#writerlr

There’s so many people here.

Surely, no one would notice if I stole their looks for a character. 

But everyone here looks boring. Tiring. Brown eyes. Brown hair. Black hair. Pale skin. I already have so many characters that have those exact features.

“Coffee for Marina?” A barista calls out. Her face is angular, her hair a bright, striking blue. She looks beautiful. She is beautiful.

Just like my character is supposed to be. Maeve now has a face. 

I stand to collect my overpriced drink. It’s nothing fancy—a latte with whipped cream—but it still costs $8.00. I shudder. Inflation is horrific.

While I stride the short distance of the local cafe, I keep looking. A trio of people stand out—a woman with vitiligo and a face I swear I’ve known before, a tween with the blackest eyes I’ve ever seen, even from here, and a guy who looks to be about my age, with eyes the colors of emeralds and hair the most indescribable mix of dark and light brown I’ve ever seen. 

I stop short, staring. There’s something about him, something so familiar . . . 

I blink. Someone is tapping my shoulder. 

I turn. 

In front of me is a man in a business suit. He’s bald, and a name card on his lapel reads Edwens. “Excuse me,” he sneers. “You’re blocking my way.” He spits. 

“Oh.” I don’t move, for a second, and then my brain catches up. “Oh, yeah. Sorry, sorry.” I move to let him pass, turning back towards my table.

Ugh. I shudder again. That was embarrassing. I pull my hair out of my elastic to frame my face. I hate feeling like I’m being watched. 

I open my laptop as I settle back into my seat. It’s old and beaten, littered with stickers and fingerprints. It whirs loudly as it turns on, a picture of me and Naomi replacing the black screen as the log in page appears.

We were at the beach when we took that photo. The last day of summer before we parted ways for university, something like a lifetime ago. Her curly hair is captured whipping around her face, and her arm is reaching over my shoulder. Her mouth is open, eyes crinkling in laughter that’s silent now but was booming in the moment. 

Naomi is the closest thing I will ever have to a soulmate. 

A half-empty document greets me as I log in. There’s probably only eight hundred words, tops, and I’ve been writing for the past three weeks.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

so i’m not super confident with the journal entries in this post, buuuut, i’m happy with the rest of it~ 

also i think this is the first Talitha POV excerpt I’ve posted. how ‘bout that? 

Finally, her fingers caught on one titled, ‘Notes on Weaver’s Bane.’ Her smile turned giddy, and she plucked the book off the shelf. It was leather bound, embossed with golden thread. She slipped over to a comfy-looking chair, gave it an experimental press with her hands, and then plopped down. It groaned with her weight, but took it. She would just have to not wriggle around too much.

Easier said than done.

The others took up various positions around the room, but Talitha paid them no mind. Instead, she flipped the book open, and began to read. She skimmed over the creation of the sword—she would happily read over that, alongside the diagrams on the enchantment, later. For now, she wanted to hear about the trials. Specifically, the ones that had led to the sword being locked away as it had.

When she finally found them, it didn’t take long for her smile to fall.

 ###

The sword’s trials were highly successful. No matter how far away from the sword I got, it always returned to my side within 8 hours. Sooner, if I spoke the phrase to call it. None of the shadowken who have met it’s blade have survived, nor returned. Knicking someone possessed kills the possessor, leaving the possessed free of their influence. It absorbs all spells it has come into contact with. Sending the magic back out of it is as simple as a mental touch, a sort of flick. The blasts are getting easier for me to control, as I begin to understand how the magic works. (See further notes on how it works.)

It has passed all of the trials I and my colleagues could think to test it with.

It is time for the final trial: to take it agains the shadowken prince, Ansai.

 ###

The prince is dead, or so the general populace has been told.

His death came with a terrible price.

There is so much about the shadowken we do not understand. It was foolish to test the blade on one—but what other creature could come close to the divine energy of the Spider?

The test went wrong. The prince died, yes—but part of him lives on… inside the sword. I can feel his influence in my mind. Can feel his dark thoughts pulsing. Urging me to hurt, to kill.

The more things the sword hurts, the stronger he grows. I worry that one day he will escape.

This experiment was to be my greatest achievement. Instead I believe it was my greatest failure. Tonight, we will seal it away. Cut off from magic, it will not be able to reappear to me.

Precautions must be taken to ensure the room is never opened, after I die. For then, the next person to pick up the sword will find it—and Ansai—bound to them for the rest of their life. However long that may be.

 ###

The rest of the journal was filled with the notes, on how to control the magic stored within. Talitha snapped it shut.

She didn’t know what the shadowken were. She didn’t know anything about the prince, this Ansai. She didn’t know who the Spider was, or what their significance was to the Anari—other than obviously being some kind of villain they had ambitions of killing.

What she did know was that the sword worked.

It would kill Kai’os.

What would happen to the being within when it happened…

Talitha didn’t want to think about it. She knew that she should. She knew that would be the responsible thing to do. But if she did, if she thought about it, if she brought it up to the others, and they decided it wasn’t worth it—and they would—then they were still left with a problem: Kai’os’s perma-death.

She wasn’t going to wait another 10 years to find out how to kill him. She wasn’t going to make Alinora, or Aishlynn, or Lyr, or Ava, or the Myneran survivors wait another 10 years either.

She would use the blade to kill Kai’os, and then she would return it here. And hopefully no shadowy-demons would wake up and slaughter everyone she loved.

“You okay, Tali?” Lyr. Of course. He was always so observant, especially when it came to her. He’d been like that since they were kids.

Despite that, though, he was still frustratingly easy to lie to. She gave him a smile. “Fine. Just thinking.”

“Find anything interesting?” He nodded to the book.

You have no idea. “Yeah. This is the sword we’re looking for. It bonds with it’s wielder. No matter where I leave it, it’ll always come back.” She grinned. “Can’t transfer it, either.” Lies. There was a phrase that would allow her to do so, but this was her burden now. No one else’s. “Only way to do so is for the wielder to die. I think that’s why they left it in the anti-magic chamber.” She shrugged. “When the Anari disappeared, or whatever, they wanted to make sure the sword could still be found, for emergencies.”

The others nodded, like this made sense. Not even Aishlynn looked suspicious, and Talitha’s stomach flipped. Fuck, she hated lying.

“Anyway. Um, the sword can be given to someone else for about 12 hours. After that it snaps back to it’s wielder. It can also do Alinora’s thing, with the absorbing and releasing magic. Which, pretty cool.” Talitha stood, bouncing on her toes, like she always did when she was excited. “Neat stuff. There’s also some information on how to replicate it in here, so I think I’mma just take this with us, yeah? Just in case any more Slaeyr get funny ideas.” She gave Lyr and Ava a grin. Lyr shook his head, but Ava looked amused. Usually it was the other way around. Her grin stretched, became more real.

“Let’s get out of here,” she said. “I miss Flint’s cooking. And my pillows. D’ya know I have over a hundred pillows? A hundred thirty six, at last count.” She kept talking as they left, hoping no one noticed the way her grip on the book was white-knuckled.

I mean the story is there, it's full of action, the world is built and described to its fullest extent, the subplots are present. But the gosh darn wordcount forgot to show up for class.

AO3 link here

Series: Part 1 of The Black Album ‘Verse series

Chapters: 42/42

Words: 157033

Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester

Other Characters: Bobby Singer, Bela Talbot, Lenore, Ruby, Charlie Bradbury, Crowley, Alastair, Ellen Harvelle, Jo Harvelle, Ash, Rowena MacLeod, Meg Masters, Juliet the Hellhound

Rating: Explicit

Brain: Or...

Me: No.

Brain: Or we could just...

Me: Don't do this.

Yes! As this is exactly what I did for the Italian Saga.

1-Make sure that every book has its own arc, meaning a well developed, independent plot that will wrap up at the end of the book. I personally hate when a book ends on a big cliffhanger. Wrap up the story. Some cliffhanging is okay, as long as the main conflict is resolved. Readers will read your other books if they like your voice and they love your characters.

2-Make sure that the voices and thoughts of your characters are age appropriate and change with time. This will be challenging while trying to keep the story relevant for your target audience. I dealt with this issue by having older characters mixed in with the plot so that readers could relate to parents, older siblings, friends etc...

3-Jot it all down first. Then try to see where the main plot is going and refine.

4-Take advantage of side plots to move the light away from the main character. 

5-Implement diversity as much as possible, while keeping your story historically accurate (if it’s contemporary). Readers like to find characters they can relate to. Are your characters racially diverse? Do they have different sexual orientations? Religions? Political views? Cultures?

6-Focus on character development (see point 2). Your characters should not repeat the same mistakes over and over and they should not whine about the same issues indefinitely. It’s important that they learn.

7-Add humor. In all books following characters growing up there is a lot of drama. I always try to infuse my narrative with a bit of comical relief.

8-Don’t sugar-coat it, don’t censor, don’t exaggerate. Life is a mess. I like realistic narrative that brings together different genres. 

I hope this helps :) If you were looking for more specific advice, feel free to shoot me another anon ^_^

Your story is needed.

You may not think so or someone else can write it.