, yeah, you have both sides, you have very likable main characters, and there always seems to be this still of very powerful assholes in your books.

[00:22:38] Travis Deverell: Yes.

[00:22:39] Dylan Watkins: Right? There's people that progressively more intense, but also more heartless. And, but one of the characteristics that Jason has is he humanizes everybody and everything and everyone, and makes everybody equal, which is a very unique thing. But I also think very, very powerful. Can you speak a little bit to that? Like what makes characters good versus evil and things that you try to do that make people likable or not likable in terms of developing a world building experience?

[00:23:06] Travis Deverell: I mean, Jason himself is far from a perfect character. He has a lot of flaws and there are a lot of people who get turned off the series by the main character, like on Royal Road. I don't have a lot of middle of the road reviews. There's like lots of, "I love the balls off of this." And then there's lots of, "I hate this guy so much. This is the..." which I personally find great. I'd rather have people be passionate one way or the other than like, "It's fine."

But – and I think that is about just making choice of the character. So if I want someone to be evil, it's about finding what makes them terrible and why, you know, that works. Like, a lot of my, sort of earlier antagonistic characters are like Jason, not great at what they do. Like, they're driven by, you know, really unsavory appetites or desires. And you know, they're not especially terrific at sort of managing themselves. And that's just part of their character. Like if someone is working with a mindset that's quite depraved, they don't tend to be ideal at operating in society at large.

[00:24:48] Dylan Watkins: Yeah.

[00:24:49] Travis Deverell: And that's why it comes that back to what I was saying earlier about, you know, finding where they're from and finding what they want and then just expanding everything from there.

[00:25:00] Dylan Watkins: Yeah. Yeah. The social dynamics that you build into your game is fantastic. Or game, I keep saying a game. It's going to be stuck in my head this way. But the social dynamics that you build in there, the building of the characters, the Gellers and the different types of social political moves, right? The looking at the way that there's – the relationship that bonds these characters that kind of form their parties. They get together.

There's a lot of very well-made socially informed kind of decisions where you can tell that there's different characters at different social levels. And I find it amazing just your ability to be able to kind of craft those narratives around each of these different characters and think through the plot points of what drives them, what engages them, you know, what characters like, you know, what would cause, Rufus Remore to reach the pinnacle of you know, being driven for certain causes. Again, trying to avoid any spoil alerts along this path here.

But there are certain things that you do of being able to create those systems. And I think, do you have things written up in terms of the principles of what the character stand for or things like that? Because I noticed that like there's certain like, like Jason has certain rules that he lives by, and he has certain principles that he stands by. And these things come to face and they write, they come to test him again and again. And then you kind of uncover these the way that they operate in their reality along the path. Like, I'm just curious, like how you track that, how you do that again, is it – it's just more of the world building process I'm fascinated by.

[00:26:36] Travis Deverell: Yeah, it's just, you know, some basic character outlines. Like I said, I start with that core concept and then as I develop the characters it's – and it is much the same way. I work with world building, which is, I just start take my start point and then I start asking questions. So, you know, I just look at what a character wants and you know, where they're from and then start asking. You know, okay, well, how are they going to get that? What have they done to get there? How far are they willing to compromise to get that thing? And questions lead to questions and lead to questions. And you ask enough questions and that makes to story. And it just sort of expands out naturally until everything just sort of fits together. Yeah.

[00:27:31] Dylan Watkins: Yeah. It's so funny because you're writing is so good and you make it sound so simple. You just ask questions and the story reveals itself, pop up! And which is, which is really funny to me, because I'm trying to understand it because being someone who has to narratively build these experiences in games, it's fun for me to wrap my head around.

One thing I'm impressed by what you do is your ability to continuously put out content on the Royal Road and your ability to continuously like, it's so amazing. It's one of the things that like I forget about for a little bit of time and then I look back, I'm like, "Oh wow, four more chapters. That's crazy!" And then like, and how do you like not build yourself into a corner as you're writing, because usually you put a whole book together and then you look at the book, you do like, "Oh whoops, can't do that." And you kind of go backwards and forward.

So like, as you're constantly putting out this content, how do you continue to make more content like linearly going through the experience without actually getting trapped along the way?

[00:28:28] Travis Deverell: Outlining matters. And every author approaches outlining in sort of a spectrum from, they sit down with no idea what they're about to write to by the time they actually sit down to write, they've probably got, you know, at least a solid third of the stuff out there just because of how rigidly they've planned everything out.

I fall, I think, closer to the work as I go, kind of end of the spectrum. But outlining is also really critical, because I like to give myself the flexibility to move around and, you know, have an idea and explore this sort of concept. And that's where doing the world building first, really, really helps because when you come across as something it's like, "Oh, there's a thing from my world building that would be really great to explore right at this moment."

So, you know, it's about knowing the stuff is there so that, you know, when you bump into it, you can sort of explore that rather than inventing, your world as you go. But I think of it like a roadmap, like I'm on a path and I can wander off the path to just explore what's around. But as long as I have my roadmap, I can get back on the road and head back in the direction I'm going because it's going to be probably a 12-book series, unless something goes wobbly. And I have it plotted out all the way through.

[00:30:08] Dylan Watkins: Wow!

[00:30:08] Travis Deverell: But that's like, yeah, but that's also, you know, like in fairly broad strokes, because I do like to give myself that flexibility to move around and to, you know, change my plans.

[00:30:22] Dylan Watkins: Wow! So looking at that, when you're talking about a 12-book series and right now you're at Book 3, about to release Book 4.

[00:30:32] Travis Deverell: But I'm actually just coming to the end of where I'm actually writing is the end of Book 8, so.

[00:30:39] Dylan Watkins: Oh yeah. Because the online, the Royal Road, you have Book 8, well, you have all the chapters laid out. They're not necessarily sliced up. They're just a bunch of chapters shoved together online, which is a fantastic thing. It's funny, like, there was a, you know, what happens is I think when you find like the easiest form of the content and then you fall in love with the content and then you'll switch to more difficult forms of content along the way.

So I'm a big anime fan. So way back in the day, I watched all these Tsunami, like, like, uh, Naruto style things. And then that ran out so then I got into like the Japanese version without the English dubs, and then that ran out. So then I got into like the online Mangas and you know, you have to go through that. And what happened with your books is I did the Audible. I went through the Audibles all the way in, and then I told my friend about it and he's, "Oh, by the way, if you go to Royal Road, you can actually read all of his, all of this stuff." I hate to read. I love the listen, I hate to read. And I'm like, "You can't make me do it, man."

So I got a little trick for myself and I don't know if anybody else does this, but I'll share it with you with one of the things I do is – with the Royal Road, I can copy it and I can drop it into a thing called Speechify, it's an app. And I just have it read to me. So I have all of your chapters like that, and I'm just like listening to it as a robot reads it to me because I just refuse, I refuse to read words on a page. You can't make me read. But it's an amazing, it's an amazing series, even going into that. But that's why, like I was even going through the online, because I'm up to date on, was it 550– was it 556 or something like that? What's your, what's that...

[00:32:11] Travis Deverell: Something like that because the Patreon is like 20 chapters ahead, so...

[00:32:16] Dylan Watkins: Oh, is it? Okay, so I'm going to go sign for the Patreon so I can get 20 chapters ahead of this one. Just go all the way through it. But I use the Speechify app, so it gets read to him. It's not as good because I'll toggle between that and the Audible ones and I'll go in between.

[00:32:30] Travis Deverell:  It does a fantastic job.

[00:32:32] Dylan Watkins: It's great. It's fantastic. I can feel the characters. It's very – it's a good combination. When you find a really good writer and a really good narrator, it's a wonderful match so I highly encourage it. It's just that you ran at a road, man. So I had to, like, I had to get my fix somehow and I was just like, and I hit the thing, I was like, "Well, I'm not going to read this. I guess I'm just going to get tired.

[00:32:55] Travis Deverell: Well, I could tell how you feel, you know, that you wanted to record faster, but I think you might throw something at me.

[00:33:02] Dylan Watkins: It was pretty quick though because you just recently, fairly recently, didn't you – Book 3, was that – how long ago was that that you released that?

[00:33:09] Travis Deverell: September? Yeah, Book 1 was March. So yeah, so this Book 4 will be the fourth one for the year.

[00:33:18] Dylan Watkins: Wow! See that's ridiculous. I...

[00:33:21] Travis Deverell: Well, a little over nine months.

[00:33:22] Dylan Watkins: Yeah, because what happened was I was on vacation right before September hit. I and ate Book 1, Book 2. And then I thought, "Oh, September, this comes down went and then ate that up. And I was like, "Oh, I'm all out content." And I went done the thing. So I will absolutely get the next book as it gets released.

I was just like, how do you not get tired? How do you not tire yourself down and get into a cul-de-sac of your own mental landscape? And it sounds like, so you have an outline of where you want to go all the way up to Book 12. At the same time you have the magic system and all the other systems in some sort of giant wizard, like compendium bound together with human skin. And that thing's off to the side and you have both those things you're looking Okay. That's my outline of where I'm going. Right? You're like, this is my outline of where I'm going and then you go, "Okay, this is my rules of the road." And then it kind of allows you to kind of weave through there and so you can continue to build up the world and continue to lay the details to the outline. Is that kind of how it goes?

[00:34:16] Travis Deverell: Yeah. So having my system all sorted out and having my sort of outline, so I know where I'm going. Those are sort of the key things that let me produce five chapters a week. Because it takes off a lot of the narrative load and lets me just, "Okay, now's time to sit down and write the thing that comes next." Not sit down and think, "Okay, what comes next? And how is that going to work?"

[00:34:46] Dylan Watkins: Got it.

[0:34:47] Travis Deverell: It sort of – it lets me have, I guess, sort of a purely, you know, narrative experience writing and it makes it a really good job.

[00:35:00] Dylan Watkins: It's amazing to hear the process because I can see the output, or at least I can hear the output, and it's really an enjoyable experience. Is there any other like, do you have plans to write another story besides He Who Fights with Monsters? Are there other ones that you have in the back burn that like, "Oh, I can't..."

[00:35:20] Travis Deverell: Oh yeah, yeah, because I spent a lot of time like setting up my world building and all that stuff before I ever, and even doing that sort of first draft that shall forever remain locked away in the drawer...

[00:35:38] Dylan Watkins: Come on.

[00:35:38] Travis Deverell: ...before I ever sat down and wrote this. And so now, I'm sort of starting that process again I've got four more books in He Who Fights with Monsters, once I've polished off Book 8. So I'm now sort of working on starting all of this process over again for what comes next. And I'm basically working on two things at once. I haven't decided which one I'm going to go with yet, because I really love both ideas. But I'll probably just do a one shot story just sort of as a palate cleanser, just like a one book, I don't know, maybe superheroes or something.

[00:36:26] Dylan Watkins: Okay.

[00:36:28] Travis Deverell: And then I'll sort of launch myself into another series.

[00:36:31] Dylan Watkins: Got it. Okay. A little ginger palate cleanser to kind of get ready for the next phase. That makes sense. It's funny because when you craft these narrative worlds and they're so adept and so rich, you want to consume at least as a reader, consumer, you want to consume more and more of it. So, but for you feel maybe a bit tied down a bit.

Like, I feel like, "Okay, I don't want to have to write 12 books and a thousand, you know, about 900 chapters to get through the whole thing." You kind of want to be able to kind of boom, get something done and kind of get in that. Does that help you with your creative inspiration? Or how do you get inspired? Are there other authors that you look up to? How does that whole inspiration piece for you work?

[00:37:14] Travis Deverell: Yeah. So, I tend to obsess on one thing at a time, which helps doing this kind of thing. Like when I get into something, anything at all like, board games, if you look behind me, that's you know, just all board games. When I get into a thing, I go all in. So I think the key for me was finding something that I was really excited to write, something that, you know, had the depth that I could dig in and just keep going and going. and going. And then just completely go all in, because that's sort of me in my element. And I know there are a lot of writers who sort of work in my field LitRPG serialization or not, who will be working on multiple stories at a time. Yeah, that's not me at all.

And in terms of inspiration, you know, and it's lots of different little aspects. Like, dialogue is a very heavy part of my writing style. And a lot of that comes less from books than say television where dialogue is king. So that's sort of Rapid Fire, Aaron Sorkin, Josh Radin banter. I think the inspirations there should be fairly clear in the way I write.

[00:38:45] Dylan Watkins: The banter is so fun. The pop cultural references, the chucking things back and forth, the play on words, it feels very friendly and it feels very down. It feels like you want to go get a drink with the characters as they all hang out, you know, like in some post battle bar or you know, place where you could all hang out together and have drinks.

There's something to the banter that feels very relatable even though a lot of the characters don't because they're from other worlds don't actually understand what the hell the main character is talking about half the time. There's like this inside joke where I feel like I'm on the inside because I know some of these pop cultural Knight Rider-y references as you go through everything. Is that intentional? That thing that...

[00:39:32] Travis Deverell: Yeah. It's absolutely intentional, plus, you know, it's always fun. If someone go, "Jim Carter, I've heard of that. That's terrible." But you know, sometimes they get very obscure. You know, I read a chapter the other day where they're talking about the Wikipedia page for Ralph Fiennes.

[00:40:03] Dylan Watkins: What?

[00:40:04] Travis Deverell: Yeah.

[00:40:07] Dylan Watkins: I don't know that one man.

[00:40:09] Travis Deverell:  You know, the actor Ralph Fiennes.

[00:40:10] Dylan Watkins: Ralph Fiennes? I'll look him up. I'm going to look him up.

[00:40:12] Travis Deverell:  He played Voldemort.

[00:40:13] Dylan Watkins: Oh, okay. Yup. Okay. Now I know what you're talking about. Yeah.

[00:40:18] Travis Deverell: Yeah.

[00:40:19] Dylan Watkins: Yeah. They're random characters.

[00:40:23] Travis Deverell: Yeah. But actually that downtime, I've talked about this a lot with other authors who work in serialization though, that's sort of producing all this content online at a rapid pace. And that sort of downtime is kind of like the secret sauce for this kind of writing. For me, that downtime, like characters hanging out just having fun even if it's just like them talking while they're on the way to fight the giant evil thing. It's more the heart and soul of the story for me than actually seeing them fight the giant evil thing.

[00:41:07] Dylan Watkins: I completely agree. And as you say it, like, I, as much as I love hearing about – there's something about the progression of like, "Wow! we got a new power. Oh, we evolved to this thing. Oh wow, new racial ability!" or whatever, insert thing thing, which is very cool. I don't know why it's cool. Because I know they're just words.

[00:41:22] Travis Deverell: Yeah.

[00:41:23] Dylan Watkins: You're just making up points and chucking points at things. And I go, "Oh! More points!" I don't know why I like – I still like that third grade Gold Star." Yeah. But that bantery shit talkie like poking people, have them poke you back, pulling out a plate of biscuits, you know, there's this combination of like that makes you find – is there an importance, like because you play around place around like barbecues and inviting friends to "Barbies". And then all these like people just getting like, "Hey guys, let's just have a good time." Like, there's... Is it because you just because you love barbecues? Or, is it you understand that that is really the time that you really connect with the characters and the development stuff?

[00:42:05] Travis Deverell: That's what it is. I mean, because these stories are very much escapist stories. So, it's actually very important for me sort of thematically that it does feel like fun and joyous a lot of the time. But also, there's also the fact that you can take that away. Like in my – in sort of, especially around the sort of Book 5, 6 area, which will be coming out next year. There's – I don't want to go into spoilers here, but...

[00:42:47] Dylan Watkins: It's okay, totally fine. No, one's listening. You'll be okay.

[00:42:51] Travis Deverell: But things become a bit more sort of emotionally stark, you know, there's more of a feeling of isolation and those things that have been solidifying the fun thing. So, their absence takes a very sort of visible toll so, and where I'm at writing now is sort of bringing that stuff back in. So...

[00:43:31] Dylan Watkins: It's kind of like how Stella got a groove back kind of thing.

[00:43:34] Travis Deverell: Yeah. That's very much like that.

[00:43:37] Dylan Watkins: What you have and what you're talking about is there's this almost like cycle of you're talking about joy and then struggles and then acceptance and triumph. That's very much this hero's journey narrative of people going almost being broken into pieces and then reforming and coming back whole or coming back better and gaining power to it.

But then also you have that emotional toil that happens as they go through and they try these things and you're like, "Oh, by the way, they're not just a player in the game. Like there is some psychological damage that has happened as they've been basically putting through the ringer and yet they may have come out stronger, but they also come out more fragile or they come out more sensitive. And there needs to be this reintegration period of not only is that struggle, but then there's that breath of fresh air when there is a reuniting, when there is the joyous period.

So it seems like are you – because is there a part of the hero's journey kind of philosophy written into that? Or how is that? How do you look at character arcs and progressions? Is that – are you following those types of paths? Or what does it look like for you?

[00:44:45] Travis Deverell: Yeah, yeah. It is very much because it's a long series, like – I could write just a whole lot of stuff where, you know  it's all just fun and bantery and fighting some monsters and getting some extra hit points or whatever.

[00:45:04] Dylan Watkins: Yeah.

[00:45:06] Travis Deverell: But I don't want to write 12 books of that. So, you know, I want to throw my character into some holes. I wanted to go through stuff, I wanted to learn. I wanted to regress and you know, and character growth is what keeps me as a writer and hopefully the readers, engaged throughout what is quite a lengthy series.

[00:45:36] Dylan Watkins: Do you – I mean, do you have an emotional connection to the characters that you've made up and have written down? Are there, like, do you have – I'm just curious with like the relationship, because I feel by listening to the book series, I feel a relationship to each one of the characters that you have in there. Where I almost feel like I know what they would say in this situation. I know what they would do. I feel like, and it would it be so funny to put Clive in this weird situation.

[00:46:02] Travis Deverell: Yeah.

[00:46:02] Dylan Watkins: Where you have to, like, you have to, it's all carnal and physical and he's like, "What am I doing here?" kind of situation of, you know, whatever but you can see how they would probably react. Do you feel a relationship with these characters even though they've come from within? Or, how is it for you being both the dungeon master in this narrative book series?

[00:46:23] Travis Deverell: Yeah, I mean, I think there has to be an emotional connection there.  A writer I – when I was in university, I mentioned working with a writer once, there's something, she told me, I don't know where she got it from, but said that like, "If you can't make yourself cry where you're writing, you'll never make your reader cry."

[00:46:46] Dylan Watkins: Oh, wow.

[00:46:50] So, you know, that emotional connection has to be real, like – and it has to be affecting, or you are not going to have that the kind of depth and connection for your readers, if you can't have it yourself. And even in a ridiculous story about magic powers and team Knight Rider, there still has to be real core to each of the characters or it's just fluff that's going to wash over. If you want there to be a connection there has to be a realness in that.

[00:47:39] Dylan Watkins: Yeah. It does – there is a realness to it and the development of each of the characters and the struggles and the lessons that they learn along the way, it's a very well run. Like the character development as new character members come on and they form the team, Team Biscuit or whatnot as they go through, each one of them has their own developmental arcs and they go through and they learn to open up in ways that maybe they haven't or accept certain things that they don't. So I love the richness of character development.

And you mean, you're talking about, if you can't make yourself cry while writing, you'll never make your readers cry, which I think a really important thing for young writers or world builders to note. What that makes me think about. Is there anything, any advice or guidance you would give to young narrative writers, writing the genre or other people trying to build worlds lessons learned? If you could go back in time and give a young Shirtaloon advice or guidance in this, what would that be?

[00:48:43] Travis Deverell: Yeah, there's a few things because I do get – because when you work in a serialized space, there's sort of an expectation of audience engagement and availability to the readership, which is part of building a successful readership. Because it's very different from approaching from different avenues of publishing where each one has its own sort of marketing tools and ways of building an audience.

And in serialization it starts in comment sections and being – and discord channels being available to the officer. And I get lots of questions from people, because as I've mentioned, there's no sort of gatekeepers, anyone can jump in. So this is a question that I actually get a lot. Like to the point where I have a PDF somewhere else. It's about sort of two pages long – sort of everything that I've learned about, sort of launching a serialized story and finding success. And you know, I've learned a lot from other readers, other authors have done the same thing.

But there's a few things like for LitRPG specifically, I talked about how I've refined my system and it started off way too complicated. Making things as simple as possible in terms of how your system works is important, because you need to view it, as I said, as a narrative tool. And so that it serves the story rather than the story serving it. Because I think one of the mistakes a lot of people can make in approaching this sort of story is making it all about the system and not all about the characters.

[00:50:34] Dylan Watkins: That is one thing I've noticed is it's a wonderfully well-built environmental, but the character development is very rich and it's very well thought out. And there's a lot of thoughts behind it. Like, and not only that, what the characters are, but how the characters operate in this world, like what is a soul? What are the rules with interacting with souls? What is, you know, what is the – how does that relate to the person's principles and morals moving through the system?

[00:50:58] Travis Deverell: Yeah, because one of the key things I wanted do, because we were talking about the magic system sort of building your magic system for each character. And my ultimate goal with the magic system, like the core thing I wanted was I wanted each character's powers to be a reflection who they are.

So my character Humphrey is a very sort of rigid, straightforward, upstanding person. And all his powers are very straightforward as well. They're simple, they're plain, they're effective, there's no hidden tricks there. Whereas I've got a character, Belinda, who's a thief where her abilities are tricky and versatile.

Then you look at my protagonist, Jason. And he's got sort of the most complex interaction with his abilities, because they like – he's this guy coming in and trying to do his best to be a good guy. But all his powers are evil, like four E's eeeevil. It's like draining blood and darkness and sin and sort of exploring how his powers evolve as we sort of dig into sort of the meaning of that is explicitly tied to his character development.

[00:52:39] Dylan Watkins: Yeah. Which is also tied to like how his – not his character, but what you would say is almost, you can almost personify his character as his soul and how his soul or his essence is reflected in a lot of the things that he does and in a non spoil alert-y kind of way. There's a lot of things that you talk about and how the character is affected by the powers and how the powers are affected by the characters and how that is reflected and seen in the ways that you – there's a very transparency going on where you can actually look at it and go, "Wow! There's a lot of depth to him."

And there's like, if you only knew the surface level things, you'd think one thing, but it's kind of like peeling those things back. You can see the depth of his character and the turmoil that he has, having to do these things while trying to keep these morals, like does the ends justify the means, and there's all that kind of I think, exploration going as the character kind of discovers himself and what he stands for and what he will do and what he won't do and what he learns from in the motions of time, which I think is brilliant.

Question for you, slightly a side note, but I just, I want to know, Shirtaloon? How did you get that? Where did that come from? Like, I don't really know what to do when I say that. I feel like I'm saying some sort of...

[00:54:04] Travis Deverell: I always get this question. And...

[00:54:07] Dylan Watkins: Sorry, man. I'm just curious.

[00:54:09] Travis Deverell: Yeah. I always get this question and it's not an exciting story. I mean, it's just an internet handle I used to use. Because I used to go, you use like "Pantaloon" because you know, it's just fun. When I was like using it as a handle for games and whatnot, but I kept, signing up to games and I'd go, okay, "Pantaloon". Well, that's taken. Crap. Oh, "Shirtaloon". And if that was taken, which didn't happen often, but it did, then it's like "Curvataloon". It's like, and if that's taken, it's like, "No, that's it. I'm not playing this game."

But it just like, I kept sort of going to that second one so much that, it ended up just being what I used all the time. And then, you know, when it came to release this story, when you're doing serialization, almost everyone uses a handle in the sort of Royal Road space rather than an actual one. And I like that because, it does tell you something about the tone of the story. Because the title is a niche quote, which is like super serious.

So having the author name being nice and silly, I think it shows you the juxtaposition of the tone. Because I'm – one of the big things that I do with my writing style is I like to use that isekai that sort of guy thrown into a fantasy world thing to play around with tone and clash, tone and culture.

Because one of my sort of central ideas, like very, very early in the process was that idea of, you know, what happens when an Australian yobbo meets Gandalf? And that is a sort of a tone. Obviously I didn't use Gandalf and my character isn't really a yobbo, but that is what I wanted to explore. That was one of my sort of very early starting points.

[00:56:21] Dylan Watkins: It adds a lot of flavor to the character, him to have these powers and these capabilities along with this kind of quirkiness of like – and also, it is not only just true quirkiness, it's this combination of false bravado and things that he throws out there as well being well over his head in so many situations and then walking away going, "Hah! I made that one. Wow!"

And that was just combination of that, but like, then he – but so you can – you kind of see that there is a crack in the veneer, which makes him more human of an experience. And you really feel for him and you feel for the losses and you feel for the winds and you feel for him trying to put a front on. And then the shit talking amongst his crew of people. And they just kind of like, they embrace him for who he is.

And there's a lot of embracing of the characters and embracing of the things. And they are very dynamic like, Belinda and like the depth of her character is a very weird character type. And I'm like, how did you get all these power sets? And how did you work these things together? And how did like – this would be like the worst person to try to like pin down because of like...

[0:57:31] Travis Deverell: Yeah.

[0:57:32] Dylan Watkins: And so I just, I think it's very interesting how you have this super serious, you write, He Who Fights with Monsters and conquer the world kind of thing with just the sheer shit talking. Is there anything, like with everything that you've built and everything you're doing with this, when you're talking about this 12-book series, and then somehow this marketable skill of becoming internet writer, which is to me, it does not do justice of what you create.

But from making all this, is there like a holy grail for you? Is there like an endgame? Is there something that after doing all of this writing and all of this obsession and all of these late nights sleeping in a hammock while you, as you knock down hours and hours of the written word, is there an end goal for you or some sort of holy grail you hoping to achieve with all this world building?

[00:58:28] Travis Deverell: Not really. Because just becoming a full-time writer was essentially the end goal and it happened startlingly quickly once, you know, I actually sort of. Well, I mean, it is that thing where, you know, you come out of nowhere after working very, very hard, you know, invisibly for a few years. Because I was working on this story for about two years before I ever started releasing it.

[00:59:00] Dylan Watkins: Oh, wow!

[00:59:01] Travis Deverell: So that's, you know, between that, that first draft and doing all the world building, like I, you know, it was, you know, it started off sort of playing around whilst in university. And then after I came out university, I just sat down and went and write, doing this thing. And, that was all very intense.

But once I actually got there, like the success I had was startlingly quick. And like any success, there's a huge luck component involved. So, for example, like I got a major reviewer on Royal Road who's like, well known for telling stories – for reviewing stories, gave my story a positive review and that sort of sat there at the top of the review ranking chart. So my story was effectively sitting at the top of one of the charts on the front page, which pulls in huge amounts of readers. Even though it wasn't me that got to the top of that list, but that sort of level of prominence bought me a new readers and then it sort of ballooned from there. So I got quite lucky in the speed with which it happened.

But actually getting here is kind of my end game. I'm, you know, doing something that I absolutely love the balls off for a living. And if you can't look at that and go "That's a win" then what the hell are you doing with your life?

[01:00:40] Dylan Watkins: It might just be the American in me. That's like, come on don't you want more? Don't you want to conquer the planet? No, like it's... there's a – I mean so you've made it.

[01:00:50] Travis Deverell: Yeah, I'm happy to, you know, explore new projects and go new directions and, you know, exercise new creative muscles. But, yeah, no, I'm – from my perspective, I'm kind of sitting on the mountain top.

[01:01:07] Dylan Watkins: It's a great series. It's one of those things that like, you know, well, I look and I go, "Wow, knowing that..." I'm like, "How much did this dude have to write to make this book this good?" That's really what I look at it. I go, "There's like, there's a lot of like, there's a lot of – to me when I see it, I realize that the work that went into before making this. Because people look and go, "Oh, overnight success." And you're like, "Well, years and years and years of writing and then flip a switch and yes." And so...

[01:01:32] Travis Deverell: I wasn't even working before this came out. So, I'm here in Australia and I was actually  unemployed as I was sort of full-time getting ready to start this off. So I was terrified that this wouldn't work out at all. Like I was absolutely terrified. And...

[01:01:56] Dylan Watkins: Do you have a specific memory when you thought that you might be over your head?

[01:02:00] Travis Deverell: Yeah. Yeah, because when I'm, you know, talking to like the job network agency and it's like, "Yes, we know, you know, you're writing your book. That's all very adorable. We need you to get a menial job, please." Fortunately, there's more of a social safety net for unemployment here in Australia than the US.

So one of the things you can actually do is, you know, you can be unemployed and take the time to sort of properly build something up. Like you can use that safety net to take the time to build a business or whatever you happen to do. In my case, it was writing a book. I mean, it's not, it's like just enough to live on. Like my friends and family really helped me out there so much.

[01:02:48] Dylan Watkins: That's so cool.

[01:02:49] Travis Deverell: But – and this, you know, that increasing push to go ahead and get a job. So I ended up going on this job interview for a call center, like an inbound call center for a power company I think it was. And this was two days, sorry, no, it was just a few days. It was the week before my Patreon was about to launch, which was how I first started making money at this. So, I ended up having to go to this job interview a few days before I find out if any of this is going to work. So I'm anxious that like, "Okay, is this going to work? I just spent like the last, you know, year and a half, two years working towards this, only to have it like flop massively." So I'm terrified at this stage.

And I ended up having to go to this job interview because it's like, if you know, you get a job interview and they say no – and you just say, "No, I'm not going to that." You know, they cut off your benefits. So, you know, all of a sudden I can't make rent or eat food, which is bad.

[01:03:57] Dylan Watkins: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:04:00] Travis Deverell: So, I go to this interview for this job, I don't particularly. Because if I get this job, then I have to stop writing. I won't have time to, you know, produce five chapters a week. While as my Patreon launches and you know, the whole thing collapses in a heap. But I don't like – when it came time where I have to accept this job, I wouldn't know if it was going to work out or not.

So I totally phoned in this interview, it was like a group interview and an extended thing with, you know, one-on-one stuff as well. And I just completely phoned it in. I was like, you know, super chill, just talking about whatever the whole time. And they loved it. It turns out when you're not super nervous and invested about getting a thing and you came off more relaxed, you seem super confident.

[01:04:55] Dylan Watkins: It's like he doesn't even care.

[01:04:57] Travis Deverell: Yeah. So they offered me this job.

[01:05:00] Dylan Watkins: Oh no.

[01:05:01] Travis Deverell: And the point is like, okay, do accept this job. The thing I – because I would have had to quit this job, like two days in if this thing had – if the Patreon had taken off. But actually, because my work history was sketchy. My last reference fell through because they moved on without everything else. So, unfortunately we're going to have to, you know, withdraw the job off. And I'm like, "Oh no!" I'm like, "Ugh. Okay. But now I really, really, really need this writing thing to work."

Because when I first started, I was like, I set myself a couple of goals with like some extra work involved. So it's like, this will get me like halfway to completely off unemployment and this will get me to fully off unemployment. I was like, and I set some goals. So I was like, hopefully within say two months, I'll be able to, you know, live off writing. Not super well, but I'll get there.

And you know, that took a day and a half. So all of a sudden, not only have, you know, I just had this whole thing – I mean, I was over the moon at that point. Like at that point I'm like, "Is this really happening? Like, you know, this seems you to be going too well, where's the trap door I'm standing on."

But then like, because I'd set that sort of extra work goals, all of a sudden, you know, I'm doing twice as much work in terms of just writing as I'd been previously to sort of catch up to the goals I'd set. On top of all the things I was now learning that I would have to do that I didn't know about when I sort of transitioned into doing this. So there's the extra work that sort of soaked up time.

[01:06:55] Dylan Watkins: Wow.

[01:06:56] Travis Deverell: Because I talked about, you know, Discords and comment sections. And audience engagement is a huge part of what I do. You have to build your community of loyal readers and my community is awesome.

[01:07:13] Dylan Watkins: So you basically, so you went from going, "Oh my God, I might have to do this call center job. I don't know what's going on. I'm getting paid by the government just enough to live because I have this passion thing and I have this crazy idea about a kung fu wizard. And then maybe I can get some possible money in a couple of months and maybe it's going to be just enough" to, "Oh my God, everything is working. There's a lot of interest. Everybody's engaged. Everybody wants to go. Okay, now I got to do this. Now I got to do this work. Okay, now..." And you kind of just get thrown on a stage with the curtains pulled back and a bright light shined on you. And now you realize you got to start tap dancing and you forgot your pants.

[01:07:47] Travis Deverell: Yeah. It's like all of a sudden I'm, you know, just pulling 18-hour work days. And yeah, that first sort of month after that happened is more or less a blur at this point.

[01:08:04] Dylan Watkins: Is there anything you want to see in terms of the mediums? Like, do you ever want to see who you fights monsters in another medium? Is there anything like, like the anime or VR or TV or movies? Or is there anything that you'd like to see, He Who Fights Monsters evolve into another medium?

[01:08:19] Travis Deverell: It could – I mean, it would be super exciting to do that. Like, I... there have been talks about things that I can't really talk about, but, you know, it'd certainly be exciting. But for me, like I've talked to authors who seem to be, like see, actually writing their books as sort a stepping stone to a television adaptation.

But while I'd love that, I think it'd be amazing. I never was looking at this as anything, but, you know, I'd like to get my books out there. Because even just getting to the point of releasing these as books was, you know, part of a path. Because I was doing this full-time when this was just me putting up stories on the internet, like with no books involved. So, you know, just getting to that point is great.

[01:09:26] Dylan Watkins: It's so funny because, so, what I'm hearing from you this whole time is this is like, you're super grateful because you knew that like this is kind of an end goal and you're living the end goal. You've made it for in, you know, by your definition of things. And so everything else is just gravy. You're just enjoying the ride and it's super awesome. And whatever happened.

Is there any dragons, is there any things that like you have to battle that you don't know if you can overcome like just the inherent laziness that we feel to get up and write into the chapter? Or like, is there, like, what do you, like, what do you battle, or what do you feel like is your greatest challenge that you faced nowadays?

[01:10:02] Travis Deverell: I think for a lot of writers, possibly most writers, procrastination is the greatest dragon to slay. It's so easy to find reasons to not write. And that was like the big lesson that I had to learn before I could make any of this work. Because if you write when you feel like writing, then you're never going to get anything written, like not on a level that, you know, you're actually producing the kind of output to make any kind of career, like you asked earlier that...

[01:10:40] Dylan Watkins: So, I don't mean to interrupt, but just to dive into that, like, so can you talk to me a little bit, how do you overcome that dragon of procrastination? Just so I can understand a little bit more that curious and lazy minds want to know, could you?

[01:10:53] Travis Deverell: For me, the answer was scheduling. Like, there, you asked earlier about some of the things that help...

[01:11:04] Dylan Watkins: Yeah.

[01:11:06] Travis Deverell: ...advice I'd give. I'd say the first thing is if you want to do this as a job, then you have to treat it like a job. And that means getting up and going to work. My work is very close too. But getting that output done is about scheduling. So, and this is where releasing like online in a serialized form really, really helps.

It's like a huge driver that gets me to get up and go to work like, because it's like, "Okay, so there is a chapter going out tomorrow morning at 9:00 AM." I need to have a chapter tomorrow morning at 9:00 AM. It has to be written. It has to be revised. It has to be edited. It has to be rewritten. It has to be proof. And sometimes that's rough. Like I have a certain chapter length, but if I do a really long chapter, that means that's more hours of work. If I have to rewrite that chapter three times, hypothetically, until I get it where I want it to go, then you know, I'm going to bed late.

But scheduling is great for a couple of reasons. One it's incredible for community building. Like when you work in serialization and you're trying to build up an audience, consistency is key. If people know that they're going to be able to come every weekday at a certain time and there will be a chapter waiting for them, then they will be waiting for it. And that is amazing for building an audience because like I said, there's no gatekeepers on this space. So everyone who has gotten into stories in sort of the Royal Road serialization thing has come across a story that they loved that vanished, like halfway through, bang! Gone. No explanation. That sucks. That sucks super hard.

So, if you can convince people that your content will be there when you say it's going to be there every single day, 100% reliable and you keep up the communication if you're doing things like taking a mental health week, because you've been working 18-hour days for two months. Then that will build up confidence and that will build up readership, but it'll also help keep you on track.

[01:13:55] Dylan Watkins: Yeah.

[01:13:55] Travis Deverell: Like, because it'll keep them coming, but it'll, you know, when you know, "Okay, I have to have this." Because if you – a traditional author is like, "Okay, so I've got to have this book written in four months." I don't think four months is a very helpful deadline in terms of getting you off your bike, because it's like, "Hey, I've got four months." It's like, "Well, my next chapter comes out in 16 hours." That is a deadline that'll get you in front of your computer.

[01:14:30] Dylan Watkins: That's so true, man. Those flags going to the sound like that consistently, like I put, I've been doing this podcast and I publish every Monday and every Friday, every week for last. almost a year straight and then a little bit after that, but that knowing that I'm going to be doing that, it like, "Okay, well I'm going to do it. I don't know how I feel today, I have to like get ready and get going."

Today is technically Thanksgiving, by the way, here in the US. You're one of my favorite authors so when you booked this day, I was just like, "Who the hell books on Thanksgiving?" And I was like, and I looked and I was like, and I was like, "Is there Thanksgiving Australia?" I'm like, "No, they don't celebrate." And I was like, I was like, "Man..." I was like, "Damn." And I was like, "You know what though? I got to get my publishing. And I want to – you're one of my favorite authors so I was just like, I'm going to do this with you because I really appreciate it and it does keep to that scheduling that consistency in that output. So...

[01:15:22] Travis Deverell: I'm sorry though, jumping on your Turkey day.

[01:15:24] Dylan Watkins: I'm like, "Come on. We had pilgrims, we came here, we celebrated, we had gratitude. We say, hey this is a nice land, we should use some of it. We're only going to take a little bit. We're really grateful though."

[01:15:35] Travis Deverell: Yeah. That's how it went.

[1:15:38] Dylan Watkins: That's exactly. That's exactly.

[01:15:39] Travis Deverell: Yeah. And Christopher Columbus was a great guy.

[01:15:42] Dylan Watkins: Right. Yeah, yeah. Don't really read into the books, just kind of look at the pictures. If you could just look at the pictures and don't really read about the actual history, it would be great. But again, that consistent, that posting and that putting that stuff out there is, is a very valuable thing. But do you sometimes you don't want to, and I do get what you're talking about that consistent posting.

I just – from my perspective, for you to kick out like chapters of reading material, it's one thing for me to have just a bantery conversation, you know, back and forth on interesting topics, but you actually – that's why I'm like, "How do you not build yourself into a hole?" You have like a late night drinking session and it's due. And is that like, how do you not wake up and like, "Oh, wow! Okay, now we have Griffins or whatever." you know, as you kick out the content. So I find it be very inspirational on the work that you do.

Is there – I mean, as we start to come through to the end of here, I mean, is there anything else you'd like to let people know about before you tell them how to get a hold of you? How to support your work and what does that actually look like?

[01:16:48] Travis Deverell: See this is the sort of traditional social media, you know, call to action-y part of the process where – and I think everyone feels awkward about it going in, because this is not generally where I sort of build up my audience. Like there are some Facebook-y stuff. You know, there's some groups I poke my head in from time to time. But I wasn't even on Facebook until this year. It's like, you know, I was just like, "Okay, so Facebook, you have to be on Facebook." And I was like, "Oh no." Because I came up from that serialist space and you know there's, you know, the LitRPG of Reddit. And these Discord communities. And that's sort of where I sort of came from and where my things start off.

So, you know, I don't have a Twitter handle. I do have a Facebook that I checked at some point. No, most of the Facebook...

[01:17:53] Dylan Watkins: I can feel it.

[01:17:55] Travis Deverell: Because I I'll just go through and I'll just accept all my friend requests and then people will send me messages and I'll have a chat with a reader and that's, you know, pretty much what I use Facebook for.

[01:18:07] Dylan Watkins: Well, community is formed around the content that gets released. And so, if all your, if everything got released into a private Facebook group, that's where your community would be. But it sounds like you have Patreon and Discord is the places to find you and find all your hours and hours and hours of content.

[01:18:26] Travis Deverell: Yeah, the Discord, really, because I'm always on that. Like even if I'm just writing, I'm sort of just keeping an eye on that in the background watching, you know, conversations around the story and the latest chapters, you know. Fortunately, it doesn't take a lot of moderation. My community on discord is actually really nice.

[01:18:48] Dylan Watkins:  Oh, that's...

[01:18:49] Travis Deverell: ...which is pleasant. But – yeah, so I engage with them a lot, because there's lots of really sort of specific questions about the system. It's like, you know, what are these three essences making? And what does that mean? And so every now and again, you know, when I have a few, a spare hour or something, I'll sit down and I'll do like a really in-depth thing on some aspect of the world building that exists, but never made it into the text because it wasn't relevant to the story. And then I'll just, you know, drop that for the community to, you know, do with what they will.

[01:19:27] Dylan Watkins: It's so cool that you actually engage with the community and be able to actually answer these burning questions. Because they're burning questions because they have like these ideas get into these reader's heads, me being one it's like, like why? Like what is this about? What is the cooking about? What is this other thing about? How does, if you make the sin essence and you take it with the mighty, what happens? What happens? Like I want to know, this is – get out of my head. Answer my questions.

You know, that does happen, which is amazing that you actually take the time to do that because it shows that you care. And when people know that you care, that the author cares not only about the book, but actually about the readers, then they feel more engaged. They feel like it's more, it's not going to be a fly by night book series that's going to disappear. And then, you know, it's going to be, you know, the rug is going to get pulled out from under them. So I think it's really important what you do. If people want to find your Discord, if people want to find your Patreon, how do they do that?

[01:20:16] Travis Deverell: The best place to go is – because the Patreon is just like the latest handful of chapters. It's more or less, you know, about a month worth of advanced chapters, whereas there's hundreds and hundreds of stuff on say Royal Road. And there are links right there on Royal Road like the front page of the story has a Discord link that'll take you straight there. And there's a Patreon button at like the bottom of every chapter. So, you know, it's like, "I'm going to give you money." There's a great big yellow button for giving me money. So...

[01:20:54] Dylan Watkins: Well, now that I know that that's an option, I now know what my next, my next leap I'm going to be making, the audio book series is great on Audible. I recommend it highly. It's a great narrator-author combo going in there now. Royal road, He Who Fights With Monsters, you can go to Royal Road. Check that out.

Once you get done consuming all of that reading or using the Speechify app as I use to go through and because I can't, apparently I can't read words or choose not to. That's a great one, but then when you hit that and you want more content, you can go and you can go on to Patreon, upgrade to that, pay Travis a couple of bucks so they can continue to dedicate those 18-hour days. And...

[01:21:35] Travis Deverell: It's not always that bad.

[01:21:37] Dylan Watkins: Yeah. It's wonderful content, man.

[01:21:39] Travis Deverell: I'm taking December off for a reason.

[01:21:41] Dylan Watkins: Congratulations, brother. Well, I appreciate your time. I appreciate the work that you do, the world building that you've done. And, you know, let me know, you said the 28th is going to be when the book releases.

[01:21:52] Travis Deverell:  Yeah.

[01:21:53] Dylan Watkins: For Book 4. So what I'll do is I'll schedule it, this series, this actual podcast to get released right around that timeframe. So when it goes out on there, just to kind of seat it at the same time. Do you – and I don't know this. Do you have a title for that book yet? Is it out or no?

[01:22:12] Travis Deverell: No, it's just He Who Fights With Monsters Book 4.

[1:22:15] Dylan Watkins: Okay. Okay.

[1:22:16]  Travis Deverell: Because, you know, as you can tell from that, I tend to make quite lengthy titles. So if it was like, He Who Fights With Monsters Book 4 and then the actual book titles that be, I'm going to end up with my cover ad is just going to be one little person in the corner just fighting against the world of text.

[1:22:33] Dylan Watkins: He fights with words. Cool, man. Well, Travis, it's an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate you taking the time. Thank you for continuing up on the work. And I will see you on the other side.

[01:22:50] Travis Deverell: Thanks, man. It was good talking with you again.

[01:22:52] Dylan Watkins: Absolutely, brother. You too. Take care now. Bye.

[01:22:54] Travis Deverell: Bye.

[01:22:56] Outro: Thank you for listening to the Heroes of Reality Podcast. Check out HeroesofReality.com for more episodes. While you're there, you can also take the Hero's quiz to find out what kind of hero you are. Or, if you have a great story and want to be on the podcast, tell us why your hero's journey will inspire others. Thank you for listening. See you on the other side.