#wheat wip

[untethereddreams]

MC Prior Relationship Tag Game!

I was tgged by @mjjune and am tagging @writingamongther0ses @ettawritesnstudies and @ryns-ramblings

As always let me know if you don't want to be tagged and there's no pressure to participate :)

So, what relationships (platonic, romantic, anything) have your main chracters had before the beginning of your stories?

WHEaT is by far my most developed fic so I'm gonna go with Yining

She's not had many opportunities for healthy relationships since she was perpetually under the manipulative control of guardian figures, a lot of which consists of highly traumatic events I'm debating if I should write. However, while growing up she was quite close with Hua'er, Yu'er, and Xiaoshitou, who were also raised in the brothel. Hua'er and Yu'er, twins, became the top billing courtesans and Xiaoshitou became the head chef. After she was sold by Madam Lan to the General, Yinning was sent to a school for soldiers and, secretly, assassins. There, she fell in love with another student and they had a secret and intense relationship. When the General found out about it from his spies, he sent Yinning's lover away to the front lines of a war, where he was killed.

[untethereddreams]

Tag Game: Your Writing Education

List off all the things you researched while working on your WIP.

I was tagged by @leebrontide and am tagging @arionawrites @awordchemist @spuddlespud @songsofloke :)

I have been working predominantly on my wip the Walls Have Ears and Thorns and am trying really hard to NOT look things up in favor of just getting my outline done BUT here's a non-exhaustive list of things I'll probably be looking up for future drafts so as to fulfill the spirit of the game (I hope):

Chinese historical clothing and hairstyles

Chinese imperial/dynastic government organization including names, ranks, the people who typically rise to those positions, etc

Hou Gong dynamics (basically how the Empress and royal concubines interact)

Chinese historical architecture

Martial arts styles

Assassination tools

Wuxia tropes (probably by reading/watching wuxia dramas :P)

How extendive burn scars heal

Historical tattoo techniques

How tattoos heal over scars

Brothels/sex work in ancient China

Internal injuries and how to work with/around chronic ones

Military structures

The Art of War

[untethereddreams]

Heyyy hope you're still smashing through that outlining!

I am utterly failing my word count so far lol How's your miniwrimo going?

Today's question is; what is a secret about your main character that noone else knows yet?

Hello! I took a day off yesterday to read through a new book I was super excited about but because I was so far ahead I'm still going strong! I've been less focused on wordcount and more on just maintaining the momentum/habit which was really helpful for my motivation and I wish you all the luck in fulfilling your goals this month too, even if it's off to a slow start :)

One secret Yinning has that absolutely no one else knows is that she committed a little bit of mass murder right before the events of this book, but it was mostly justified? At least to her. She's my morally-grey chaotic neutral killer criminal blorbo from my head and I love her so

[untethereddreams]

Happy Sunday!! How's the first few days of your MiniWriMo going? Sending all the writing productivity vibes! 😻😻😻

Happy Sunday [or a little later I lost track of time]!

MiniWriMo is going great and I'm currently two days ahead in terms of word count than I planned to be. And to roll in your other ask as well, I haven't been writing scenes per se since I've been plugging away at my plot outline, but of everything I've outlined so far this month my favourite has got to be the scene where one of my main characters finds out that Yinning has a secret identity! A close second came today, when I figured out the broad strokes of the first two books of Yinning's story, the entire project of which I'm still calling the Walls Have Ears and Thorns because I can't think of a good second title yet. Thanks for checking up and I hope your writing is going smoothly as well!

[untethereddreams]

Happy WBW! What is a piece of worldbuilding you've developed just recently?

Thanks for the ask! I was thinking about the Walls Have Ears and Thorns a few days ago and realized that the reason why Yinning was sent to kill the Crown Prince is because of Hou Gong (后宫) intrigue, aka intrigue within the community populated by the Emperor's concubines and usually ruled over by the Queen. The Crown Prince is the Queen's son, but the Queen has recently fallen out of favour because her family was just accused of and executed for treason, itself a plot fomented by the Emperor's favourite concubine. This concubine wants her own son to become the Crown Prince and came up with the assassination attempt with her brother, a rather important minister in the Emperor's court. They wanted to strike while the Queen and the CP were both reeling from the deaths, then blame the attack on rebels who were angry that they alone of their bloodline survived.

[untethereddreams]

1577 words on WHEaT draft 0.5

A lot of this was formatting the document with nesting headers but I did jot down a brief physical description, list of physical limitations, and a whole bunch of motivations for Yinning so that's a win

[untethereddreams]

I currently have 35 distinct characters and two groups of characters with smaller roles and I've only named 7 of them XD

My list of characters looks like the list of extras at the end of a movie. I've got more numbers than explicit names at this point

Can you or can you not tell that I'm allergic to names? I'm gonna have such a bad time with the naming stage, esp since they're all Chinese names!

[untethereddreams]

I FINALLY WROTE YESTERDAY!

I finished up the last major plot point I wanted to outline before heading into draft 0.5 (typed up version of my outline, with some incongruities worked out) and 0.75 (the polished outline with proper continuity and as good of a pacing as I can get it rn)

Now on to the typing!