Balance of Fates: Crafting Queer Worlds and Growth

In this episode, indie author Raquel Raelynn discusses her debut queer fantasy novel The Balance of Fates, sharing how a random idea evolved into a 10-year writing journey, her process for crafting rich world-building and diverse characters, and how she uses Kickstarter as an indie author. She also previews three upcoming 2026 releases.

Lyrics by: Jessi Hersey

Music by: AJ Music Group

Art By: Zummi

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Listening to voices, stories can be strange. It's good to open up to new stories and finding backstories of how people came to be, only to free the mind of what blinds us with only a glance gives us a chance to see people be who they truly are. From silent voices to shining light. Stories that inspire awareness and change. I welcome you to Jesse Stories, unheard voices. Like a queer author and redefining what inclusion really means. So thanks so much for being here. Let's begin. Can you tell me how to pronounce your name? Raquel. So Raquel. And Raquel, if you would introduce yourself and what you do.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

So my name is Raquel Raylin. I'm an author. I write mostly queer black main characters in a plethora of genres. I don't like to stick to just one. I'm the same way.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

Where did the idea of Balance of the Fates come about?

SPEAKER_00 1:46

It's funny because the Balance of the Fates that I ended up with, the published version, is so completely different than the one I started with. It's really a completely different book. Because it started out with an idea I had when I was driving one day. At this time I was working at a paint store, and I was driving from work, I believe, and all of a sudden this idea came to me of a book with a school, like a university full of princesses. But all of these princesses were based on different estates. Like all these different states of princesses, and it was gonna be a queer romance between these two of the higher princesses or whatever. So I was just so obsessed with the idea. So while I was at work, I would be writing down ideas for this book, just any spare scrap of paper that I could get. But then as I got into the editing process, obviously it ended up changing so much because originally that was going to be a it wasn't going to be fantasy, but I love fantasy so much that I can't help but put fantasy into like all of my work. So I ended up being like, well, let's add a little bit of fantasy, and then it slowly snowballed into what we have now, which is a completely different book.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

I would say from square one, that is definitely different. And then to the writing side of things. So what is your writing process?

SPEAKER_00 3:07

So it's simple, at least I guess to me, everyone's processes are different, but uh I am constantly my brain is always in creative mode, so I'll get random ideas for things. Sometimes I'll get a full a fully fledged idea, sometimes it'll be just little pieces of ideas, and I'll I have my notes app on my phone that's literally just writing ideas. So whenever a writing idea comes to me, I'll just add it in there. And once I get enough ideas to kind of stitch together a whole plot for a story, I'll be like, okay, it's time to write that. Or sometimes the idea will just be you need to write this right now, that I just immediately have to dive in with balance of fate. That was one of the ones that I immediately like there was no waiting for more ideas. I immediately just had to dive into that idea because it was just so heavy on my brain. So I stitched the ideas that I have together and then I'll make a sheet, like I'll get a sheet of paper and I'll divide it into okay, so what are the characters? What are the settings? What are the plots? So any information that's already in my brain about this idea, I'll just fill in each of those squares with my base ideas, and then I'll take each of those, I'll make a basic outline, it's usually maybe a couple of paragraphs, and then from there, I'll take those paragraphs and then write an entire okay, act one, act two, act three, and then I'll go into doing the first draft. And then after I read the first draft, which is usually not super long or super detailed, I'll be like, okay, new ideas will start coming together with these characters stuff, and then we'll just be another draft, another draft until I have a full book. That's actually really cool.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

But you and I both share the same thing in doing at least the notes on your phone. I do that too, except for when I'm driving and make sure to park if it comes.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

But yeah, that comment.

SPEAKER_01 4:53

I just do the whole outline. I don't have the attention span for that.

SPEAKER_00 4:56

I do used to. I used to be a pantser like a hundred percent. But especially because I mostly a lot of my stories have fantasy elements, it's so much harder to keep the story straight because before I published Balance of Fates, I had been writing for 10 years. From when I decided, okay, I want to be a writer. It'd been 10 years before I actually published Balance of Fates. And my problem was always that I would have an idea, I would love it, I would do the first draft, and then I would find holes or whatever, and then all I did, okay, I used to tear it all down and do it all over again. And it was just so much work, and I never could get a finished product from that. So I was like, okay, I need an outline, or else I'm never gonna be able to finish a book. Now I love my outlines. It's I couldn't do it without the but you also write.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

I personally have it. I've done children's books, poetry book. Right now I'm working on my memoir slash the second one to my children's book on pronouns, but I also haven't written fantasy or anything like that. So I might have to do that for mine that I am writing right now. That is fantasy, creepy. I don't know. Death is involved in my story, but it's a queer, all queer. But so you're actually helping me write to creepy. You pretty much answered that one. But how did you get started on Kickstarter?

SPEAKER_00 6:12

Kickstarter, I fell into like a lot of things that I've done in my writing career, just fell into it. I guess I just saw, I think I saw someone's video on TikTok talking, an author who was talking about TikTok because I knew about Kickstarter as writing because Brendan Sanderson, I know I had heard way back when that he was one of the biggest Kickstarter things ever. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. I didn't really know much about Kickstarter. And then later on TikTok, I saw another author who's a much smaller author, and I was like, oh, they were able to do that, and they were able to do it so well. I can't think of her name now. She's a yeah, I'm really horrible with names if you don't know, just she's amazing on TikTok, and her Kickstarter did it so well. And I was like, maybe this would be an idea because again, I am an indie author, and indie authors have to go out of pocket for things like editing and covers and stuff. And so I was like, maybe this could be very helpful to me. So I decided to do a bunch of research on YouTube. I went on YouTube, I looked up how to run a Kickstarter, like all of that stuff. The biggest issue with that was the math stuff, because I'm not good at math. Figuring out goals and a lot of money and stuff. That was difficult. But yeah, so I just started researching it and I was like, you know what? Let me just give this a try. And it ended up working out.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

Yeah, you're it's yeah, at least of what I've seen of your. I've only seen one so far, but I am on for the other ones that you have set up too. At least I'm on the list of favorite for whenever it becomes live. But yes, it's very smooth of what I've seen, and I will possibly be copying a little bit on that. I suck at math also, so you're not alone. I'm learning. I'm trying to learn too. It's hard, especially when it comes to editing and figuring out all the factors your artist, like we talked about earlier, art and commissioning artists and figuring out that because each artist is different and how they choose to get paid and how they want to do contract. Yeah. And now back to Balance of the Fates. How did you come up with the separation of which is werewolves and vampires?

SPEAKER_00 8:11

So for that, it was a mixture of the original idea where I was gonna have those different kingdoms, the different princesses, but also just because I grew up, I loved reading magical books, werewolf books, vampire books. And in a lot of those, it's usually oh, like vampires and werewolves or mortal enemies and stuff like that. So that influence of the books that I grew up reading, I was like, hey, that would be great.

SPEAKER_01 8:34

So that's how I decided to do that. I like that it also has your own flair to it. I really love each character's name, and I am bad with memorizing characters' names, just so you know. But I really love and actually look at her name in the front. I like which I might pronounce their names wrong, and if I do, please tell me, because I don't want to butcher names. Lucia and Adelaide. Yeah. I really like how you have these names because they're really good names, and yeah, and I like the fact that it's not a whitewash book. I just want to bring that up in there because we have way too many whitewashed books. Yeah. Way too many. We need more authors like you and Caitlin Byron. I love her so much. We need more authors like both of you. Yeah, part of my mix of reading.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

Well, that was actually part of my journey as an author. Because, like I said, it took me 10 years before I wrote The Balance of Faith. Uh, because when I started college, that's when I decided to pursue my writing and I went to school for creative writing. And when I first started writing, a lot of my earlier works that are just hidden away in my computer somewhere had white man characters. Because growing up, the majority of the characters that I read and I saw and watched on TV and movies were white characters. And when I first started writing these books, the characters were white. And it wasn't until I went to college and I started taking these different classes. I had this amazing screenwriting class or screenplay class with this amazing black teacher. Her name is Mildred, and she did a lot of stuff in the theater and stuff, and she was amazing. She was she was actually my first black teacher that I ever had. And so her and talking with her and that, as well as I took different classes. I had the I don't remember the name of the class, but it was like a translation class. So we read a lot of works from across the world, Africa and Asia and stuff that were like translated into English. And so these amazing works from the authors of color, that I was like, oh my gosh. And that's when my writing really started to improve. And I really started to write characters that were my identity. And that's when I feel like I felt more confident to publish because I was finally writing books that were more real to me.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

Of course. And just to reiterate, the whitewash that we have, which I've heard some other voices talk about that too, which I completely agree with, that we need less of the whitewash and more just voices that you've never heard from before, because then you get introduced to not as boring as white is. I don't know how to say that without any people. So if you're offended, I'm not really sorry because I stand strong on that, but um, it's just nice. I personally don't write, I write disabled characters because I'm disabled. I write queer because I'm queer, but I don't touch anywhere else because I don't personally feel it's my space, but I do have c characters that are not all white. That's the main thing. But I always leave that to authors that are not looking like me because my looks doesn't necessarily have my class besides the whiteness of privilege is the only thing I have out of all that. But yes, trying my best to say it in the best way possible. But again, I don't care if I offend other people in this case. But yeah, and then one of my favorite parts, at least the balance of the fates, is how did you come up with the rich history of the vampires and the witches? Because it gets brought up so many times within the book.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

Okay, for that history of the characters, that really was just like I said, when I edit, because when I do my first draft, it's just like a basic the plot, but I'll have a character and I'll like build on their character. So adding things about Lucia's family, like about her grandmother and her relationship that she has with her mother and her sister and all of that. So I take the bits of each character that makes them who they are, their character, their culture, and through each version of the editing process, each draft, I'll slowly build up more and more. Sometimes I'll do research throughout history, throughout all sorts of stuff to find things that I feel like really connect with my character and who they are. And that will just slowly, and it's funny because not just with the bounce face, what's like all of the books that I write, when I'm writing the world building, I'll have I'll have so much information about the culture and the world that either by the end of it ends up getting cut or that it's still part of the world, but I don't actually put it down on the page because there's just so much of the world that just doesn't fit in the narrative. But I'll try different things till I find what works for the characters of the story. So it's just a bit of stitching and piecing until I'm like, okay, this makes the entirety of the world to try to make it feel as real as I can. But yeah, the process is different for each book depending on what I'm writing and what characters I'm writing. I really let the characters try to speak for themselves, let them tell me their histories and their backstory.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

I really like that. And I like their history too, of what I read and just how it gradually gets introduced into the book instead of all coming at you at once. Because that's hard when authors do that all at once. I don't digest easily that much information. So it's very nice that you write that way. Oh, why? Wow, I can't spell. Triad to prove herself as a witch and her Adeline, I believe. But the Triand. Yeah, the Triad.

SPEAKER_00 14:01

There you go. The triand was actually one of the hardest parts for me to write of this book. Because I went back and forth so many times, like so many different versions in my computer of this book, just based on that portion, just makes up a lot of the middle of the book. And because I was really unsure about how I wanted to do that, I knew that I wanted to have them at the school because since all three of them, their communities, they live in such different areas. I was like, I need a way for them to be able to all come together, which is why I needed the school. I needed them to all be at the same place. And then with the triune, I was like really just testing out so many different things. And I was, how am I gonna do this? Because I was like, okay, there's this magic that all of them want it. How do I decide who gets it? Because it's difficult because they all have such different abilities. The vampires um, you know, are fast and strong, and you know, the werewolves are strong and they turn into werewolves, and then the witches have their magic. So their magic is also different to make a competition that would be equal for all of them was like a really difficult thing to come up with. So I just went through so many different things, and uh finally I was like, you know what? I think a trying like something where there's like multiple tests that test different um skills would just be the like best and fairest way to test them. And I used influences from like, I know I love Hunger Games, I love you know challenges, love uh what was it, um, Indivergent. I one of the things I did like about Divergent was when they had Triss do like those tests, like those, it was like in her mind, did all those different tests or whatever to to figure out what where she sat. But I used influences from those different movies and stuff, as well as I don't know if you know the TV show uh Survivor. Yes, I know but I wish you I've been watching Survivor since I was like a little kid. I love like competition type shows, but I just use influences from all of those like different competition test type like shows and movies, books to kind of like help me create that. I really like that.

SPEAKER_01 16:11

That's awesome, and especially because I do love the Hunger Games. That's personally one of my favorite authors, at least in her writing, since it is relevant today, only enough. Yeah. Oh, mystery and your characters' names. That's just out of pure curiosity of me.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

So specifically for the balance of faith, so I come up with many different ways to come up with names. Sometimes names can be like one of the hardest things for me to come up with because finding a name is like picking a name for your child. You need a name that fits the character, fits their appearance and their personality and their background culture, all about stuff. And then it just has to look and sound good on the page as well. Specifically for the balance of fates, I think I came up with Lucia's name pretty easily. That was one of the first names I came up with. For Petin. His name, I use some influences from Native American names because he is Native American. Obviously, in the Balance of Fates, it is a fantasy type world, so there aren't we don't live in the world that we live in here. It's not America, but his character and his people were inspired by Native American people. So his name is Native American inspired. And then for Lucia, her name didn't have any influences. I was just like, I always really love name L names. That's how her name came about. And if I was if I see a cool name somewhere, I'll add that to my list in my notes app. I'll be like, oh, that's a good name. I could use it for a future character. So it's a mixture of just looking through names that I have saved up and be like, does this fit any of my characters? Well as holding certain cultural influences if the characters are influenced by certain cultures.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

And now the very important question: any upcoming books or Kickstarters for So I have a listen of coming books.

SPEAKER_00 17:57

26 is gonna be a busy year. Yeah, so I have Princess and Potions, which I currently have the Kickstarter up. It's not live, but I do have the Kickstarter up for that, which is my sapphic cozy fantasy, which I'm super excited about. It was just so much fun. That was actually, I was inspired to write that one by Rebecca Thorne because she was the first cozy fantasy that I ever read. And yeah, I just love Rebecca so much. She's so great. And so yeah, that's what inspired me to write a cozy fantasy. And it's about a princess who falls into a portal to a fantasy world, and that one's just a lot of fun. And then I have my queer kind of new direct academia book, which is We Were Wicked, and it's about this boy and his sweet friends. They go to a all-boys preparatory boarding school, and they have to learn alchemy to help our main character, Rowan, cure himself of the werewolf curse. And then we have Sheen in the Sky, which is my first contemporary book that I'm writing, which I'm I love this story so much. And it is about a black girl who goes to an all-white school, and she ends up vandalizing this poor school in a black neighborhood with her friend, and she's the only one who gets caught and in trouble for this. And she is made to tutor a kid from this school. And through that, going to the school tutoring there, she ends up meeting Xavier, who is a black bull rider, and they saw in love. And I love that story so much. It's so different than all of the other stories that I've written so far. But I just love it so much.

SPEAKER_01 19:30

They all sound good. I'm excited about reading. We already have one bookmarked. That's the Princess and Potions. It's the one that I have bookmarked, waiting for it to go live. But I'm excited to read all those. And then where can everyone find you on social media to where you're at in the writing process and everything?

SPEAKER_00 19:46

So all of my social media's threads, Instagram, and TikTok is all Raquel Raylin Writes.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

And I'll have it all down below, too, by the way, including Kickstarters will be down below if you want to check those out. If you made it to the very end, please subscribe, embrace your truth, tell your story. I have a story to tell, you have a story to tell. So let's tell our stories. Till next Saturday. Peace. Thanks so much for being here, everyone. Uh, I hope you enjoyed this episode with many more to come. If you'd like to help support and grow the podcast and even the YouTube channel, please not only follow, like, subscribe, but please leave a review on Spotify, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you listen to this podcast. Thanks so much for being here. Until next week, on Wednesday at 7 a.m. Mountain Standard Time. Peace. Catch you later.