1. give short descriptions of all your current WIPs.
Wayfaring Stranger - France, 1940. While retreating towards the litoral to be evacuated with the rest of the British Army, Corporal James Mittal stumbles upon another young British soldier, one who claims to have served in the army during the Great War, before being spirited away by the fair folk.
This is the only original wip I have, the other are all fanfictions:
Where the Wild Roses Grow - Hermione Granger decides to travel back in time to stop Tom Riddle from becoming Voldemort, except that once she arrives in 1944, she's met with Thomasin Riddle, and her friend Arantxa Malfoy, instead of the boy she had heard about from Harry.
Prefects Who Gained Power - After the fiasco during the Quidditch World Cup, Percy Weasley is introduced to the Squib who works as secretary to Mrs. Amelia Bones and finds an unexpected friend in him. (listen, I just wanted to write TomRiddle/PercyWeasley. That's it.)
Three of Wands - "The police had never read an odder report. A team of doctors had examined the bodies and had concluded that none of the Riddles had been poisoned, stabbed, shot, strangled, suffocated, or (as far as they could tell) harmed at all." (GOF, Chapter 1). The pathologist responsible for the post mortem of the Riddle family is baffled by the lack of findings and the curious circunstances of the family's death (and for the weird frost and paint stain he found on Tom Riddle's corpse and that only he seemed to be able to see). While trying to make sense of the case, he ends up meeting and befriending the main suspect of the murder, Frank Bryce. (this is a HP fanfic, but it's a story that I really wanted to... turn into something original one day?)
2. give short descriptions of all the main characters for [WIP].
James S. Mittal (Wayfaring Stranger) - a 21 year old pathologists' assistant from London who enlisted upon the declaration of war against Germany in 1939. He's got his right hand wounded during the evacuation on Dunkirk beach and is learning to cope with his wound, his status as a discharged soldier and his new flatmate once he returns to London. I like to think of him as Dev Patel.
Alastair R. Hall (Wayfaring Stranger) - a young British man whose father was a doctor who expected his son to follow his footsteps. Alastair's way out (and rebelious act) was to join the army when the war broke out in 1914. In 1917, aged 22, he went missing in action. In 1940, James finds him in the woods on his way to be evacuated. He's short, with red hair, brown eyes and some secrets. Like James, he was wounded during the British army evacuation in Dunkirk. He was the first character in the story and came up in my mind after listening to Jos Slovick's beautiful I am a poor wayfaring stranger from 1917.
Feliks Ravenwood (Three of Wands) - a 32 year old Scottish pathologist living in London. At the beginning of the story he works as a general pathologist and a forensic pathologist. He's really sweet and can talk about dissecting corpses, cleaning intestines and preparing eyeballs for analysis in a way that makes you think he's talking about, I don't know, art or something really soft and beautiful. He also can talk about cells and histology for hours if you don't stop him, melanocytes are amazing and eosinophils are the most beautiful cells in the human body. Maybe he drowns himself in pathology in order to avoid some issues? Maybe. It's an easy thing to do, trust me. He's tall, with dark curly hair and blue eyes, super short sighted. He's asexual and panromantic. He was minimally inspired by Dr. Keith Simpson, who was the first forensic pathologist recognized by the Home Office in London (I say minimally because Feliks existed before I knew of Dr. Simpson, but later Simpson's work during the war was a great lead for me to shape Feliks'), and in the past three years he has acquired some quirks and bits of many pathologists I had the chance of getting to know. I started writing him a few months before I started Pathology residency and I've learned so much about him in the three years I spent in it.
5. what do you think is the most important part of writing?
Characters, probably. Once I start to understand them, it's much easier for the story to move fowards. I'm still finding it difficult to make the plot of Wayfaring Stranger to move fowards and it's probably because I'm still getting to know James and Alastair. Feliks, on the other hand, is someon I've been writing (as Dr Feliks Ravenwood) since 2016, so I know much more about him and it's easy for me to write him in any situation.
