#arctic fantasy

[baileymcknightwriter]

June is the perfect time to return to my half finished Arctic fantasy

[lorata]

13 (i mean aside from the whole HOLY SHIT WATER AND HEAT part this is not that different from actual story but...), 5, 8

13: Your characters are stranded on a deserted island. What happens?

I actually think you can’t gloss over the !!! part, because these are characters who’ve spent their whole lives in an arctic climate. If they were magically transported to a tropical island they would absolutely flip their lids at first over how amazing everything is. Warm?? water???? TreeS????? SAND????? But then the humidity would hit and none of them would know what was happening and they’d all decide this was the absolute ultimate evil.

Poor Tiqa would get a headache very quickly and find it very hard to see, because 1) she’s already day-blind but 2) the reflection of sunlight on the ocean would make her headache even worse so she’d probably just give up and cover her eyes entirely rather than deal with it. Nighttime would be nice though! 

Practically, Siska would transform and knock down a few trees so they could build a shelter, and she’d also keep watch at night. Dal would hunt and keep them fed, and the animals would fend for themselves. Tiqa’s job would be to work out whatever magic would be required to get them back home.

5: Search for the word "knife" in your WIP. If you find it, paste the line and explain the context.

“Knife” appears a lot (ironically it appears twice in the previous post, which had nothing to do with this question!) so have a random one, when Tiqa’s mother is planning to go hunt the night horror they think killed Siska:

Father tried to stop Mother when she returned, clad in her leather hunting parka with a spear in one hand, a knife at her belt and a bag slung over her shoulder. “Naqaia, I can’t lose you too,” he said, speaking low enough that the words did not carry through the village, but I still overheard. “Please let the others take care of this.”

8: What is your biggest challenge?

Ha with this one it’s been remembering that other stuff needs to happen that isn’t directly related to solving the main storyline. Like if you were to sit down and diagram the plot, it would basically look like an expressway in the middle of the country where there’s maybe an exit every 200km or something. I tend to be not that great with side plots at the best of times, but this one is really kicking my behind in that regard for some reason.

Also I had to remind myself to give Dal more of her own thing not in relation to Tiqa and Siska (which is why I went back and am adding the thing with coming across the evacuated/abandoned villages and Dal’s thoughts about leaving her own village). I’m usually pretty good about agency and self-directed characters, but because so much of the plot revolves around Tiqa and Siska and Dal sort of getting caught up in it, I did sort of end up forgetting to give her an independent storyline for some of it. It’ll come back into play more later, but even so.

Then of course there’s the whole issue of creating a magic system from scratch, because every time I want to know how something works I start to google it and then go RIGHT I CAN’T BECAUSE I’M MAKING THIS UP MYSELF, UGH!

[lorata]

2, 1, 17, 18, 20

1: Summarize your WIP in 10 words or less.

Tiqa saves her sister from a curse, but Siska misses it.

2: Post a line from your WIP with no context.

“A knife beneath the pillow severs the dreamer’s connection to the spirits,” Katlan said. “The colour red mimics the blood that flows inside us and makes us human, as spirits do not bleed. But rest easy, child; trust in the magic that protects our village. We have lived safely inside its boundary as long as I have lived and more.”

17: Does your WIP have any themes or motifs?

Another thing that’s a theme in this book (and important given that all the main characters are women, I think) is that the protagonists get to be selfish and it’s not the end of the world. Sometimes there are consequences, sometimes there aren’t, sometimes it’s a big deal and sometimes it isn’t, but the whole idea that women need to be selfless and live up to everyone’s expectations and fall into the Role They Were Meant To Fill even if they don’t want to is a thing I was rebelling against with this story. Dal ran away from home because she was meant to succeed her parents as chieftain when she grew up and didn’t want the responsibility -- and I wanted to write a story where she’s not punished for that decision, and where she doesn’t Grow Up and Decide to Shoulder The Burden In The End. Siska abandons her training as apprentice storyteller, a very important role in the community given that their history is an oral tradition, because she wants to return to being a monster, a decision that does have repercussions. Tiqa, on the other hand, makes a very different choice altogether when it comes to responsibility. But YOU MUST, BECAUSE, THEREFORE, no. 

18: What's easier, dialogue or description?

In general I find description easier, though it depends on whether I feel I have the character voice nailed or not. If I don’t then description is terrible, it just feels like words on a page without any kind of heart or soul to them, but if it’s in voice then everything breathes, you know? Dialogue, though, that’s always awkward. There’s a fine line between “nobody talks like this” too-snappy hyper-artificial stuff that irritates me (see e.g. Gilmore Girls, I can’t listen to anyone on that show talk for more than 30 seconds without wanting to strangle someone) and the too realistic awkward stuff that bad writing advice tends to be trending towards nowadays in the name of “authenticity” (you know, favouring pointless diversions and filler and whatnot because “that’s how people talk”). Once I have the characters and dynamics down that sort of thing flows better, but while I’m still figuring it out, it tends to be a bit of a slog.

20: Post a brief excerpt.

have the opening:

My sister disappeared the night of the winter solstice. The longest, darkest night in the middle of three long, dark months without the sun. At the solstice the skies danced as the spirit lights kissed the earth, ribbons of colour bending and twisting above our village. We slept: my parents in their bed, piled high with skins on Father’s side, Mother with one foot stuck out in the open air so she wouldn’t stifle. My sister Siska slept as well, furs askew and hanging halfway to the ground, pushed aside by her restless tossing hour after hour — slept with a thin, red cord that tied her ankle to the bedpost, unbeknownst to her.

As for me, I stretched out in front of my sister’s door with a blade clutched in my fist, lying directly on the cold floor so I would wake at the slightest disturbance. Before retiring I’d drunk as much water as I could hold, even sucked an ice chip between my teeth as I fell asleep, so that the protest of my bladder would wake me even if nothing else did. I would save my sister from the solstice, from the dancing spirit lights that dipped and swayed and touched the snow, scooping up anyone who wandered outside at midnight past the boundary that kept our village safe.

Three nights I’d found Siska standing at the edge of the magical boundary, staring out into the darkness at the wide expanse of tundra beyond. Three nights I’d almost lost her. And so I tied the cord around my sister’s ankle after she relaxed into slumber. I crouched in the darkness, holding my breath and twisting the knots with practiced fingers so that when the magic called her she would not make it out of bed before I could stop her. I slipped a knife beneath her bed as a further warning to the spirits, and I pulled the curtain tight so not a glimmer of light from the aurora could creep in.  I would save my sister even if no one else believed the danger — not our chieftain, not our parents, not even Siska herself.

My name is Tiqa Ras, and the spirits did not steal my sister at the winter solstice. The night horrors did.

[lorata]

1, 2, 10 & 17 for the WIP meme thing? :)

1: Summarize your WIP in 10 words or less.

UGH THIS IS REALLY HARD WHY DIDN’T THEY SAY 20

When her sister disappears, TIqa vows to find her, but

After a curse transforms her sister into a monster, Tiqa

Tiqa saves her sister from a curse, but all Siska

Find her missing sister, reverse the curse. The end! .....right? 

THERE. SHEESH.

2: Post a line from your WIP with no context.

“You know me, don’t you,” I said, raising my head, straightening my spine and squaring off my posture. “You know me. I killed your brothers. I tore their throats out with my teeth, and I may look soft and small but I am who I am. And who I am —“ I took a step forward and the night horror scrambled back, and the power sang within me until it rang in my ears — “I am your nightmare. You and all the other horrors. And you will run from me.”

10: How would you describe your WIP's narrative style? (1st person, 3rd person, multiple POVs, single POV, alternating chapters, etc.)

1st person, multiple POVs, alternating based on which POV best suits the scene rather than following a particular pre-set order. I tend to find those kind of annoying, like, either you end up with a scene that reeeeally should be from someone else’s POV but oh well too bad, schedule first! or the story drags or rushes to make sure that Scene X happens in POV Y, and I’m not a tight enough plotter to make sure all the beats fall at the right point while feeling organic.

I never write in 1st person, like EVER, but this story wanted it, so here I am! It’s past tense, though, because present tense is only for fanfiction. Don’t ask why.

17: Does your WIP have any themes or motifs?

The sisters as the primary emotional core of the novel is the main one -- Tiqa has a romance, but it’s her relationship with Siska that provides the heart and the driving force for everything. Another theme (loathe as I am to phrase it this way because all I hear is Lana f’n Lang) is secrets and lies -- the characters spend a lot of time keeping secrets from each other, either to protect the other person (misguided or no), or for selfish reasons, or because it’s not the right time~ or what. Trust and consequences and all that is a big part of the story.

Another theme is what love and happiness looks like, and whether it has to look like what other people expect it to. Tiqa, who loves her home, falls in love with Dal, an adventurer who can’t stay in one place for long, which sets up a very familiar conflict with a very familiar expected resolution: eventually Dal will have to choose between love and the open tundra. Except the thing in this book is -- why should she? Why do these stories always end the same way? Heck to that! It’s not just Dal and Tiqa though, this is repeated with Tiqa and Siska, with Tiqa and [spoiler] and throughout -- the way we expect things to be, the way others expect them of us, these aren’t the only choices. 

[lorata]

3, 6, 9 & 12 for the wip meme!!

3: Does your WIP have a title? If so, explain its significance. If not, what are you calling it for now?

It’s called Sisters Under the Dancing Sky, which came about because the original title was Under the Dancing Sky with various sister-related subtitles (A Sisters’ Tale, A Tale of Two Sisters, etc) that kept feeling awkward until I was like, oh, duh! Just put the sisters at the start! Hur dur! (This means the story acronym is now SUDS, which ........ well, you win some, you lose some...)

The “sisters” part is important because while there is a (lesbian) romance for the one main character, the relationship between the sisters is the grounding/driving force for the story. The “dancing sky” refers to the northern lights, which acts as both a setting marker (it’s a fantasy arctic setting) and a nod to the mythology.

I also refer to it as “arctic fantasy” or “arctic sisters” when the title is too long.

6: Search for the word "dream" in your WIP. If you find it, paste the line and explain the context.

Ha! Dreaming is a recurring thing in this novel, so it shows up a lot. Here’s a bit from the first scene, where Siska dreams that she fights and kills the night horrors (the monsters that stalk the tundra outside the village boundary), not with weapons like a hunter, but with bare hands and teeth like a horror herself:

If that dream had been mine, I would have woken with a swallowed scream and immediately checked my hands and chin to make sure they were free of blood. I might even have balked the next time we ate raw meat, thinking of my savage hunger in the dream and the hot spurt of the horrors’ blood between my teeth.

But I watched Siska, who pulled her knees up to her chest and rocked back, staring out the window with an odd, contemplative expression that, in the twist of her mouth and the set of her eyebrows, might almost be yearning. “The dream didn’t frighten you,” I said at last, when Siska made no move to continue her tale. A second thought followed the first, and I did not want to say it aloud except it bubbled up in my throat and the words all but forced their way out. “But waking up did.” 

9: How would you describe your writing style?

This one is a bit experimental for me -- my writing style in general tends to be a bit more to the point, but this one is a bit more ..... idk, lyrical? By this I mean the writing style is more present, how the words go together are a bit prettier than my usual. I’m not sure why, it just felt like it fit this one. But I suppose that’s less ‘writing style’ and more ‘it fit the voice’, I guess??

12: Which character do you have the least in common with?

This one is funny because I think in this one it’s ... all of them? Some books I wrote myself into but this isn’t one of them. In particular Dal and Siska are very feelings averse, and in fact all of them do things that I fundamentally disagree with all the time. Tiqa’s probably closest, she loves her sister and she has many feelings and isn’t afraid of them, but her fatal flaw is very different from mine. Tiqa doesn’t listen to what her sister wants for most of the book; she hears what she wants to hear, and that’s a thing I actively work at trying not to do. Also all the main cast lie, a lot, like a theme of the book is that everyone lies and/or keeps secrets from each other for various reasons -- some better than others -- while I literally wear a Steerswoman’s ring on my left hand as a physical reminder not to. On the flip side, none of them have my anxiety, and they don’t waste time worrying about regrets or freaking out in indecision, they make their choices and they live with them (this is also a theme). They also don’t do the Thing I did where they wasted years trying to live up to someone else’s standards before realizing that’s an ever-moving goalpost.

(now while none of them are particularly me, Dal somehow ended up like a Magical Lesbian AU version of @xanify which will make me laugh forever)

[quarkmaster]

Winter ranger by A_Litvishkov