Thorn Embarks on a Weird Writing Adventure

[Moni]

One other thing about this is that I can finally enjoy a game of werewolf, because, uh, I tend to ruin the games that I play. Because I always get werewolf and strategy is boring.

[Thorn]

I enjoy Werewolf- but my best friend knows my tell, but won't say what it is, so playing with him is THE WORST. xD

My favourite card is the Seer though, closely followed by the Witch.

[Thorn]

To-Do List before holiday on Tuesday:

-Finish editing Cal's dialogue to create a more distinct voice.
-Finish drafting chapter eight.

[Thorn]

It's been a while since I did any real work on this story (I didn't meet either of my pre-Paris deadlines, whoops), so I was reading over my notes while working on it today. Chapter eight is coming along well, and I can't wait to get into the final act! I intend to fix up Cal's dialogue tonight as well- there's not much of it, after all.

Fun fact! According to my notes Percy is 5'1" tall and scrawny, making his status as the resident teeny-tiny fella pretty well justified (For contrast: Cal is around 5'3"-5'4", although I haven't recorded their height exactly, and Floren is 6'0".)

Additional ramblery facts/character development:

SPOILER: Click to show

Percy and Floren derive from 'The Amnesiac Transient' and 'The Scrupulous Detective', from an abandoned Fallen London/Town of Salem crossover story thing. True to the Fallen London vibe, neither of them got actual names. In this story, the Percy-analogue had just arrived in town- but the twist, which I never managed to reveal, was that he'd just been dreamed into being, and that was why he had no memories.

The story was structured like Town of Salem, and thus similarly to my current werewolf fic. However, the personality which evolved into Floren was, in 'Fallen Salem', a front. The readers were led into thinking the Scrupulous Detective was, well, the detective- but they were actually the consigliere, one of the mafia members (and my absolute favourite role to get in Town of Salem.)

[Thorn]

Been working on some other writing, for competitions. However, chapter eight is drafted and chapter nine is partly drafted!

Chapter eight brings in a new character, which I'm a bit wary of this late in the story, but he didn't exactly come out of nowhere so at least there's that. He represents Big City Knowledge, combined with Bucketloads of Anxieties, and he's a lot of fun to write.

Small extract from chapter eight's still-being-tweaked draft:

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"Hello! I'm sorry, this must be very-"

"Who are you?" I blurted out.

"Um? Oh, yes. Sorry! My name's Riley. I'm from Northpass, here to assist with the werewolf problem."

[Thorn]

Wow, what is this??? A NEW CHAPTER??? After a WHOLE MONTH? Almost.
Gosh, I am bad at updating. But to be fair, I wasn't happy with this. Then I realised "hey! I don't need to be! This project is for fun, you utter tool!"

SPOILER: Click to show

Riley is the most Genuinely Good character in this story. Tied with every other character who is Just Too Good. Stop being so nice all the time, characters! Where is Alice when I need her??

Riley is bigender, because that isn't 100% clear in this chapter, but I'll probably make it more obvious later on.

***

Not a lot really happens in this chapter, especially compared with the reveals last chapter. But. Characters talking too much has always been a weakness of mine, and I did enjoy working on this.

[Thorn]

Not working on this for at least the next week, due to other concerns. But it will be finished eventually, and it's getting into the final act for sure!

[Thorn]

I re-read everything in preparation to continue this project (chapter nine was already drafted, I'm just editing it now.) My absolute favourite part*, both to write and to review, is still this paragraph from chapter six:

SPOILER: Click to show

It was a cold day. I could see the goosebumps riddling their arms, but they didn't make any move to retrieve their coat. It was pretty gross, so that made some sense; but they were pretty gross right then as well. Wouldn't it be better to be gross and warm than freezing and gross?

"Stop staring at me," they said.

I looked down at my hands. "Sorry."

Percy is just so in character- wanting to analyse everything but not realising he's making things super awkward. Also, using the same word twenty times in a sentence. He has been a fun protagonist to work with, even if writing a character with Hollywood Amnesia presented a bunch of problems I hadn't anticipated.
Also, writing Floren in a bad mood was fun.

*actually my favourite part is from a side-story type thing I wrote for practice last night, but it has minor spoilers.

EDIT: Barring misfortune, I'll do final touch-ups and post chapter nine tomorrow evening after work.

[Thorn]

Added chapter nine. More talking! Don't worry, stuff will actually happen next chapter (I'm abandoning a lot of the random elements in favour of being able to write a satisfactory conclusion.)

SPOILER: Click to show

Not too sure about the ending. I may add a line or two from Percy's perspective, we'll see. Right now he's trying to hold it together and stop considering the possibility that he is not any kind of human (this is why good communication is key, guyz! If Michael had given Riley all the details, Percy would know he is technically 'cured' already, and wouldn't be having an existential crisis. >.> Or, like, he'd be having a less major one, anyway.)

Also if anybody wants to tell me who they think the roles belong to (as shown in the first post), that would be amazing! Because a) I want to know if I've accidentally revealed anyone, and b) I want to know if I have been less clear than intended when revealing somebody intentionally.

I'll say upfront: Percy and Riley are 'secret roles', and aren't in that first post.

[Thorn]

*working on chapter ten*
*thinks about how motherly one of the characters is*
*realises that at least four of these characters fit this description*

Whoops.

[Thorn]

Realised that Naelus starts very soon. I'd have trouble doing both of these at once, and I don't want to put this on hold indefinitely and then need to spend time recapping everything/relearning the plot AGAIN.

So I'll draft the last three-four chapters in the next few days, so I have the plot and stuff in place.

[Thorn]

It's been too long. I cry. I am not good at keeping up projects!
Chapters 10 and 11 are drafted. I still think there'll be 12 chapters.
Been editing 10 today, I really like this one and will post a couple small extracts now:

He seemed doubtful, but there was something else there too. Shame, or...not quite. Guilt? Something like that. He blamed himself- of course he did, why wouldn't he? I did the same. No matter how many times somebody told you it wasn't your fault, it didn't change the fact that if you'd only known sooner, you could have been more cautious. You could have prevented those deaths. Still, I had to try.

Mildred appears in the next chapter, so my earlier accidental half-spoiler doesn't really count.
Percy worries so much about making situations awkward that he does just that. Story of my life!

I hovered uncertainly in the doorway. Mildred had made it clear I needed to stay here, but it was really awkward. I thought about closing the door and waiting on the doorstep until Mildred came back, but if Floren did notice me standing there, that could be even more awkward.

(was going to share my ABSOLUTE FAVOURITE SEGMENT but it's a massive spoiler. Just more incentive to actually get this thing done, I guess!)

[Thorn]

Added chapter ten.
Pet annoyance right now? I spelled 'Perseverance' as 'Perseverence' every other time. I probably missed some instances of this tiny but annoying mistake, feel free to point them out.

The ending might need a little work- this was originally the first half of a longer chapter, but I split it down the middle because there's more I need to cover in relation to the second part. So there will now be 13 chapters- a Perfect Spooky Number, I am content.

EDIT: Who needs height references? It's me, I need height references! Big fan of this site right here.

For now, I just have Team 'We're gonna save the day eventually, just watch us as we spend ten years un-confusing ourselves because what even are supernatural curses' from the end of chapter ten. The charts only have room for six figures, so I just went with the current gathering since this chart is only really useful for characters actually in a scene together. 

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(I have their precise heights listed in my 'Concepts' document, which as always is an absolute blessing and I'm glad I kept it. Characters here range between 5'1" and 5'10". Percy is the same height as Riley, but tends to appear smaller because he is unhealthily thin and weak for reasons which may or may not actually get explained in story. A good writer would set out these reasons but a) I never claimed to be any good and b) not sure how I would work them in at this stage.)

[Thorn]

Used some characters from this for OCtober again! This time, I was struck with inspiration for OCtober 25- Family. There are lots of families and hinted-at-families in this project (off the top of my sleepybrain, I can think of four), but one particular idea relevant to the endgame jumped out at me! I don't think the whole piece will become canon, but it has seeds of good ideas I want to use.

Random line I particularly like:

"I came to make sure you're okay, but if this is what I have to deal with I don’t think I even care."

(This whole piece was just characters being super mean to each other and I was LIVING FOR IT.)

Progress I made on chapter 11:
*Overall streamlining + editing. 
*Swapped the roles of two characters in a certain scene, which now flows much better and has clearer focus. 
*Completely overhauled the second half like arhhhhh will I keep this version? Will I meld the two? Only time will tell. 
*Reused a Deliberately Repeated Phrase. 
*Now have massive gaps in the second half of the chapter, oh well!

Random lines I like from this one:

I laughed because I knew I would cry if I didn't. 

"...I also have legs, and I was already standing, and stuff."

(this one is much better without context!)

[Thorn]

Today I had work most of the day. I didn't want to leave home- it was cold outside, and I knew work wasn't going to be as cool as working at ComicCon yesterday.
But turns out our Halloween playlist has started! It's 50% Nightmare Before Christmas, which is always exciting; and there's a lot of Descendants, which I love as well. Also I spent 20 minutes hiding in the back room screaming about ComicCon with my colleague (the same one who wants to run a d&d group- and apparently she's finally managed to gather enough people, I'm so excited! Since I'm the only other person who's played, I'm choosing my character last to fill in gaps, but I'm still SO. EXCITED.)

I'm listening to Marisha Ray's 'Between the Sheets' video in preparation for meeting her tomorrow (!!!) She is so amazing and inspirational and I'm Very Excited. While listening (to some of the less intense parts, mind), I did a little bit of work on This Werewolf Thing. Hence why this is here instead of my diary (although I think I'll end up doing a proper write-up of the weekend there, too.)

I managed to draw together two recurring Things (one phrase, and one...well, other phrase, I guess?) And I'm SO HAPPY with how that worked out, because I was really struggling with a particular segment and that helped me bring everything together.

I also thought of a) how to integrate a character's card-role (i.e. the werewolf card they were assigned at game start) more strongly into the last few chapters, and b) how to deal with a certain plot thread which won't see True Resolution in the course of the story.