#MSWL Scifi or fantasy:I need the world fully explored/experienced by character.Give me color, mood, flavor.Not enough to just see the differences between this world and yours.Let me walk those streets,smell delicacies, be awed by towers, feel winged creature's wind on my face.

#MSWL I'd love to sink into a SFF manuscript w/ a Caribbean focus. #Jamaica #Trinidad #Haiti #DominicanRepublic #PuertoRico #Cuba #Bahamas #authors #POC

#MSWL If you binge-watched "Altered Carbon" on Netflix and have a SFF mss full of jaw-dropping tech, cool characters, heart-thumping action, & tension that won't let go...

Yes, this! #MSWL #SFF

In adult SF/F, i am very interested in emic worldbuilding. Make me believe the universe in terms of the people in it. Not from me, live reader in 2018 #MSWL

#MSWL Oh my goodness! Please give me space aliens that hack our planet and...then more!!! Are they nice, sending messages of first contact? Are they mean? Idk! Could space aliens hack our planet? nbcnews.com/mach/science/s… via @NBCNewsMACH

There are so many things about Black Panther that I loved, but one of my favorites was the depth of the worldbuilding, and how we saw what life was like without the influence of colonization. I would love to see a SFF project that grapples with similar questions. #MSWL

Would love commercial high concept #MG, written in a literary style, that explores some important emotional competency for the characters (death, loss, catastrophe, violence, race, differences/disability, social justice, growing up, etc) contemp, fantasy, sci-fi, etc. #MSWL

Elders who contribute meaningfully, whose experience & wisdom are respected. Collective policymaking (even in monarchies).

Just because Western (esp. American) narratives default to youthful, heroic individualism doesn’t mean it’s the only way to build a protagonist.
#MSWL #SFF

Domesticated species, architecture, etc. that make sense for the terrain/biome depicted. Even—or rather, especially—in #SFF, consistency in worldbuilding makes a story that much better.

Yes, I want more battle rhinoceroses. I admit it. #MSWL

Addendum: anger that masquerades as love, as idealism. Characters who persuade themselves of the righteousness of their own cause, who rationalize extremism born of a seed of compelling truth—because that’s how it so often begins.

You know what I’m talking about.
#MSWL #SFF

Different types of love & loyalty at war with each other, esp within the same person. Romantic love. Familial love. Love of country. Love for one’s people. Love for the downtrodden.

Love is stronger than hate, and opposing loves often make the most powerful conflicts.
#SFF #MSWL

Beautifully choreographed fight scenes that advance plot, develop character, and worldbuild.

Yes, #BlackPanther has the advantages of a visual medium. It’s harder in prose fiction, but it can be done so, so well. (See @FondaJLee.)
#SFF #MSWL

Accents, dialect, and non-English languages in English-language fiction, used in ways that enhance characterization and worldbuilding rather than othering or exoticizing the speaker. #SFF #MSWL

White characters interacting with non-white societies at a disadvantage. Non-white civilizations that do not exist for the white gaze, that treat with outsiders on their own terms. #Wakanda, and hundreds more nations like it. #SFF #MSWL

Postcolonialism 2.0: multifaceted conflicts that go beyond colonizer and colonized. Give me diaspora, give me infighting on all sides, give me vehement disagreement about a nation’s future that is borne of genuine patriotism and idealism. #SFF #MSWL #BlackPanther

Economically realistic motives for colonialism & war. Vibranium is spot-on as an analogue for resources that drove (historical & current) conquest: oil, gold, tea, slaves, spices...

#SFF is full of war stories; give ‘em better reasons than righteousness & border conflicts.
#MSWL

Female characters of all stripes with interior lives and motivations that don’t revolve around the male main character. Even if the male protagonist is supposed to save the world. #SFF #MSWL

WOC in science who are brilliant, fearless, multifaceted, and celebrated for their contributions. (This last point is important.)

Shuri is the Disney Princess of my dreams. (I was a STEM kid; I have FEELS, ok?) #MSWL #SFF #BlackPanther

BLACK PANTHER. My heart is full; my brain is on fire.

I want stories like it in my inbox. I want to help them reach readers. But, as one wise writer notes, “#MSWL = #BlackPanther!” is reductionist—however truly felt.

So, a list of specific things I LOVED & want more of in #SFF: