I write genre-crossing horror stories with a focus on the environment, mental illness, body horror, and interpersonal abuse. You will find diverse casts, nonbinary protagonists, and queerplatonic relationships.
Graveyard Flowers
Post-apocalyptic eco-horror tragedy. Against the backdrop of a flower zombie apocalypse, the friendship of two thieves crumbles under pressure. Topics of trauma, systemic neglect, and coming of age.
Main characters: Nat (transmasc bigender) and Ron (agender)
Part 1 on Neocities | Tag
Particle Decay
Urban sci-fantasy horror story. Nightmarish things are happening to the very fabric of reality, and two friends race against the clock to find out why. Topics of mental illness, alienation, and corporate greed.
Main characters: Jan (nonbinary) and Marion (transfem)
On Neocities | Tag
Holoatypical
Mad science merging game. A young biologist is tasked with mapping out a cave ecosystem, feeds his interns to the meat grinder in pursuit of fame. Topics of power structures in academia and terminal illness.
When I was in college, my Creative Nonfiction professor would regularly have us do something she called "hotspotting" (she didn't know that this was already a term tbc) with our rough drafts. Basically, hotspotting is when you look at your draft and pick out your favorite sentence, or one of your favorite sentences--one that you're really proud of--and write it down in a blank sheet in a notebook. Not a new document, a physical notebook. (You are not allowed to use technology for hotspotting.) And then you set a timer for however long--like maybe ten to twenty minutes--and you elaborate. You treat that one sentence as if it's the opening sentence to a new draft, and you write from there, until the timer is up.
It sounds like a gimmick, but honestly, some of my best writing in that class came from hotspotting. Usually, the sentence you consider the "best" is the one that really gets to the heart of something you're trying to convey. In a rough draft, it tends to be that you're fumbling around a bit before you really hit on the heart of things. So with hotspotting, you're starting from a less fumbly place, which means you're able to dig into your subject in a much deeper and more precise way. It makes you feel like a surgeon, a little bit.
So I do recommend trying it, even just for fun, even if you think the rough draft you have is already good. You might surprise yourself with what you come up with! :)
idk I just think happy queer stories need to be properly labeled so I can be warned beforehand to not get invested in the main ship because there won't be a culminating catharsis of mutual corruption and self-betrayal crystalizing into an inevitable murder-suicide :/ . like I don't think happy endings in queer media shouldn't be "allowed" to exist or whatever I just think tbh honestly to be honest that those creators need to think and be more responsible and let me have my boundary of nottttt wanting to see that. this is because I feel it's really important for me to see myself represented and reflected positively on screen and the real truth of my lived experience is that I'm gay and evil and I'm not going to make it.
I feel like so many posts from âwriting communitiesâ focus on how much writers hate writing. âWhen youâre daydreaming about your WIP, and remember that you actually have to write it!â, or âI have an entire folder in my Notes App dedicated to worldbuilding and vague ideas, but no actual writing done!â, and, quite frequently, âIâm only writing this book to get to the big confrontation scene at the end!â
And perhaps that would be fine if they were only peppered in to the general collective of posts. But it seems like itâs all some of you talk about, and itâs disheartening, and, honestly, a bit annoying. Are we even in a writing community, anymore? Because it feels like we arenât, sometimes.
So I want to take a moment to sprinkle in a little of the opposite sentiment, for anyone who feels the same way. Because I feel like Iâm going insane here.
I like writing. I like putting down words on the page. I like writing room descriptions and physical descriptions. I like describing the actions a character takes. I like imbuing those things with tone, and weaving the theme in. I like writing. Itâs why Iâm a writer.
I donât see the early to middle chapters of a work as a means to an end. I donât view writing as a slog - Some days itâs something that I clock into like a job, sure; Some days I donât want to write. But most of the time I enjoy it. I wouldnât be doing it otherwise.
Iâm not writing a book just because I canât make a movie or TV show - I like the written form. I read, frequently. I notice things in books that I want to replicate in my own, or steer clear of. I like words. I donât feel like I should have to say that I like words! Iâm a writer! But I do, so I will! I like reading them, and I like writing them! Because I wouldnât make something my lifeâs purpose if I didnât like doing it!
Writing is awesome! Words are awesome! Iâm tired of seeing negativity everywhere!
Writing IS awesome! Don't ever feel like you (general you) need to perform suffering to make your writing feel like it's the real deal. And if you really don't like writing, you're allowed to just... don't do it! Try a different art! Try a different form of writing! Spend your finite time on this planet doing things that spark joy!
Hello! I'm Carol, a Brazilian who loves writing, reading, ancient history, world mythologies and folklore. This blog is mostly for reblogging other people's writing, but sometimes I also share snippets of my wips or other things I find interesting.
My main wips right now are a quiet science-fantasy novel about a seamstress spider going on a journey to save her village, focusing on fictional folklore but also inspired by the real-world Andes; and a really convoluted grimdark contemporary fantasy thing set in my country. I also love short stories, so I might talk more often about the many short wips I'm working on!
(One of them even got published a couple years ago! You can read it here or in the Sun Rising anthology by Flame Tree Publishing.)
I run on battery-saving mode most times, so sorry if you don't see me replying much to asks and tag games. But I love being tagged on your writing or any other posts you think I'll like! :D
Just please don't add me to taglists without asking.
Classics
Vathek by William Beckford
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
The Woman in White  & The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
The Monk by Matthew Lewis
The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin
The Vampyre; a Tale by John Polidori
Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe
Confessions of an English Opium-Eater by Thomas De Quincey
The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Dracula by Bram Stoker
The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Short Stories and Poems
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce
Songs of Innocence &Â Songs of Experience by William Blake
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Pre-Gothic
Beowulf
The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe
Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe
Paradise Lost by John Milton
Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Oedipus, King of Thebes by Sophocles
The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster
Gothic-Adjacent
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
The Wendigo by Algernon Blackwood
Jane Eyre & Villette by Charlotte Brontë
Lyrical Ballads, With a Few Other Poems by Coleridge and Wordsworth
The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens
The Idiot & Demons (The Possessed) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells
Historical Theory and Background
The French Revolution of 1789 by John S. C. Abbott
Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth by A. C. Bradley
The Tale of Terror: A Study of the Gothic Romance by Edith Birkhead
On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History by Thomas Carlyle
Demonology and Devil-Lore by Moncure Daniel Conway
Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism by Inman and Newton
On Liberty by John Stuart Mill
The Social Contract & Discourses by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Feminism in Greek Literature from Homer to Aristotle by Frederick Wright
Academic Theory
Introduction: Replicating Bodies in Nineteenth-Century Science and Culture by Will Abberley
Viewpoint: Transatlantic Scholarship on Victorian Literature and Culture by Isobel Armstrong
Theories of Space and the Nineteenth-Century Novel by Isobel Armstrong
The Higher Spaces of the Late Nineteenth-Century Novel by Mark Blacklock
The Shipwrecked salvation, metaphor of penance in the Catalan gothic by Marta Nuet Blanch
Marching towards Destruction: the Crowd in Urban Gothic by Christophe Chambost
Women, Power and Conflict: The Gothic heroine and âChocolate-box Gothicâ by Avril Horner
Psychosâ Haunting Memories: A(n) (Un)common Literary Heritage by Maria AntĂłnia Lima
âThrilled with Chilly Horrorâ: A Formulaic Pattern in Gothic Fiction by Aguirre Manuel
The terms âGothicâ and âNeogothicâ in the context of Literary History by O. V. RazumovskajaÂ
The Female Vampires and the Uncanny Childhood by Gabriele Scalessa
Curating Gothic Nightmares by Heather Tilley
Elizabeth Bowen, Modernism, and the Spectre of Anglo-Ireland by James F. Wurtz
Hesitation, Projection and Desire: The Fictionalizing âas ifâŠâ in Dostoevskiiâs Early Works by Sarah J. Young
Intermediality and polymorphism of narratives in the Gothic tradition by Ihina Zoia
Monster hunting in Belgium anno 2014: no pay, no backup, no clue
Manu is an anxious biomedical sciences student suffocating under middle-class respectability who lies to everyone about everything. Anthony is a bathroom store manager with a short fuse and a crowbar, one abusive boss away from unemployment and financial ruin. Together they fight the monstrous things that come out at night. Not because they want toâbecause five years ago, they watched their predecessor die, and thereâs no one else to do it.
The crop circles and rifts tearing open across their city donât care about their problems. And when one of them gets dragged into the fairy world, the other goes in after him, and discovers the things theyâve been fighting have been holding back.
---
Happy New Year everyone! I am super excited to be officially announcing my debut novel: "The Night Shift", the first book in the urban fantasy series "The Feymark Files". The book will be published simultaneously in English and in Dutch as "De Nachtdienst", and will be available as an e-book (including DRM-free) and a paperback novel. The cover was done by the amazing Rafal Kucharczuk.
If you want to get a sneak peak at Anthony and Manu's adventures, you can sign up for the newsletter via StoryOrigin to receive an EXCLUSIVE short story in English or in Dutch, or via my website to receive a download link for both. Newsletter subscribers will be the first to know when new FREE short stories are published, receive calls for ARC readers, and will be informed when pre-orders are opening!
As an infant, Em'het was claimed by an ancient god and raised to become his next vessel. He escaped this fate by faking his death and hiding in the town of Soia, many miles outside the city. He was safe as long as he could keep his magic hidden. And then the strangers came. While the town welcomed them with open arms and worship, Em'het knew the truth: these were not angels but something different. He wasn't sure what, but no matter who or what they are, he needed to get rid of them. Over the course of the series, Em'het learns more about himself, his magic, and different perspectives of the old gods. As his power grows, he discovers a dangerous secret: the thing that makes the gods so powerful, their ability to possess others, is also their greatest weakness. And a vessel who resists their will might be the only way to break the control these gods have over their dominion.
Explores what happens when parents raise their child to be morally righteous and seek the good of others, only to discover that they've done their jobs too well and now have to watch as that child sacrifices themselves over and over in pursuit of those values.
Hounds of Corduff #wip: hounds of corduff
Planned 4 book high magic fantasy series
Currently shelved, but next in the stack
Master Corduff only ever wanted to live a peaceful life, but that's impossible in the military country of Rosen, seemingly constantly at war with someone. This series follows Corduff as well as his three apprentices. Hayes, in search of truth, defects to a terrorist organization after he discovers the family he once thought dead is alive. Boru, the child of prophecy, ventures out into the world to learn what it is he's meant to save, as well as avoid capture or execution at the hands of those who would see the world doomed. Awen seeks to connect with the family she never knew she had in a country she was taken from as a child.
Explores what happens when you turn magic into weapons and children into soldiers, and what happens when those children grow up and try to change a system that might be better off destroyed rather than reformed.
There are a lot of other WIPs I sometimes talk about, but they've been shelved so long that I don't feel they need a place here at this time.
Mallory all but fell down the street with his heart trapped in his throat. Nausea was trapped between his gullet and solar plexus like some horrible disease that wouldn't quit. He felt high. But not in the spiritual way, in that smoked-too-much-and-now-there's-demons way.
His own demons, apparently.
He reeled around the corner, shoulder-checking a stranger, but the apology wouldn't come. He felt the sweat on his skin, bones vibrating, hands no longer feeling the air even as he tried to squeeze it between his fingers.
He's sure he's about to upchuck on the chewing-gum stained concrete, his hand flying out to the rough brown brick of a wall. With a slip, the skin of his palm peels and he finally feels something real. His head hits against it with a shallow exhale of belief.
And the world slows.
He feels time hit the breaks the way one feels the impact of a truck. It's sudden, and painful, and he falls to the ground against the wall.
His eyes gaze out over Deansgate, the buildings towering over him, then the people - match sticks held in the breeze. Nobody moved. The whole world had paused. Though he's grateful - fleetingly - for the change pace - it soon turns to panic as he throws himself to the side and empties his stomach beside him.
Not even time matters now. The thought makes him feel the way drinking an iced coffee in winter does. Awake. Invigorated. Wincing in agony.
Mallory pulled himself to his feet with the stagger of a drunk. God above, he could do with being drunk. He pulls the air - cold - between his teeth and into the heat of his lungs. He holds it, and nothing moves. Then he exhales, and noise as raucous as a carnival roars in his ears.
Yuni walked past the neighboring village, where smoke from cooking fires still rose in the air, though the llamas grazing by the roadside were missing. The boys mustâve herded them over to another field with the arrival of winter.
Soon she would be walking through her front door. Yuni went up and down the last hills separating her from home. She crossed a rope bridge. As she left behind the last landmarks in her journey, the forest encircling the villageâthe Beastâs forestâreached out its arms to trap her again.
Her surroundings were so familiar now that it took no effort to find the right paths to follow. Her feet guided her by themselves.
Thus she arrived, safe and sound, to the first houses at the edge of the village. It was about mid-morning.
This is the opposite of a sweet peaceful ending, btw. It's moments before disaster, and she knows it.
Candles for the dead, part 1 - A Feymark Files story
Below is part 1 of a short story about the protagonists of my upcoming urban fantasy series, The Feymark Files, set two years before the first novel, The Night Shift. The next part will be posted next Wednesday. For more information or to sign up for the newsletter (and receive another short story for free immediately!), check out my website.
Namur, November 2012
The Bioethics professor had informed them all of the death of Isabelleâs father, at her request, so that she wouldnât have to explain her absence to everyone. She had been gone for two weeks, which was long enough to be noticed in their small biomedical sciences cohort at the University of Namur. When she came back to class, Emmanuel felt obligated to talk to her. Not during the lectures, of course; and not during the first few breaks when she was surrounded by other female students who seemed to protect her like a herd of bison protecting its young. But after a few days, they were the only ones who stuck around after an Organic Chemistry lecture and he asked her if she wanted to join him for lunch.
Emmanuel nodded, looking down at his overly salty soup, the steam fogging up his glasses. He knew he could only offer platitudes she didnât want to hear. Isabelle didnât seem to mind: they ate in silence, but when they were done, she smiled at him and asked if he wanted to grab lunch tomorrow as well. He accepted.
They had lunch mostly in silence for several days over the next couple of weeks before Isabelle finally asked a question related to her father.
âHow do you deal with him not being there for the big milestones?â she asked. âLike, your dad wasnât there for your high school graduation, right? They wonât be here for our university graduation, or our weddings⊠How do you cope?â
âI think you just allow yourself to be sad about it,â Emmanuel admitted after some thought. âYou know he loved you, so you know he would be proud of you.â
âYouâre not religious?â
âNot really.â That was an understatement. âNever made much sense, you know. My mother is, though, and I think it helps her.â
Isabelle nodded slowly. âI guess itâs easier if you believe theyâre watching from heaven,â she said softly. She poked at her food some more, but didnât eat much, and she excused herself from the table before Emmanuel was finished.
Several weeks passed before Isabelle asked Emmanuel to go to lunch again. She looked happier than he had seen her in a while, with shining eyes and full of energy. He was glad she was doing better and happily accepted her invitation.
Isabelle barely touched her food, but soon after sitting down leaned over the table and said in a low voice: âDo you know about candle magic?â
Emmanuel froze. The proper answer, of course, was âmaybeâ. He was what could probably be called the guardian of a tome of indeterminate age, stuffed to the brim with texts about monsters, magic, and everything in between, at least some of it true. No, he hadnât seen anyone do magic, with or without candles, but if goblins and demonic dogs and white ladies were real, why couldnât magic be?
But that wasnât something he could tell Isabelle.
âNo, I donât think so,â he said, carefully neutral, while dropping the contents of the little bowl of croutons into his soup. âWhatâs that about, then?â
âItâs this thing I read on the internet,â Isabelle continued, in the excited tone of a child who had discovered a secret. âYou put out candles in a certain pattern somewhere, and light them before sunset, and if you keep them burning until midnight a departed loved one will appear in the centre of the pattern.â
Manu had no idea what to say to that. Grief had clearly impacted Isabelleâs rationality.
âNever heard of it. Where did you say you found this? Can you send me the link? And could you pass me the pepper?â
He moved the conversation on to something neutral, something about their courses, but he was aware that Isabelle was only thinking about seeing her father again.
That evening, Emmanuel sat at his desk with both the rather early-2000âs-Geocities website Isabelle had sent him and Paulâs book, the tome of magic and monsters that had become his Bible. It was a chaotic work, which often had multiple topics per page in different languages, anything from magic spells to warnings about monsters to cryptic notes jotted down as if to remind the writer, such as âon midsummerâs eve, patrol the wallâ. Though Emmanuel was working on creating an index, âcandle magicâ had not thus far been something he had been interested in. As such, he was going through the book page by page, trying to find any mention of what was on the website.
He was familiar with all manner of New Age ideologies. Most of it was obvious nonsense; some of it had some basis in fact; and very, very rarely, something seemed to be true. Like now.
The webpage specified to use beeswax candles. The fact that it could only be done at night lined up with monsters only ever appearing between sunset and sunrise, with even their corpses dissolving at first light. It needed to be done in an open field or forest âoutside townâ, suggesting it needed to be done away from iron, something that was deadly to monsters.
And then there was the patternâŠ
From the moment he had seen the picture illustrating how to place the candles, Emmanuel knew he had seen it somewhere before. He finally found it three quarters of the way through Paulâs book. The accompanying text was in old Dutch, but Anthony had been able to translate it to French and they had written the translation on a Post-it note on the page. The translation read:
Be mindful of those lost in grief, who become attractive to all sort of evil. Shades whisper in their ears to force them to make a dangerous mark, which draws their soul from them.
And below that, it showed a picture of the âdangerous markâ. Emmanuel stared at the pattern in the book, then back at the candle formation on the screen.
Candles for the dead, part 2 - A Feymark Files story
âI looked at that website you sent,â he said at their next lunch. Isabelleâs eyes lit up immediately, and Emmanuel was conscious of the tightrope he was walking in trying to gently dissuade her from her plan. âItâs a bit⊠New Age-y for me. You really believe in that type of thing?â he asked, trying to sound casual rather than mocking. By Isabelleâs responseâsitting up straighter, her face going a bit stiffâhe had missed the mark.
âWell why not? And whatâs the worst that can happen anyway? If itâs fake, you just wasted a night and a few candles.â
âThatâs true,â Emmanuel said, even though he knew that was definitely not the worst that could happen. âStill though, I feel itâs a bit⊠I feel like the people who write these things are taking advantage of others, you know? Like, what if it doesnât work, wouldnât that make you feel worse?â
âI donât see how it could.â She quickly turned her eyes down and focused on cutting her sausage into bite-sized pieces. âWouldnât you do it?â she asked quietly. âJust for the chance of seeing him again?â
âI donât know,â Emmanuel said, and meant it. He wouldnât now, of course, now that he knew the dangers. But if him and Anthony hadnât stumbled across Paul that one night, had never gotten involved in anything supernaturalâŠ? He couldnât honestly say. âI guess I donât feel the absence as much, since it was always there. Fish in water type of thing.â
Isabelle scoffed. âThen Iâm a fish in the Sahara.â
They didnât speak the rest of their lunch, and Isabelle didnât go to the lecture afterwards.
The next time he saw Isabelle, a few days later, she seemed to avoid him. He managed to catch her alone as she was leaving, walking alongside her to her bus stop.
âAlors, are you planning to actually do it?â he asked. âIt said you have to go out into a field somewhere. Is that safe at night?â
Isabelle rolled her eyes. âWhat, you think rapists are lurking behind every tree between here and Loyers? In November?â
âNo, justâŠâ But he didnât know what he âjustâ thought. You couldnât tell people that they were potentially being influenced by unearthly shades trying to force them into dark rituals. Youâd get locked up somewhere. âSo you are doing it, then?â
She shrugged. They had reached the bus stop and Emmanuel knew he only had a couple of minutes before the next bus arrived. He stood between Isabelle and the curb, trying to force her to look at him.
âLook, could you please tell me when and where youâre going to try it? Iâm not trying to stop youââ a blatant lieââbut Iâm worried and Iâd feel better if⊠if something happens, you know, that someone knows where you were.â
At this, Isabelleâs shoulders relaxed. She dropped her hands, which had been clutching the handle of her shoulder bag.
âOn Friday,â she said. âThe weather forecast says no rain then. In that bit of forest between Erpent and the A4.â
Emmanuel nodded. âMerci.â
The bus arrived. Isabelle gave him a cheek kiss as she departedâthey had not been greeting like that so far, so Emmanuel was too surprised to respond. He watched the bus drive off, hands in his pockets and shoulders pulled up in the cold wind.
He would have to call Anthony.
They agreed to meet over dinner on Thursday evening, so that Emmanuel could explain the situation. Although Emmanuel lived in student housing and Anthony did not, they still met at his place so that Anthony could raid the fridge. Emmanuel would replace whatever was taken from his flatmates later.
Even after three years of working together, Emmanuelâs first feeling upon seeing Anthony each time was a low-key sense of dread. High school was not that long ago, and he remembered well how cruel Anthony could be back then, before all this started. Greeting with la bise, as if they had always been friends, still felt weird.
âSalut, Manny,â Anthony said before bending down to kiss him, then sat down at the kitchen table on a chair that looked tiny under his large frame. âCan we eat first? Iâm starving.â
âI prefer Manu,â Emmanuel mumbled, not for the first time, then turned to the stove. âEveryone is out, so we can talk.â
âTalk, then. Whatâs up with this girl? Is she cute?â
Emmanuel ignored that last question, and explained the situation as he cooked the chilli con carne. He finished the story just as he put the plates on the table, giving Anthony nearly twice as much food as himself. Anthony shook his head.
âI thought you university types were supposed to be smart,â he said. Emmanuel resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Anthony, who had dropped out of university right before the end of the first year, never passed up an opportunity to point out he was a ârealâ working adult now.
âWe saw a shade once, remember? At the BougĂš cemetary. But it wasnât with anyone, it was just⊠there.â
âAh ouias!â Anthony nodded enthusiastically. âWe kept watching it all night because we didnât know what to do until it disappeared. Same thing, do you think?â
âCould be. It couldâve been waiting there for a grieving person to arrive. Whatever it is, I donât feel comfortable letting Isabelle try to summon it.â
âOh, she is definitely going to fall victim to that thing.â Anthony sounded sincereânot worried, just matter of fact. âAlors, what do we do?â
Emmanuel had prepared himself to justify to Anthony why he needed him; why he couldnât just go out on his own, disrupt the candle pattern, and be done with it. It was reassuring that Anthony immediately said âweâ. In fact, Anthony had never objected to a single instance of monster hunting, not from the very first night, when Paulâ
Emmanuel shook his head to shake the thought of that night from his mind.
âĂa va, mec?â Anthony asked.
âYes, fine,â Emmanuel lied. âWe need to disrupt the candle pattern, but we need to find her first. Iâll ask tomorrow if I can go with her, but sheâll say no. I donât know exactly where she will be so we will have to try and find her. Online it said that the candles have to be burning from sunset to midnight, but it says no such thing in the book. If we only disrupt it and then leave, she may relight the candles and the thing may appear anyway.â
âSteal the candles,â Anthony suggested with a shrug. Emmanuel was struck by the simplicity of the idea, and embarrassed that he hadnât thought of it.
âThatâs a good idea,â he admitted. âIf itâs alright with you, after dinner we could go out there and scout out the surroundings. That way weâll be prepared for tomorrow.â
âSure, no problem.â Anthony pointed to the pot on the stove. âIs it okay if I get some more?â
I'll talk about the very first scene, since it's changed the most drastically from earlier versions of the story
Sadira frowned and scanned the letter again. Her eyes hung on the last words: "We found evidence it was done on her order. Destroy this letter and cover for me until we return."
For some time, I've wanted to begin the story right in the middle of things, but in earlier drafts, I didn't bother setting up this central conflict at all before throwing everyone into the deep end. Instead, the first chapter started a couple years later, with Sadira and her sister (Yanna) waking moments before a major event. The text then followed them through a fairly disjointed sequence of Shit Happening, with explanations dotted throughout as these two rationalize what is going on.
The people who read that version enjoyed the action of it, but they and I both were unsatisfied with the disjointedness. There were also consistent requests to have me back up a bit and lay the groundwork to introduce these characters in a situation where it would be easier to get to know their dynamic and personalities, and to probably explain what led to All That.
This starting point was my compromise! I figured starting the scene with Sadira finishing up this letter was enough to suggest its background without showing the moments before.
She bit her lip.
Red sand trickled from the folds of the paper onto her fingers. She wiped her hands and shook the letter so the remaining sand showered the floor. Akeem hadn't even made sure his missive was clean before he sent it to her asking for help in such a dangerous matter. Had he endangered himself even in writing it?
Was he safe? Where was he?
He had signed it, "Your Older Brother," as if to impart a sense of familial duty. If his timing was less disastrous, if he didn't make a habit of shirking his obligations, his signature might have had its desired effect on her.
As it was, Sadira was only annoyed and left even more distressed than before. Akeem was forever leaving her to bear the brunt of his most irresponsible decisions.
I tell a bit more than I generally like to in this chapter, and may go back and take out or alter some of these lines describing her relationship with Akeem, but for now I think it does an okay job of explaining her perception of him. All three siblings get super irritated by each other, even if they never really wish each other ill.
She stood in the hall, scrutinizing the letter in the flickering light of a brazier to see if he had given her any clue as to when he would return. The dim orange glow of the sun setting behind the clouds made it difficult to read, even in a hall with so many windows.
She glanced to the sand she had shaken onto the floor. Had he actually sent that along as a clue?
In this last bit, Sadira's starting to question her dismissals, and we hopefully get the sense that *maybe* Akeem is more clever than she has so far implied. Her habit of always trying to guess what others intend without asking them outright is a big problem for her (and everyone else) throughout Act 1.
âïž for any scene in the water facility (or any other scene of your choice!)?
Yess great choice, ty Nat!
I'm picking out a scene from Chapter 1: The Facility for this, after Ron and Nat have grifted their ways into critical infrastructure so they can hide from the zombie pollen storm, but before shit really hits the fan. The overseer of the water facility is leading them down to have a look at the messed up water filters, and the two of them get a good look at the reservoirs.
I like this scene because it hints at a few things going on between Nat and Ron. Going to intersperse this one with director's commentary.
For all the security at the gate, once you're in, the water reservoirs are really just out in the open. [...] They're somewhere on floor -6 now, and the cold makes Ron shiver lightly as he leans over the railing of the bridge to peer down.
"Damn," he whispers to Nat. "That's so much water."
More than they've both seen in a long time! A zombie infection is mostly carried out via droplet infection, because the seeds need a wet environment and like to spread from the lungs out; but large, non-salty bodies of water are a much bigger risks, should a zombie make it in, because they can act as superspreaders. As a result, water is fiercely regulated, and mostly redirected underground to be filtered and channeled.
Nat takes his luggage from him so he can lean over a little further, glad that he's relaxing after the incident with Leeway.
One of a few small moments of care Nat shows Ron during the course of Reburial. They care deeply about him, it's just, uh... You know.
"It is impressive," Nat agrees. Deep and dark, and perfectly still.
[...] Ron lets go of the railing, but as he keeps moving, his eyes are stuck to the lapis blue mirror surface of the water reservoir.
"Have you talked to Teo lately?" he asks under his breath.
Ron brings Teo up here because the ocean is Teo's thing, and he's being reminded of him. The two of them used to live in a port city and traveled to Canada via ship when they fled home. And even before that, Teo used to go sailing with his father all the time. Ron has a deep connection to the ocean too, but Teo loves that thing, and part of his present day unhappiness absolutely comes from being separated from it.
"We're not in touch," Nat answers, short.
He can't stand them :)
"He's with some kind of religion thing right now," he continues. "Flower something. I haven't sussed out if it's one of the ones that eats people."
"Flower children do not eat people, Gabriel. They just ritually pretend."
He cackles. "Semantics!"
This'll come back in Book 2.
Also re: the name Gabriel, Nat and Ron have a few fake identities they like to go through, complete with fake papers, depending on what kind of background they need. This never really comes up, and Nat doesn't hand said papers to the woman at the gate either when they lie their way in, because a water facility is always government owned, and you don't want your fake identity on record with and background checked by the government.
"You're worried about him, are you?"
He rolls his eyes. "Dude, you know him."
"Constantly hurtling towards his own downfall."
"Like an overbred racehorse desperate to break its fucking legs," he agrees, bitter.
"Let him," Nat flaps their hand. "You have a life to live."
Ron turns his head away from them before Nat can catch any expression on his face. He digs his hands into his pockets and falls silent.
No big deal, just Ron's QP partner telling him to forget about his closest childhood friend and crush because they don't like him. Nor his other close childhood friend. Nor really anyone else that Ron talks to for more than two seconds -
It gives them a moment to get lost in their own thoughts. Nat's skin is still prickling with the rush of the examination room, the smell still in their nose. They run a hand over their shoulder, gentle with the large patch of waffle shaped scar tissue under the fabric of their cactus cotton clothes, and even gentler with what they've hidden underneath elastic bandages, pressed as flat as they can get it so it leaves no suspicious outline.
"Sore?" Ron asks quietly. Nat nods. They could use some TLC.
But of course Ron drops it, and the topic changes back to what Nat wants and needs.
