In this episode of Plot Twist Radio, Erin sits down with young adult author Grace Ogren to talk about her journey from writing her first novel at sixteen to publishing her dystopian debut, Gilded Evils.
Grace shares how the desire to read a story that didn’t yet exist inspired her to start writing—and how that moment shaped her path as a storyteller. We dive into the realities of self-publishing, the challenges of worldbuilding in dystopian fiction, and why flawed, morally complex characters create the most compelling stories.
The conversation also explores her upcoming novel, Curse of Saviors, a post-apocalyptic fantasy featuring dual perspectives, elemental powers, and the psychological toll of being responsible for saving a broken world.
If you’re an aspiring writer, a fan of young adult fiction, or someone navigating the messy middle of the creative process, this episode is packed with insight, honesty, and encouragement.
Topics include:
- YA dystopian and post-apocalyptic fiction
- Self-publishing vs. traditional publishing
- Writing flawed, relatable characters
- First drafts, revisions, and the writing process
- Worldbuilding in fantasy and dystopian worlds
Gilded Evils by Grace Ogren is available now on Amazon.
Follow Grace on Instagram: @writer.gracejosephine
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Welcome to Plot Twist Radio, the show where creativity,
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storytelling, and the unpredictable path of the
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creative life all collide. I'm your host Aaron Egnatz.
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There's something powerful about the moment a writer realizes
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that the story they've been searching for doesn't exist yet,
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so they decided to create it themselves.
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Today on Plot Twist Radio, I'm joined by young adult author
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Grace Ogden, who did exactly that.
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From writing her first book at just 16 to navigating the
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realities of self-publishing, Grace has built her storytelling
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journey on instinct, resilience, and a deep understanding of what
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it means to grow through hard moments.
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We dive into her debut novel, Gilded Evils, a dystopian story
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centered around flawed choices, moral Gray areas, and the
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consequences that follow. We also talk about her upcoming
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project, Curse of Saviors, post apocalyptic fantasy exploring
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power, pressure, and what happens when the people meant to
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save the world begin to break under it.
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This is a conversation about writing without fear, embracing
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imperfection, and telling the stories you wish existed.
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Hello Grace, Before we get started, can you tell everyone a
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little bit about yourself? Yeah, hi.
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I'm very glad to be here. Yeah, I'm Grace.
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I live in Madison, WI and I work as a copywriter and then I also
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write books for young adults on my evenings and weekends.
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Very cool, Medicine is one of my favorite towns.
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I used to go there a lot, especially in my younger days.
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Yeah, I really like it. So before we dive into the books
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themselves, can you tell us a little bit about your journey as
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a writer and what first drew you to storytelling?
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I started my first book when I was 16, and I remember the
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realization to trigger that was that I wasn't seeing a story
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that I necessarily wanted to read.
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I had this like thing in mind, and then I was like, what if I
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just wrote it? And that was like this mind
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explosion moment. And that's really what triggered
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it. I'd always, I'd grown up writing
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stories, old short stories with my siblings.
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So it felt just kind of like a natural progression of that come
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into a true real book on which my first one was not really that
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anyway, but it was good practice.
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So I ended up just kind of perfecting that story over a few
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years and ended up with the version that I have now.
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And that's it's whole new story. But that is what I, I did try to
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query it. I had the goal of traditional
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publication and I have since self published that story.
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But so yeah, my journey started small and then it kind of just
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built on itself over time. I never really planned to self
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publish or even do any other type of publication.
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It was just what if I wrote a book and then I did as I did
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that. I was like, I really like this.
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It just kind of become a part of who I am.
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Good. I've been writing something
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always for like 8 years now. Yeah, that's how I felt too.
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You know, I, when I first started, I was obsessed with all
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kinds of fantasy and whatnot, but I never found the story that
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I wanted to read. So I created it and like you, I
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went through the query process and it's a nightmare.
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It's an awful process. You know, self-publishing a lot
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of times will get a bad Rep, but some of my favorite authors
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their self published and they do fantastic.
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There's nothing wrong with it. I mean, in today's world, thank
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God for the option of self-publishing because you can
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hear stories out there. What are your favorite genres?
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Young adult is generally stayed my favorite.
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Like I've read it as a more young adult and then now that
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I'm older, I'm still drawn to it.
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I think it's it's very like creative compared to the adult
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genre. I think that's kind of the
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point, but I really like that about it.
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And there's feels like much less rules, which is fun being the
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writer of them. And I gravitate towards
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dystopian, so that's typically what I end up writing.
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I didn't really have a plan when I started the book that I
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published. It was just the story and I
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figured out the genre later, but as I keep writing I always end
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up back in dystopian. And that is very popular right
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now, especially with the world being crazy.
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But for listeners who haven't discovered it yet, your first
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book, Gilded Evils. What kind of world are readers
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stepping into? Yeah, it's a world that I didn't
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want it to feel much different than our current world.
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There's there aren't like powers or creatures like I wouldn't.
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It is a fantasy world, but fantasy in the sense of fantasy.
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So it's similar world to ours. There's conflict between
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countries and that's kind of the driving premise for the story.
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Like there's yeah, a conflict that make characters not really
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involved in, but it kind of sets things into motion.
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And so it basically the gist of the story is that there's a girl
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who I really wanted a character that makes like a really, really
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bad mistakes and has kind of like morally ambiguous reasons
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for doing it. And like the consequences of
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them are really, really bad. Like could end her world.
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She tries to save her country, safe the family that she has
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left and basically just goes about it all wrong.
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And so the story is her kind of figuring out how to fix things
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and then also realizing a lot about like herself and love.
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And there's a dynamic with her dad that was fun to write.
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And it's not super healthy, but it it ends up OK, decently OK.
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But yeah, so there's the gist of it is like this girl who's kind
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of all, like, tough and more strong does all this stuff wrong
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and finds out that that's not, like, the worst thing she could
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ever do. Basically, yeah.
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I like that because you know when we get the characters that
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you know, they never have any flaws, nothing ever goes wrong.
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It doesn't seem real, even though you know most of it is
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fantasy to begin with. But when you have flaws and a
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character or, you know, challenges, it makes it more
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relatable for the audience. Yeah.
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And I wanted it to be like the other characters that she's
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interacting with and who are her support characters, like point
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those things out and are like personally affected by the
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things that she does wrong. So because that can be something
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I see in books too, where it's kind of supported, maybe even
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inadvertently by other characters.
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But I, especially the girls, like best friend that I gave
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her, she's kind of the moral compass.
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And so I liked giving my main girl a lot of pushback.
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Sure. So dystopian fiction requires a
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lot of world building. What was the most challenging
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part for creating the world? I was just on my Goodreads page
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and going through reviews that I hadn't seen yet, and that's
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something I got feedback on was that my world building was not
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amazing. So I think that I do.
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That's definitely an area I struggle with, I think
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especially because it's dystopian.
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So I don't want to get right into the problem, but people
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were saying like I wanted to know more about the setting.
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I think I've gotten better with that, especially with my book
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I'm working on now. It's more of a like traditional
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fantasy where the world is a big part of the story.
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But I think in general what I did with my currently published
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book that strengthen the world building.
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So it took it from probably nothing to something.
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At least I tried to just focus on the history of the place of
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the made-up country and like weave that in everywhere I could
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and have the character, the main girl, interact with the history
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in some sense or know things about her history.
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So in my story, her father is they live on like an island
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country is what I designed it as.
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And he comes from the people who are originally they're kind of
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weaving that in like her relation to the people who were
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the very first ones there and like what that history was like.
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And so I use that to like, how did the world change from when
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it first began? And like, what's different about
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it now? Even things like currency
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travel, I think those can help a lot with making a world unique
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and hopefully more memorable and gives things like characters can
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interact with more easily. I really appreciate like a
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subtle world build. And I think that's where I need
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to improve upon. I think I was going to subtle
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with my published book. So I've been working on that
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because I've also been in a writer's workshop working on my
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current novel. And that was helpful feedback
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too, that I got where ways I could build the world.
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So I think overall, I, I didn't do an amazing job with that with
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my published book. And I'm realizing the importance
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of it and that readers do actually care.
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I wasn't quite sure about that initially.
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I was like, I just got it right into the conflict.
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Yeah, based on feedback, it's encouraging to me that like I
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can dip a little more into the world and that that's more
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needed than I originally thought.
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And Goodreads, you know, the reviews on there could be brutal
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at times. That's not my favorite.
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Yeah, I haven't read it at all until just now.
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Yeah, I I try and avoid that that site.
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I just, you know, I leave. That.
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Over there and pretend it doesn't exist.
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So do you tend to start with characters first or the world
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when you're creating a new story?
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I would say characters, that's in my mind what I build out
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first and in Gilded Evils, like it opens right into something
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that character is like doing. So I would say it focuses mostly
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on her and then you kind of find out about the world as it
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progresses. It's a little different now from
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my current unpublished novel because it's so the world is a
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big part of the story. So I think I had more of a focus
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on specific, specifically moving my characters around in the
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world within the 1st 2 pages so that readers could see like the
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there's two different worlds in my book right now.
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So to show that, yeah, I would say it kind of varies, I guess,
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based on the what I'm telling. But with what I know now, I
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would definitely try to make it equal, at least in the
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beginning, because I'm finding that readers do want that.
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A little more on the world building side please for my
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novels. So what does your writing
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process usually look like? Are you someone who outlines
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heavily, or are you kind of like me and just sit down and start
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writing? We see where it ends up.
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I, I always start with some outline and usually what I do is
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I write the outline on paper specifically and then it
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eventually makes its way over into like a note on my phone.
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But so I have some I have like a very loose outline, I would say.
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And then I kind of give up on it pretty quickly or it just stops
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making sense because yeah, as I start writing, the whole story
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changes. So I have like an attempt at an
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outline. I don't even normally stick to
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it, but I have these kind of working very loose outlines just
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typing in my notes app like do this and go back and do this or
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yeah, at the end this should happen.
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So it's it's kind of very discombobulated.
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Gotcha. So your work in progress novel,
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it's called Curse of Saviors, correct?
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It is a young adult post apocalyptic fantasy.
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So that is interesting. So tell us a little bit about
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that. Yeah, it is.
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I just finished the first draft, I guess a few months ago, but
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and I had a log line made for it, which I've forgotten, but
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it's it's a dual POV. So it's 2 teenagers and they're
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the saviors. They're in a, the, a world
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without water or anything to create like electricity.
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Basically one of them has like water as power and then the
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other one has magma. So they're kind of in this
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position of royalty where they're keeping the world's
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alive. There's a world above the
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surface and a world below the surface.
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And basically they, I kind of just discover a lot of
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corruption. There's AI love having like a
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rebellion in my stories. So there's another rebellion
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that they find out maybe has the right idea about things.
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And I really like my main girl character is a grown boy, but
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what I explored with her was a character kind of losing their
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mind under intense pressure. So a lot of the story is like
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how these two different characters, like change in
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response to the pressure that they face once they become an
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official, like, savior for their worlds.
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And it doesn't really end well. And that's the first time I've
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done that in a story. Like I had kind of a more
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negative ending, but it seemed to work.
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So you said that you just finished your first draft.
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When it comes to revisions, what does that look like for you?
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Are you more of like a big structural change or more of a
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line by line polishing type? I would say like right now I'm
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in the line by line stage for sure where I am pretty much
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rewriting everything, especially the first few chapters.
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I think I'm about 1/3 of the way through for draft too and I'm
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rewriting a lot more than I thought I would.
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But that's usually what draft 2 is for me is like almost a full
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rewrite of everything. And from there it goes more into
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structure, I would say, where I start looking more at like scene
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by scene and how they connect and like what ones actually are
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adding to the story, what ones I just had in there and maybe they
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can go. So that's where structure comes
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in. I say draft 3:00 and 4:00.
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And then once I'm happy with that, and then that's when I
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start doing more like copy editing, like a really gone line
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by line looking for errors and stuff.
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And yeah, then I pass it to someone to read it for me and
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then make more edits. Gotcha, so are there any writers
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or books that had a major influence on your storytelling
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process? I would say I read On Writing by
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Stephen King. I had to in college and I'm glad
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I did. It was helpful.
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I would say though, I generally try to like not have any outside
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noise in a sense where I just write and then like I know
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there's like save the cat and all those type of things.
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A lot of books like have that I've had to read have been
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helpful in a way. So specifically on writing, but
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generally I kind of like to just get the story out and then
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refine it based on like that's at the point where I feel like I
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can kind of take an advice. And so that's kind of when I
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apply the stuff that I read. But I can't think of a specific
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book, I guess, besides on writing.
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And some of the ones I read in school about just like writing
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fiction and maybe just like the structure of stories has been
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helpful for me, like Hero's Journey.
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But I kind of do the same thing where I apply it to like a draft
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3 even just so I can kind of like vomit everything out and
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then start sharpening it so. Young adult fiction often
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reaches readers at a really formidable time in their lives.
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That was easy for me to say. Is there something you hope
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young readers take away from your stories?
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I hope they take away that you can go through something really
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hard and be OK. That was actually pretty much my
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whole goal with writing like Gilded Evil as I wanted.
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I was going through a really hard time myself and I wanted to
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put someone else through an even harder time and see how they
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came through it. And a lot of Gilded Evils is
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about making mistakes, which can seem kind of like trite or
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cliche, but it the level of the mistakes is like it's
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forgiveness is not really on the table, but it's given anyway.
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And just so that idea of like you can do hard things.
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And I think as a young adult you're making a lot of mistakes
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just from lack of experience with life.
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And I would like readers to take away that that is OK and that
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they're loved anyway. A lot of people.
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So for aspiring writers who are working on their first novel
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right now, what is one piece of advice you wish someone would
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have given you? I think it was advice that I had
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even heard, but I didn't take it to heart and it was that like,
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it doesn't have to be good, like your first draft doesn't have to
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be good, BML shouldn't be good like that.
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I think that's where I got the most hung up, either physically
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not writing or feeling like a bad writer was because I was
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thinking my first draft needed to be like ready for
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publication. You know, comparing it to books
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that have been published and especially traditional
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publication where they have all these proof writers and editors
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and developmental edits done that make things just seem
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tighter. But that is something that I
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wish I almost knew in more detail.
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And then I also wish that I myself had actually taken it to
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heart because it almost felt like like not holding myself to
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a high enough standard if I believed that.
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But in reality it was just slowing me down and making
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writing like not fun and more scary than it needed to be.
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Yes, yes, for sure. So where can the listeners find
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you? I am on Instagram.
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My handle is writer period Grace Josephine.
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My book is on Amazon, Gilded Evils, and it lives there for
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now. Hoping to get it maybe in local
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bookstores in Madison, but yeah, for now, Amazon.
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Very cool, and I'll make sure that the links are in the show
00:17:48
notes for everyone. Thank you so much for joining
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today, Grace. Yeah, thank you.
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This was really fun. I love how honest she is about
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the writing process, from messy first drafts to rewriting an
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entire chapters to learning how to balance character and world
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building. Grace reminds us that
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storytelling isn't about getting it perfect the first time, it's
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about showing up and doing the work anyway.
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And I think one of the biggest takeaways from this episode is
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something every writer, and honestly, every person needs to
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hear. You're allowed to make mistakes,
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you're allowed to grow through them, and sometimes the most
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powerful stories come from those imperfect, complicated moments.
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If you want to check out Grace's book, Gilded Evils, I'll have
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all the links waiting for you in the show notes.
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And as always, if you enjoyed this episode, make sure to
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follow rate and share Plot Twist Radio, because you never know
00:18:38
which story might change the way you see your own.
00:18:41
Until next time, keep chasing the story.