#taunus

Pages from my character notebook for Taunus

I create these sheets after writing. While I do write a general plot outline, I don’t sit down at the beginning of a story and map out the characters before I start writing.

I usually write the chapter first, and only afterwards try to catch what has already appeared:

a scar mentioned,

a certain scent the protagonist percieves

what someone is carrying with them at that point of the story

the shape a character's magic takes,

etc.

It’s always super useful to look at them all next to each other because it helps me picture which of the characters I already know pretty well , and which ones still a bit of a mystery to me.

The third blank page is the template I use.

You can find my stories here:

A photo from the Taunus

A little stack of stones, a vestige of all those who have passed the place before me.

Ford taunus 20mts 1965

TAUNUS Chapter 2—The Spirit That Denies

Tap, tap, tap.

Her giant pestle marked a steady rhythm. She used it like a walking cane, and the sound was so all-encompassing that I didn’t hear the other girls’ muffled sobs nor the iron creak when she pulled the cell door open. As if remote-controlled, I followed. And even though I had dreaded that it might be my turn every fear-filled Friday, I was somehow still surprised.

As soon as my naked feet stepped out into the damp corridor, the fires in the skull lamps flared—then extinguished. I barely caught a glimpse of the narrow path between the prisons, running on and on in an endless line of sameness before everything went dark.

A shame, really, my dissociating brain thought. I would have liked to see more of this place.

My agitated breath was suddenly deafening in my ears. Something pushed against my chest—the back of the pestle jamming me into the cell across the corridor. Cold bars hit my shoulders. The smooth wood dug into the skin under my collarbones, still slightly warm from the touch of her hands.

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