Seressia Glass: On Cosplaying Feelings in Romantic Comedy
Award-winning author Seressia Glass discusses how her love of cosplay led her to writing a love story in her new romantic comedy novel, The Love Con.
Seressia Glass is an award-winning author of romance and urban fantasy. She lives south of Atlanta with her husband, son, two attack poodles, and a bulldozer of a Cane Corso. When not writing, she likes to collect purple things, jewelry and spends way too much time watching K-dramas and anime. Find her on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
In this post, Seressia discusses how her love of cosplay led her to writing a love story in her new romantic comedy novel, The Love Con, what she hopes readers get from the experience, and more!
Name: Seressia Glass
Literary agent: Jenny Bent, The Bent Agency
Book title: The Love Con
Publisher: Berkley
Release date: December 14, 2021
Genre/category: Romantic Comedy
Previous titles: Spice, Sugar
Elevator pitch for the book: Best friends have to pretend date while creating costumes for a cosplay reality show. What happens when fake dating leads to real feelings?
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What prompted you to write this book?
I wrote The Love Con because I’ve long been a fan of dressing up in costume. I love cosplay and I love seeing people who look like me loving it too. Many of us have received pushback for the costumes or fandoms we’ve chosen. This book is for all of those women who’ve persevered in what they love.
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
I had the idea for this book in 2019, and quickly wrote a proposal for it. We went to contract on this book in fall of 2019. Then 2020 happened, which mentally toyed with me for a while. During that time, the structure of the story stayed the same, but some of the interactions and reactions—particularly those of my heroine—reflected some of the turmoil and stress of 2020.
Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?
The best learning moments have been the great resources my publisher has put together for their authors. They have great resources that authors can benefit from—from marketing to online safety and everything in between—and I’m learning to make use of them.
Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?
I’m a solitary writer, have been for a while, but during the writing of this book, I learned to reach out to my agent and editor during the writing process. It’s a ridiculous thing to say, and many authors do this already, but I’m hard-headed. I have a great network right at my fingertips, I just had to learn to reach out instead of suffering in silence over a scene.
My characters always surprise me, because I’m a pantser. Although I have a synopsis and a general idea of how the three acts will go, what the characters do and say during those acts comes out of the blue sometimes. For example, I knew that Kenya and Cam were best friends, but as I wrote the story the genesis of their friendship surprised me. And when Kenya didn’t think she’d done a lot for Cameron over the years, how he set her straight with examples was a pleasant surprise.
What do you hope readers will get out of your book?
I hope readers unfamiliar with cosplay will come to like it and maybe try their hand at cosplay. I also hope BIPOC and plus-sized people will be comfortable cosplaying whomever and whatever they want, and embrace their fandom and have fun doing it without worrying about what other people say or think.
If you could share one piece of advice with other authors, what would it be?
It’s okay to pause if you need to. Yes, it’s work, but the creative well needs to be filled to make the work work. Give yourself grace.
Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Editor of Writer's Digest, which includes managing the content on WritersDigest.com and programming virtual conferences. He's the author of 40 Plot Twist Prompts for Writers: Writing Ideas for Bending Stories in New Directions, The Complete Guide of Poetic Forms: 100+ Poetic Form Definitions and Examples for Poets, Poem-a-Day: 365 Poetry Writing Prompts for a Year of Poeming, and more. Also, he's the editor of Writer's Market, Poet's Market, and Guide to Literary Agents. Follow him on Twitter @robertleebrewer.
