First of all, sorry if you asked this a while ago!! I never get asks, so I rarely check the ask box.
I am writing a fantasy novel called The Truth About Brazings. It’s the first book in a planned four part series.
In short, it's about a girl who's trying to find out why her town's history is so strange, but ends up getting dragged into a war between two groups of fey living in the forest.
The story begins with a girl named Alvie Willynde who lives in a small town in Ontario called Brazings. Brazings has a local folklore tradition that's uncommon for Canadian towns. Stories tell of settlers seeing and interacting with moving plants, talking animals, and strange, inhuman people. When Alvie was a child, she started taking notes and researching all these stories, intending to find out the truth behind them. Were they real? If so, who were these people? Are they still around?
At the beginning of the book, Alvie befriends the new kid in her class, a boy named Kearney Lakeside. Kearney’s family is actually one of the families that founded Brazings, and they figure in a few of these legends. They’re always protectors guarding Brazings against any threat from the strange people and things hiding in the trees.
Unbeknownst to Alvie, there is a strange masked man named Cerin watching her. He seems to be under orders to take her to his master, a mysterious man named Dwyer. Cerin doesn’t know why Dwyer is interested in her and it perplexes him.
That's basically the first two chapters. Most of the book is dedicated to introducing the characters, Brazings, and the world hidden in the forest. As I mentioned earlier, Brazings' big secret is that there are fey in the woods, and the series revolves around exploring their world, what they want with Alvie, and exactly who Cerin is.
Some drawings of Alvie! She always carries a notebook. She also doesn't like skirts, but I love drawing her in dresses anyway.
And here's Cerin! He wears a mask pretty much all the time, but his face is my worst-kept secret.
And here is their first real interaction. It was unpleasant for both of them.
And here's Kearney, one of the only characters I'd trust to babysit.
And here's Cerin’s master, Dwyer, and the other fey leader, Nimue. These two represent opposing forces and have been rivals for centuries. Both want Alvie for their own purposes, but Nimue also wants to keep her safe and allow her to be a child as much as possible.
So...that's a general description of my book. I didn't want to include any major spoilers, but there is a lot more going on. There's way more on my Instagram:
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My mom finding it, wildly missing the point, and deciding that enrolling me in talk therapy is non-negotiable lol
Choose a passage from your writing. Tell me about the backstory of this moment. How you came up with it, how it changed from start to end.
Gonna scroll it back to Till Things Are Brighter, which no one whose followed me in the past year has read because I last updated in ~February 2021~ but which is still the work I'm most determined to finish
I hadn’t meant to tell you so much. [Growls] There’s too much of a risk of Magnus pulling it out of you and accelerating his plans, or out of my dreams since you’ve made it a proper Statement , but apparently knowing when to stop asking questions isn’t a power granted to any Archivist. Next time you can’t stand not Knowing, just ask me to write it out. Statement fucking ends.
(From the end of chapter 9, for any who want to read my beloved magnum opus bc of this passage lol)
(cut because I am at heart a rambler)
So I knew that in order for various plot events to work I needed Daisy to meet with Gertrude, and I realized that it didn't make much sense for Gertrude to meet with this mysterious lady telling her all this stuff with little if any context to why it's important and not eventually getting fed up and taking a statement by force. That wasn't in my original plan, because it introduces a couple complications, but I actually ended up with a lot of affection for the chapter as a whole.
The handy thing about forcing a statement out of one of your characters and including it in the narrative is that it's an excuse to break the writing rule that people almost never just state their emotions in plain terms. The format by definition requires honesty and usually some explanation of the character's emotions either generally or at the starting point, sometimes complete with their assessment and feelings about those feeling in hindsight. So I got to use it to incorporate stuff I couldn't otherwise!
But Daisy gets pretty mad about having her statement taken every time it happens in canon, she just doesn't have the full details for Jon and can't take it out on Elias. She can't afford to take things out on Gertrude, either, other than peacing out. And I don't generally like including swear words in my writing but... nothing else fit. So Daisy got One Swear, for a treat!
Tell me a story about your writing journey. When did you start? Why did you start? Were there bumps along the way? Where are you now and where are you going?
Ahahaha, I started writing in second grade. My best friend and I were going to make a novelization of the Rankin-Bass Santa Claus in Comin' to Town Christmas special with her doing illustrations and me writing. It was never finished and lost to time because my family moved the summer after second grade :( I wrote other things throughout elementary school, but sadly never found such a willing cowriter. The draft of the story that made my mom point out that people might not be interested in reading a story that interrupts the action every time a character is introduced to tell you their age, hair and eye color, favorite color, height, and hobbies is a happier loss X'D I did Nanowrimo for the first time in 7th grade, and did finish the story (it's still around... somewhere...) but it was handwritten so I don't know the wordcount. Probably more in the 20k range, but whatever. Did it again successfully on a word processor in 9th grade (also around... somewhere... in printed form even though the computer it was saved to is long gone). Those would probably be better if they were Mary Sue stories, I think if I reread them they'd probably be mostly very boring.
There's a local day event thing for teenage writers in my area called Teen Author Boot Camp, my best friend since toddlerhood got me into it and the first year we went we got 1st (her) and 2nd (me) place in their first chapter writing contest (year redacted bc you could def dox me from their FB). That was probably the last gasp of me successfully writing as a teen. I went again as many years as I was eligible, because it was hugely fun winning aside, but never won again lol. I started reading fic around the time I started high school, and wrote some a few years after that (it's all MCU/Marvel fic, don't go that far back on my AO3, some of it I probably still stand by but some is for sure Bad). I spent most of high school with major burnout writer's block. I started writing again slightly before listening to TMA, but that was what got me back into writing recreationally in a big way. Since I think 2019? maybe 2020 idk, every year I've had an end of year wordcount on AO3 that's... honestly a big embarrassing lol.
I have a fistful of original ideas (fiction and non) that I want to get around to, but right now those are on hold until I finish the final paper for my Bachelor's, which has sadly NOT been blessed by the inspiration gods... fic gets to happen because on a conscious prioritization level I can post it for instant gratification which original writing can't do and on a less conscious level because the chronic health issues that blessedly got me accommodations on that paper interfere enough with my brain on most days to make academic writing hard where fic just isn't. I'm finally in a decent enough place that I'll hopefully be able to get past that, and once that's out of the way original writing (and hopefully improvements in health once that stress is gone) here I come!
What is a weird, hyper-specific detail you know about one of your characters that is completely irrelevant to the story?
My Daisy Tonner is femme but mostly can't express it because it's impractical at work. She always painted her nails because it lasts decently and doesn't detract from how her colleagues view her. She has a bunch of more feminine clothes that she doesn't wear much because she doesn't spend that much time not working. Basira doesn't really know all that about her because by the time she was in the picture Daisy was too Hunt-influenced to pay much attention to unrelated things, which got worse over time.
Or for an OC, Cece who shows up in Little Archive is biromantic asexual and has freckles and moles because projection thy name is Ink
What’s your favorite writing rule to smash into smithereens?
When I was a baby teen writer I would absorb anything that seemed to have a decently informed source and for a long time I had this quote from Elmore Leonard hang on
Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
taped to the side of my bedside table where I saw it all the time. Anyway screw that guy, I love exclamation points! Avoiding them outside of a non-personified distant third person POV is janky! It sounds weird! It distances you from the character! What about dialogue?! Anyone transcribing mine would have to use a bunch, that's how lots of people talk!
“I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE LEFT ALONE!” The power of her lungs suited the obvious strength of her frame; her bellowing set dusk trickling in streams from the damaged walls. “I WAS PROMISED A—”
“YOU. ARE. NOT. SPECIAL.”
To the shock of everyone present, including herself, Oak jerked backward, stumbling on a loose floor tile. Ravana actually followed her, and amazingly the dryad continued to retreat from the tiny noblewoman now brandishing a finger up into her face and projecting her voice with the power trained into orators, opera singers, and anyone who might one day have to shout orders on a battlefield.
“To exist in this world is to be connected to others, and to bear responsibility! For years, you’ve been given a safe harbor here, and protection better than that enjoyed by almost anyone in this world. Well, the world is unpredictable and violent, and no one gets to live in peace forever. You are not an exception. Now the campus that has sheltered you is in grave danger, and the woman who provided you this place is not here to defend it, or you, or us. Now is the time for us to act to protect our home. You are part of this University, Oak, and you! Will! Do! Your! Part!”
Thanks! It's actually the name of a character in TTAB!
Nyneve is an omniscient, reincarnating being who is one of the people in charge of running the universe. She seems like a normal teenage girl...until you get to know her. She's got a strange personality and doesn’t really prioritize the feelings of other people because she's more concerned about everything happening the way it should. She can't afford to consider what people want.
I use her name online because she used to be my self-insert! I say "used to be" because the similarities between us are surface level nowadays. She's really her own character with her own personality. We just happen to look alike.
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Has anyone here seen Galavant? It's one of my favourite shows 😆 I took some funny lines from it and drew my characters saying them. This show's chaotic energy is well-suited to these idiots. It's actually a really good way to practice expressions! I'm planning on doing some more at some point, so stay tuned!
Note: Nimue does not have a dragon. Yet.
Also Cerin’s eyes will sometimes glow when he's mad. Magic is loosely linked to emotions, so most magic-users will have some sort of side effect when they're really emotional.
It occurred to me the other night that I haven't drawn Nimue in her element in years, so I had to fix that right away. This was a great opportunity to experiment with a few things! The colours are less saturated than usual, giving it a more realistic feel, and I had fun colouring the water and figuring out the lighting! Also, wet hair. I'll be doing more of that later.
Anyway, the results are very pretty and magical. This feels like a chilly morning, maybe in the spring or autumn.
Not pictured: Nimue holding her healing supplies and rolling her eyes in disgust. Cerin has no regrets. The best part is that Cerin has two thousand years of experience in archery. So, if this was an accident, it can only mean that Merlin was being an idiot and this was his fault 😆 And Nimue KNOWS
I might post some extra memes later, because I have lots for these two individually, just none that describe their relationship. They get along pretty well. They're both strange and they like hanging out with Alvie.
I think this'll be my last Ace Week meme, though I have a couple other officially ace characters in TTAB! I just haven't discussed them as much. One of them is Krasnyy. He's ace/aro. The other one is named Ulaan, and I'll have to do a post on her later.