Thanks For The Tag, @illarian-rambling :>

So I have a map for my current WIP (That has been vaguely digitalized but the digital version is harder for me to read for whatever reason-) and- I went to look at the digital version as though it is the only version I have.

I created this map on paper.

In a sketchbook.

Which is stored in my dorm.

And I am in my dorm.

YET I WENT TO LOOK FOR THE DIGITAL VERSION WHEN THE PAPER VERSION IS JUST AS GOOD! AGHGGHHGHH!

Anyway I have like three kingdoms named and space for four more- *Sigh*

⁉️"what do you do when stuck on a scene?"

❤️"what are your favorite scenes from your WIPs?"

Honestly? When I am stuck on a scene, there are two things that could immediately happen. I just decide to time skip to a different scene as a temporary fix, or (the reason I have so many WIPs) start a new story because my brain churns out new story ideas. Worst case scenario, the story gets abandoned for a few months only for me to decide to rewrite it entirely and, in such rewriting, circumvent the scene that had bothered me or write it in a way that I like. Rarely do I ever erase a scene to write a new one. Often, for me, it's the case of the story wanting the scene for reasons unexplained to my conscious mind, but rewriting the scene tends to help.

For my favorite scene, it has to be the opening scene for Stars Of The Sky. I am not going to write it out here, but I feel that it is a perfect blend between describing the scenery, the area around the main character and the main character herself while not throwing every detail out. It describes major things for the scenery, then describes Hades, the main character, and then a mix of the two without putting every little detail in one paragraph, but over many paragraphs, and it helps establish a bit about Hades' Clan while still giving her the primary spotlight. It was also done in a way that I haven't done before, which made it enjoyable to do because it was new to me while maintaining my style of not immediately using the mc's name.

I've posted seven sentences of this opening scene, but not the entire opening scene. Just a small chunk. In total, the scene is 765 words, which... It is only a coincidence that the number does that (counts down). I don't really plan scenes, especially at the start of my stories, but I like how this one turned out.

The quiet female blinks. Did these two draw the short straws of their respective species? She was a writer in life. Ideas are already running through her head as she sits down. One sheet of paper... a space limit. Guess she has to write in tiny font. A pen... her words would be illegible to everyone but her.

Fine with her.

She cracks her knuckles, preparing for a session of writing nonstop. She wants to write at least ten thousand words. She's going to the underworld nonetheless. Might as well punish the two who have to preside over this.

She puts the pen to paper and stares... How does she word this? Pen is permanent and she can't erase it if she makes a mistake. She looses a sigh. If this is the last thing she writes, she might as well allow mistakes. These guys aren't her editors.

She starts writing, squinting in an attempt to read as she writes. No luck... it's too small and sloppy to read. She feels bad for her college professors now, trying to decipher anything she chose to write in the margins of any tests taken on paper. A few managed to read her notes to them, a few got mad, one nodded at her the next day with a grim expression, and one quit.

She takes no blame for that last one, but it is suspicious that it happened after he gave her a note she never bothered to read.

She eventually finishes, the page blue from ink, with no spaces between lines or words. It's a wonder anyone could read it. A majority of it was her apologizing to her original characters whose stories will never be finished, a good portion was her reciting the prologue and first chapter of her favorite original story that became a published book, and a small portion was her writing out how she'd torture anyone who deemed her worthy of going to heaven, just to ensure she wouldn't. God did nothing for her in life, he'd do nothing for her in death.

When she finally turned the paper in, the angel attempted to read what she'd written, but he only seemed more and more confused and concerned when he couldn't see any words, just a sea of blue. The Demon barely glanced at the paper, looking exhausted.

"Are... are you okay...? Where are the words...? How are the words gone...? You were writing for FOUR DAYS!" The angel ruffles his blond hair, his skin even paler than his fluffed white wings.

"Who cares? That last tenth is perfect for the underworld! So many torture ideas, so many details!" The Demon laughs, pure red eyes full of glee. "We're getting this one, Arn!"

"But... But she's so innocent! Look at her!" The angel gestures to the female, drawing attention to her. She can see why he said that. Her brown hair, although half-shaved, is braided out of her face neatly, her skin is unscared aside from old scars from the usual trips and falls granted by being clumsy as a child, her blue eyes framed by simple black glasses, and she's wearing clothes that covered as much skin as possible, including a hoodie with sleeves stained by ink. If they knew how she lived, they'd see someone who, aside from a firm disbelief in God, was completely innocent. She never broke laws, never stole anything, and was well loved. If you ignored her books, which were often full of death and torture, she never thought of crimes.

The Demon cackles as she smiles, uneven teeth revealed in the expression, just before she recites-

"Astra's power kills those she looks at and she killed her father when she was-"

It was the main character of her longest book series, Astra's, backstory. The angel looked more and more concerned when the recitation took almost a day as she went over Astra's appearance, power, skills, personality, story progression, and relationships in detail despite making those things back in High School.

The angel was white as a sheet when he left to allow the Demon to take her to the Underworld.

Lovely.

You just died. Upon entering the door to afterlife, an angel and a demon welcomes you. In front of you is a pen and a blank sheet of paper. Their only instruction was “write”.

I'm making a Pinterest board for Hades and am currently collecting some things that remind me of her, and I have this other board called "Casual outfits" (That I never really look at aside from maybe outfit inspiration for drawings)... Well, that board is being flooded with not so causal outfits in my quest to find outfits that fit her.

reblog if you’ve read fanfictions that are more professional, better written than some actual novels. I’m trying to see something

Oh no, I've been... *gasps* ASKED A QUESTION? Whatever shall I do?

*writes an essay*

:>

*sends ask in response*

Ask exchange! Muahahahaha!

Behind the Scenes Writing Ask Game

So behind the scenes won the poll, but I thought I'd do an ask game with it!

✍️ "when did you get started writing?"

✏️"what are your current WIPs about?"

📜"how did you get started on your WIPs?"

📝"what stages are you currently in your WIPs?"

🖊️"how does your magic system work?"

🖋️"what inspired you to write your WIPs?"

📖"what has surprised you about your WIPs?"

💻"what perspectives do you write in?"

🖥️"what types of writing do you do?"

❤️"what are your favorite scenes from your WIPs?"

😭"what are the biggest challenges writing your WIPs?"

❗"how many WIPs do you have?"

‼️"what has stayed consistent across all drafts?"

⁉️"what do you do when stuck on a scene?"

❓ask anything you want!

If anyone wants to reblog this to play with too that's totally fine with me!

reblog to tell your mutuals they’re lovely af.

✨♡♡✨♡♡✨♡♡✨♡♡✨

Oh, that is nothing compared to what happens to humans if a dark god takes control of them. They become monsters that look vaguely humanoid, but are definitely not human. They also become bloodthirsty freaks in this state.

And this happens primarily when a human uses a weapon/item with the dark God's name etched in it.

These creatures are different from the followers of dark gods, but I am not going to get into that.

Magic system

How many WIPs

And

Challenges you have faced with your WIPs

Thank you for the ask <333

There's an essay incoming, beware

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How Many WIPs?

I have no less than four novel-intended wips (Flamebearer, A Healing for the Birds, Soulswapped and the Lady's Lament), plus a few shorter works (The Disappearance of Charimone Eschredaine, [Succession of the Underground*] and [The Assassin's Promise*]) and a developing anthology of certain characters' backstories (This Blood-Stained Charcuterie)

*Placeholders; I've no clue what to call them yet

Challenges Faced With WIPs

A Healing for the Birds:

The main challenge with this is dealing with all the plot threads. One thing that has remained consistent even after all the changes since the first ever iteration of this wip (it used to be called Seafarer, then Obsidian Sapphires, and now this), is there being loads of plot threads. The difference is now those plot threads are more centred around the Allaitri Chalice and the political chaos of it being unearthed.

Up until recently, I wasn't sure what the core of the story was, but now I know. It centres around familiar ties and the things that people do in the name of love. (Sounds a bit corny out of context, though lol)

Flamebearer

I put this one on hold because I know it's going to be complex due to the heavy political themes in this. Unlike A Healing for the Birds, where the political situation is a little bit lighter and more petty, in a sense, the political scene is very charged here. There's a lot of resentment pointed towards the royal family due to things like Serrantine trying to rejoin Selade or the legacy of the Twenty-Year Winter, leading to unrest, death, grief, a lot more sombre and complex issues to deal with. I hope to be more confident in my writing so I can do Flamebearer justice, I find people seem to really like the premise and starting ideas, its associated Flash Friday pieces do quite well 😅

Soulswapped

Again, another wip put on ice to focus on the bird wip. I do want to get back to this at some stage, I have some vague ideas for how I want it to play out. I don't envision it to be as long as the two above, because its concept (the main character has to fight her way out of jail and the court it's in) is more constrained. There's nowhere near the amount of plot strings here. (The darker intrigue happens around the end/slightly thereafter 👀)

The Lady's Lament

I do not have experience writing contemporary stuff, which I think is what made it hard to start it. The concept's there, easy enough, but it's just actually sitting down and planning it that's the main thing.

Another challenge that is unique for this one to an extent, is the presence of Gaeilge here. The book is intended to be an ode to Irish culture, and if I was to complete it, I do intend for there to be a Gaeilge translation.

This Blood-Stained Charcuterie

One word: timeline. The setting for this collection has thousands of years worth of history, and so the challenge is figuring out who killed who and when. And not to mention all the stuff going on in the background, some of it is more influential than others.

The Magic System

Basically, it's based on the idea of magic being a biological substance present in the world. Most living things have a tolerance for it, but not all living things can actively use it.

Even then, there's two broad categories; faerie creatures, whom rely on simpler magic like moving things or simple tricks, and then the faeries/Carithaikh [start with one fae/one human parent, subsequent generations by any combination that isn't two faeries; these people can also be dubbed as witches], who can perform magic in a wide variety of ways.

Most people are born with an affinity to an element (such as fire, plant, water/ice, air, light, shadow, blood, lightning, dust, rock, metal, etc), which is then honed as the person gets older. It is also possible to learn certain elements, but some are harder than others, going on into near-impossible (e.g, it's hard to learn fire if one doesn't have an affinity for it [the genes of those who do are adapted to prevent burns and manage the heat more efficiently], but water is fairly easy to learn).

Another aspect that some people have but is much less common, are skill-based abilities. Shapeshifting and teleporting are the most common ones, but there's also a select few who can weave souls or see/interact with the domain of the spirits. Those last two are about one or few in a generation. (And interestingly, in Helinda there's no records of anyone who can interact with the spirit world, likely because Helindians burn their dead!)

But sometimes you'll get people with bespoke abilities. Some are merely unusual powers, such as purple fire, wood manipulation, blending with the shadows etc.

Others, are actual divine elements. They manifest as fire, light or water, and usage of then can have catastrophic effects. If the user doesn't die after using divine magic, it can cause things such as blindness, burns, nerve damage/neuropathy, constant dehydration, reduced magical abilities/stamina, chronic fatigue and/or other symptoms.

If the user has a part of a deity's soul entwined with them, then the effects are mitigated to an extent. (It occurs frequently with Fate's reprisals [her element is blue fire])

And then, there's also the external systems. These rely on the magic of the world instead of/as well as the user's. Things like runes, languages, diagrams, items, gestures and/or other tangible things are used for them.

These systems vary from place to place and between cultures, they're like programming languages in a sense. Each system has strengths and weaknesses.

For instance, Helinda's five-pointed star is great if you are a) in Helinda [or Morilaste]** b) looking to do things like a locating or summoning* spell, as well as anything relating to Helindian geography. It's great with maps!

However, it's not great for highly complex spells with lots of rules. That's where Seldaika's system shines. It has a four-pointed star, but the main mode of it is its language. It's a spell language, the grammar and vocabularly are tailor-made to support spells. Intention is also important, which is an aid in differentiating normal speech from a spell. Gestures also come into play, as do wands (syrchels), which are used as social indicators and statements of magical intent as well as to apply runes.

—

*summoning items is perfectly fine, as long as it's not someone else's item. Summoning people/spirits is illegal under Helindian law

**there's a decent amount of lore underpinning the reason for this phenomenon

—

I'm going to end it here, I hope you enjoyed it :D