A fellow historical mystery Writeblr?! *Pulls up a chair* I would love to learn more about Herald at Dawn, if you are willing to share. I am curious in particular about your inspirations for the story and how the story has grown or changed over the number of drafts you have written.
Hello!! :D
I'm absolutely willing to share I love talking about Herald.
First, loosely relevant character info for the ones who'll come up in this post (there is more & a brief summary in the wip intro, here.)
Alex (she/her, 31) is one of the two narrators. She's an investigative journalist for The Clockwork Herald.
Donovan (he/him, 37) is her father, who was also an investigative journalist for the Herald. He died 20 years before Alex's story happened, in what can technically be called a "workplace accident" (read: assassinated by the mob).
Ronald (he/him, 37 | 58) is her godfather & Donovan's best friend. He is a sportswriter/the sportswriter for the Herald.
James (he/him, 32) is the editor of the Herald, and also Leo's partner.
Leo (he/him, 33) is the main politics writer at the Herald, and also James' partner.
Re: inspirations, there's three? I can name off the top of my head. The Truth by Terry Prachett (book) & Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries (TV show), Newsies the musical about the 1899 newsboy strike in New York City, and then probably others I've forgotten.
Technically, in the very very very first draft, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (tv show) was also an inspiration, but that's because Herald went from steampunk vampire slayer something -> steampunk murder or detective something -> steampunk fantasy newspaper murder -> 1890s historical fantasy murder -> 1929 & 1949 newspaper murder.
The reason Herald went form steampunk -> 1940s historical fiction is very simple: I did not want to worldbuild cities because I suck at naming cities, so it went from steampunk to historical fantasy that wasn't really steampunk but was also steampunk. I wanted to keep the telegraph pigeons, so when I swapped I kept historical fantasy. It went into the 1890s because that's where I already was with fashion inspo. Then I realized "hey, wait a minute. Donovan's (Alex, the MC,'s dad) story doesn't work in the 1870s.", and also that Alex's story wasn't really working in the 1890s, either, because herald is bounded by 2 things:
Existence of widespread newspapers.
An organized & deeply corrupt police force.
Newspapers doesn't really bound it, technically that just means it can't work before the printing press. Organized & deeply corrupt police force, though, does. Organized bounds it at 1890s or so, at least without people going "huh is that true" and wanting to look it up, and deeply corrupt (again, without people going "that doesn't sound right" or "that seems too absurd") sets the upper limit at 1950s-ish. At which point I went OH and promptly went with ''sometime between WWI & WWII for Donovan's, and Alex's is twenty years later but not during WWII, probably.''
Donovan's ended up at 1929 because I needed Alex to be old enough to have strong memories of her father but young enough that she wouldn't fully grasp what's going on, and if she's 10 in March 1929 then that puts her at being born in fall 1918, which if I do a little bit of timeline shenanigans fits in with when Ronald & Donovan got drafted into wwi. Any later is the great depression, and I'm not dealing with that. It's too much.
Twenty years later is 1949, which is a nice year where very few major political events happened and therefore works. Also, it is not in the 50s, which is a nice bonus. I don't actually have anything against the 50s, but I knew more about the 40s going into this and definitely know more about the 40s now.
Other than the time, weirdly the biggest thing that's changed (that isn't horrible spoilers) is the fate of Leo. In the very first draft I wrote where Herald was properly Herald, Leo gets murdered via arson. Then it went fatally stabbed -> not fatally stabbed -> pushed down a large staircase resulting in dislocated hip & severe concussion -> moderate concussion + dislocated hip -> mild-moderate concussion + dislocated knee. I like him he's too much fun to kill and also I can't do that to James. besides getting to accuse him of murder is so much more FUN
I'd love to know more about With a Bloody Smile, if you'd like to share. :) Particularly I was wondering what your primary influences for the story are and how Cooper and Finn met?
Hi, friend! Thanks for giving me the opportunity to talk about With a Bloody Smile.
I began working on WABS in 2019, shortly after my dad passed away. At the time, I was heavily into Supernatural (the TV show), The Adventure Zone: Dust, and Vampire: The Masquerade (the original campaign from the 90s). In fact, VTM was the biggest inspiration for WABS at the time, in terms of the types of characters I wanted to use as my monsters and the setting.
I originally intended for With a Bloody Smile to be a zombie apocalypse, urban fantasy WIP, but in the past couple of months, my plans have shifted. Zombies are still present, and the story still takes place in an apocalypse, but the story is more of a survival horror one now, with all kinds of creatures.
Finn is my main protagonist. He is a monster hunter who has been doing this ever since he was old enough to hold a weapon. He's gruff, closed off from people, a bit mean at times, but also intelligent as hell and funny. His character bio has changed a lot over the years as well, and I'm looking forward to learning more about him.
As for how Cooper and Finn met, well, I'm still working on that. I think that perhaps Cooper was in over his head and Finn saved his life, which then led to Cooper feeling like he owed Finn a debt. I'm also excited to learning more about their story.
OC Fact: Between the two of them, Baltan and Eureka own MANY books. While they both read most anything that seems interesting at the time (or is on sale), Baltan has a preference for Romance novels, and Eureka has a preference for local history non-fiction and Historical Fiction.
Hello! I was so excited to stumble upon your blog because a "queer gothic fiction set in the 1880s american west" is so, so up my alley. I've been out of the writeblr loop for a while--thanks to a certain video game we both love--so I was wondering if there are any western writeblrs you'd recommend I check out? (Or any writeblr really, I'm not picky).
Side Note: Your wip and cast of characters (Célie and Frances in particular) got me like 👀👀👀. Does your rag-tag outlaw gang have a name or are they not into that sort of thing?
hello!!!! I was so happy to have stumbled into your blog as well 💖 I bookmarked your blackwater series to cozy up and marathon through it soon ahhh
I have not been active in the writing side of tumblr and don't know any other western writeblrs ;-; I am a big fan of art-tumblr with darling cowboy ocs. many blogs have short blurbs and excerpts with their characters (found all in this tag). I also love interactive fiction (counts as writeblr? for me anyways!). here are western-themed ones I really adore: Larkin by KC, Wasteland Pony Express by katieaki, Shadows of the Gun by Emma, The Ballad of Devil's Creek by GC Betker
Celie and Frances;;; oh my I am trying not to have favourites but I do have a soft spot for a few of them including these two hehe. My outlaw gang has not a name yet hmm I have not found a good one for them yet :')
Would you care to share a bit about the female protagonist you mentioned in your Writeblr Intro for Jack of Diamonds? I'd love to hear about her.
Are you researching anything in particular right now for that story?
I’m so glad you are interested, thanks for the ask!
1: So, the female lead is called Anne Marlon, and she is a young society lady of Late Victorian England, who - like many of the people in this WIP - has secrets that her peers would consider unsavoury. Both her parents are dead: her mother died of childbed fever (which was fairly common at the time), and her father died of a stroke when she was a small girl. As a result, she has been brought up by her older brother, Charles, and by a friend of the family, Duchess Irene Strongbow.
She is a very quiet and reserved woman, but does her best to help those in need in whatever small way she can. A lot of her story arc in the book sees her struggling to break free of some traumatic memories and their subsequent effects, and her taking on an unusually active piece of work for a Victorian lady. I cannot say more about that atm, as it would spoil the book. I will write Character Intros soon, but in the meantime I can elucidate any points.
2: Sort of? I have had a bit of a hiatus from Jack of Diamonds for a while, so as to work on the character backstories, and do some work on Echoes of Eternity. However, I have been doing research on and off for those character backstories. The thing I want to research next is how training for the police force happened, and the police force system, as I am writing up Inspector Parker’s backstory. So nothing I’m doing at present, but something I need to do for the future.
I haven’t quite placed where they’re going to confess their love in Sisterhood of Blood, but when they were together as teenagers they spilled their guts to each other on the roof of Eliza’s family barn at midnight. The moon was full and the air was damp and they were cuddled under a blanket sharing a small flask of whiskey Rosalind nabbed from a gambling game with the other ranch hands.
⭐ Adore your fics, would love to hear what you have to say
gonna condense these just for ease of answering! gonna do a last year’s antlers one, an American Spirits one, and then one weirder last year’s antlers one as a bonus.
so like, one thing I haven’t talked about explicitly but I think directly contributed to how I see last year’s antlers as a whole and specifically baltwio as a project is that the most important thing in my mind was conveying how deeply John and Arthur care about each other negligible of a potential romantic relationship. I think, in other words, I didn’t want it to feel like the romance was the only reason they could help each other recover and grow into new people, and, in fact, there was a period of time before I started posting the fic where I was in a serious debate with myself whether it would be a Morston fic or instead a John & Arthur fic. I really do think John and Arthur would do anything for each other regardless of whether they were in a romantic or platonic relationship (see: the fact Arthur literally died helping John get out) and so it was really a question of whether I felt like I could write them as a romance. I’m glad now I settled on Morston, but I think having that debate with myself was important, because it solidified the structure of the fic, where the romance itself was a slow burn and instead a good portion of the first half of the fic was focused on mutual recovery and healing that the romance only continued, rather than detracted from.
as for American Spirits, that was originally going to have a completely different structure/timeline. it was originally going to start when Arthur was first taken in by Dutch and Hosea, and instead of following chapters in the game, its primary method of movement was going to be forms Arthur tended to take over the course of his life, from a dog to a wolf to a stag. that’s why the flashback to Hosea finding a young coonhound Arthur in the woods was so developed, and where the idea of having him take the form of a lion during the O’Driscoll fight in Shady Belle. however, that structure really wasn’t working for the fic, to the point where I was stuck on it for something like half a year because I just couldn’t progress it in a way I was satisfied with. it was only when I changed it to follow the chapters of the game that it started flowing.
and then lastly, back on last year’s antlers, this is something I haven’t talked about at all because a. it hasn’t come up natural in any of the fics and b. I actually feel a little weird about sharing it, but I’ve actually been thinking pretty much since I first started mentioning her that Bess (the baby girl Abigail has between some of the later stories in the last year’s antlers ‘verse) is biologically hers and Arthur’s daughter. now, just off the bat, this was all completely consensual between all three parties (meaning John, Arthur, and Abigail) and I still don’t see Abigail and Arthur having a romantic or ongoing sexual relationship in this ‘verse. instead I’ve been imagining it as something John proposed as a way to solidify their family unit a bit more, since John has already shown throughout this universe that he’s pretty okay with unconventional relationships. that, and I imagine it was likely done with as little sexual contact between Arthur and Abigail as possible for the early 1900s before artificial insemination for the common people was a thing, because they’re just not into each other in that way. but yeah! that’s why I haven’t ever mentioned Bess having physical traits inherited from John, only Abigail.
