Wintereyes has lived with wolves since she was 7 years old. Being currently forced to live amongst people, to learn how to be more human, having her companion"family" member referred to as a "pet" makes her /bristle./
Wintereyes isn't so much a super-smeller as she is influenced by her magical gift that allows her to communicate with beasts. Her nose leads her astray with "humans" (despite being human) because she doesn't understand their sense of smell is so much duller than hers. Scents like her own sweat, coconut shampoo, and slippers others wore at her boyfriend's home lead to a lot of misunderstandings, some NSFW.
#WordWeavers 2404.03 — Antagonist POV: How do you feel about animals?
It now appears that Her Highness from /Inklings/ and other stories in the Wands universe will make a on-stage speaking appearance in /Inklings./ She convinced (okay, forced) Wintereyes to attend magic school by show of force. She pointed out she would not be Wintereyes' "friend" if Wintereyes didn't do so. Not sure what exactly happened, but since a barn-sized fire-spitting Wyvern—who was making snide comments at the time—stood beside Wintereyes, it must have been something! Truly the boss antagonist.
I'm taking this opportunity to explore Her Highness' motivation! However, I'm not ready to POV her. Sorry.
How does Her Highness feel about animals (aka in this story, beasts)...?
Her Highness was instrumental years ago in finding a way to use magic to turn wheels, becoming the co-inventor of the horseless carriage. Horses take exception to her presence. One tried to kill her at some point (and ended up as dinner, I think). She keeps neither dogs nor cats, and she doesn't hunt as does much of the aristocracy. Her idea of a hunt is finding fashionable clothes, or some man to entertain her, who can also fetch that venison she craves for dinner.
I think Her Highness may have ended up "taming" Wintereyes because of her dislike or fear of beasts. Wintereyes befriends beasts; it's her gift. She was living amongst wolves when they met. Her Highness might fear that Wintereyes could use her beastly connection and become a threat.
That doesn't mean Her Highness doesn't see Wintereyes as a potential tool. Wintereyes is well aware of what being Her Highness' friend means in that respect.
That moment when you realize the story you're going to discuss this month has disappeared: /Bracing. Chilling. Disbelief./
My current WiP, /Inklings,/ was the result of writing a short short with the MC Wintereyes much later in her life, when she encounters someone who can manipulate reality. Since he isn't human, she's allowed to use her gift on him: spoilers. The story was unsatisfactory as she's too OP without justification and she accepts being... Well, that's spoilers, too.
Looks like I'm going to rewrite the story sooner than later. Let's see what happens. If I get a handle on it, I will post to this hashtag this month.
#PennedPossibilities 272 — What does your MC believe the point of life is? What did their parents believe? How does their parents’ beliefs affect theirs?
My little Ms. Doolittle, Wintereyes, doesn't think philosophically, but she'd likely say becoming better at helping the wolves she lives with. Also, since she's used her gift on beasts other than wolves, being able to communicate better with them so they always understand, so she can better help them. Her parents are farmers, and they feel their children should love the land and grow things. Sadly, her brother is now a celebrity hunter for hire and their daughter... Well, when she befriended wolves and they kept coming to the farm—with their daughter protecting them—the situation ended up with them sharing their daughter. Both children proved problematic to their beliefs in different ways, but they adapted. With the help of their son, they've kept their daughter from becoming completely feral.
#WordWeavers 2404.01 — MC POV: Write a Mastodon introduction post.
#Introduction I'm really new to the #Mastodon thing, but Her Highness told me I had to do this and taught me how. Everyone at school calls me their "Wild Woman," thus my @WildWomanOfFellWoods handle. I'm becoming used to that because it's true. I've lived amongst #wolves since I was 7 with the Blue Feathers pack, so I'll be posting lots of #wolf spark renders, like the one of Mother Wolf below. (Read the ALT text.) She's the third white wolf in that role because people live longer. I #hunt with #knives, but am learning #archery because I'm not yet a provider for the pack. I can't run as fast as they can, so I use my #knife once they've brought down the prey. My #gift is befriending #beasts. I can speak with them and they become smarter. I'm not sure if the effect is just on those beasts I've met, or if it spreads. If you've noticed wolves being smarter or more friendly to people, please private message me! If you want to. Not trying to impose. This goes with red #dragons. I befriended the one all over the news who burnt up the farm—and, no, she wasn't going to burn up the capital! She sneezed. Next to a grain silo. 😅 Nevertheless, if another shows up and turns out friendly, let me know! Sorry. I don't have any #dragon pictures. You can ask me about dragons, though. I also do #modeling, so you've probably seen me in a magazine. Yeah. I'm that #model. I won't post pictures, though, because I'd have to CW. But you can ask about that. I'm #shy so I don't do meet ups.
#WordWeavers 2403.23 — Which do you figure out first — MCs’ looks or personalities?
Recently I've been trying to say as little as possible about how an MC looks. Even in my mind, I usually gloss over it. Since I start with a character who is in an interesting pickle, I tend to start with personality. I fill in looks /only/ as needed, to let the reader see them as they want to.
Wintereyes from /Inklings/ has lived amongst wolves far longer than humans. She's smart, she hunts, she's dangerous, is at a loss dealing with many of the rules of society (including clothing), and is so shy that everyone misreads her as an ingénue. As far as she looks, all I've said is that she's very tall, has winter eyes (whatever that means!), would be a supermodel if born in our world, and has very interesting magical scars. I'm describing the scars as I go along, but nothing else.
#WritersCoffeeClub Ch 7 Nbr 31 — Do you work from premise to world or world to premise?
Neither. I work from character to world to premise.
My process in a nutshell: My story ideas start with a compelling character who is dealing with an interesting problem. Their frustrating world follows from the problem such that things get worse, not better. Why the character wants what they want and is frustrated obtaining that suggests a message and the premise follows, which helps me define what the ending of the story ought look like.
Example:
/Character:/ I wanted to write a story about a shy young woman for whom I could use my own learned experience being shy to guide my characterization. She doesn't understand people but needs to get along.
/* World: */ "Normalcy," which she doesn't understand and frustrates her no end. Why? She has a magical gift for interacting with beasts, and she's lived away from people (i.e., alone with beasts) since long before puberty. Her gift is powerful, and one of the powers in the world wants to "tame" her, thus she's thrust into a frustrating school situation. I needed to lampshade her prior education to allow this. The ultimate bosses she needs to defeat? Love (emotional and physical), dealing with a boyfriend, and conquering a modern world that (she thinks) works to control her at every turn.
/Premise:/ You may not be able to overcome shyness, but through careful observation and maintaining your integrity, you can make the world deal with you under your own terms.
#PennedPossibilities 268 — Would you ever include a scene in your writing that violated the rules of your universe if the reader would never find out? (There is a follow-up question for tomorrow to this one.)
I guess the answer to this would be Yes, but it's essentially a No because has to do with how I discover my stories. I rarely know the exact nature of the story I'm writing until I need the details. For example, I knew from the beginning that Wintereyes from Inklings could befriend beasts and was shy because she'd never lived amongst people who weren't family. I didn't discover the nature of her magic until what was needed became apparent, though I did crib things from three other stories I'd written in the wands universe, including wands. Now I know there's a substance I'll call spirit, but I don't know how it works. Plot issues will force me to define it later. Thus I don't violate rules so much as define them as needed.
Usually.
Another world I'm writing in /started/ with a defined force that requires humans to coherently manipulate. It has aspects of gravity and magnetism. I'd really like to add illusions, and that's proving difficult but I'm making progress with shoehorning it into the framework. Ditto with shapeshifters, but that looks harder to add. Of course, I could redefine the magic to make it more conventional compared to typical magical fantasy, but I don't want too... even "if the reader wouldn't find out."
#WordWeavers 2403.27 — Do you have any stories within your stories? Ancient myths, family stories?
Diana Rowland, an urban fantasist I greatly admire, who's also a Clarion West alumnus in my same year, has a way with making sequels seem like standalone works. In my opinion, she does this by integrating important parts of the previous novel seamlessly into the current novel. (Read her novels!)
I'm copying her trick. I even wrote a series of novella backwards, having to include what I already wrote in the sequel. Well, I did write the first novella first, then the rest in reverse order. To achieve the result I wanted, the POV tells little stories of what happened in the past apropos to the current situation.
/Inklings,/ my WiP, is a middle story in what I hope will be a series. Wintereyes, the MC who was raised by wolves but is forced to live with humans, relates at times how she got where she is, or snippets of previous times she seriously misses. In the current story, she relates 450 word sub-story where she befriended a dragon and prevented a war. The wyvern taught her a trick that lets her heat up a water heater for a shower without using fuel. She thinks nothing of the trick, not really understanding it's one of the reasons she's forced to live with humans...
#WordWeavers 2403.26 — Is footwear important or unusual in your story?
Footwear is notable and mentioned only to the extent that it is the one piece of clothing that Wintereyes from /Inklings/ regularly wears and agrees is functional.
#PennedPossibilities 264 — What is your MC likely to take away from a painful experience?
Wintereyes from Inklings is shy, mostly because of her experiences with very unpredictable and oft-inscrutably strange beasts called /humans./ Her first adult experience with them beyond her family nearly started a war. Her takeaway from painful experiences is /Don't do that again!/ or—if it interferes with what she must do (she's been forced to interact with people, for example)—is step back and figure out what she can do differently, better, or sneakily.
Years ago, she got bit by an alpha wolf in her pack she interfered with when he was overly harassing another who'd she have to patch up. After much thought, the next day she bit off part of his ear. They came to an understanding...
Well, thank you for this one. Caramello, the last in succession to become chieftain, borne by a second wife, exiled to a foreign land so he could avoid the war between his siblings after his father was murdered, greatly resembles his father. I didn't know. This explains events at the end of the story... so thank you for asking.
#WordWeavers 2403.21 — 2403.21 — How do your characters stay clean, or don’t they? Does plumbing exist?
Wintereyes has lived since she was 7 years old amongst wolves. She's now nearly three times that age and being forced to attend a university. (Her brother ensured she was educated and not completely feral.) I've had to contemplate this question in detail because the storyline forces her to deal with gym class and disliking locker room showers, then later bathing at a boy's house because of avoiding them. For reasons you'll read below, due to her confused understanding of societal norms versus what seems right to her, writing Wintereyes' slice-of-life adventures has been very fun and, at times, racy—which nicely complements the book's genre.
Issues of body odor, soiled skin, lunar cycles, and availability of water—even what the wolves think about bathing is necessary because they have their own concepts of hygiene that revolve around their tongue—play a role. There's no plumbing when she's living in the Fell Woods. Bathing means emersion in a cold oft-muddy lake, a colder splash from a running brook if the pack is passing through that territory, and melting snow during winter over the fire pit in the lodgepole tent. Bathing is not a priority, and as a result, long hair is a liability.
Forced to live amongst humans means clothing, styled hair, hyperawareness of smells (her magic modifies her to a more wolf-like suite of senses, but she doesn't understand this), and routines and rituals of cleanliness that she's never had to deal with. She does understand infection and sanitation, but it's always been situational as in dealing with preserving food, cleaning and sewing up wounds, applying herbal medicines, etc. Amongst humans, bathing not only herself but her clothes has turned out to be bewildering. Nudity taboos (and the very definition of nudity when applied to things like gym locker rooms), have been forced on her. The confusion and suddenness has exacerbated her shyness amongst humans. Shame hasn't taken hold because she sees humans are completely inconsistent creatures, unlike beasts. Yes. There's plumbing. There is magic to warm the water, and do other things. Civilization "seems" modern. For some reason, people also like to bathe together, the sexes separated, in a very Japanese mode.
Wintereyes has become very fond of soaking in the dormitory hot tub, enough so that she doesn't mind the other women that might join her. She's willing to deal with the dichotomies it represents.
#PennedPossibilities 260 — What is the one thing your MC desires most in the world?
It's interesting that for my WiPs, this turned out to be difficult to answer. Neither MC is into material things. Both thought they had control of their lives (but were wrong). I don't think either has some thing they actually desire in this world. Lots of little things would make them content—enjoying friends, finding love, being helpful, receiving earn praise, and since we're talking fantasy here, learning magic. Neither are focused on personal goals, per se.
As for the devil-girl, she's definitely discovered not having complete control in her life ended up fun. Challenging, but fun in the end. Even when you don't win, you learn something you didn't know.
For Wintereyes, life has always simply /happened./ She fits in, and likes that. Her friends are, well, beastly. If she hadn't been living amongst the wolves she'd befriended, would she have ever befriended a dragon? It was burning down their forest, so... That incident changed her life, and will potentially change the world. Not something you can plan for or desire ahead of time.
#WordWeavers 2403.20 — Who raised your SC? What was their relationship like?
It takes a village.
He's essentially a Pacific Islander in an otherworldly locale. As the last son of chieftain and his second wife, he's the last in the line to succeed his father. Unlike his dozen or so siblings, he had a sweet disposition. He never received the warrior training his sibs received, nor spent time bullied by his big brothers or sisters. They had no influence on him, nor really knew him.
His mother raised him, especially during his youngest years. Since the chieftain married her to give her the authority to help him rule as he aged (and thus had to have at least one child), that meant at first he got toted around with her and learned to act quietly adult. Later, he was left in the care of foragers, boat crafters, and fisher folk to learn their trades. With the latter, he discovered a love for sailing and a talent for navigation. He made friends and found love. People forgot he was still a son of the chieftain.
He would have joined the fisher fleet, but his mother insisted he also be schooled by the traders from the Endless Island in letters, numbers, magic, and geography. His mother saw them as a threat and their future, and insisted he learn their ways.
Her prescience (or was it planning?) provided him refuge when someone murdered his father, sparking a bloody feud for succession amongst his siblings.
#WordWeavers 2403.16 — How do your characters welcome spring?
One group of characters doesn't have spring. Nor winter, summer, or autumn, come to think about it, though day length changes do trigger abscission in the surviving deciduous plants. It's either sweltering and dry or sweltering and humid. The latter is very dangerous and requires both conventional engineering and thaumaturgical solutions to ensure few other than the most infirm die. Child mortality is horrible. The length of day varies but most people don't notice as they sleep midday. Ask anyone why it varies, and they'd say it's to allow the plants to grow better. That's anthropomorphizing; people do learn climate science during mandatory elementary schooling—though not that the main antagonist is deeply involved with the whys and the hows. A lot of this is undefined in storytime at the moment, as it doesn't matter to the stories. It's deep background that would appear only when necessary for plot.
For them, "Spring? What's'dat?"
Another group of characters have conventional seasons and a temperate climate. I haven't decided the calendrical eccentricities or even what hemisphere the stories take place in. This universe dates back to the beginning of this year. Wintereyes lives in a forest with the wolves she's befriended. Winter is the worst season for her. She has to depend on the wolves who claim her as one of the pack, to bring her the results of hunts. The cold is bad; the "clothing" she wears not really good enough. It barely allows her than hunt wood for the fire pit in her lodge pole tent (it functions like a teepee).
In her debut story, winter is a major concern regarding whether or not she'd have cubs—or rather children—now that she's met a man. Winter kills wolf cubs, even with her guarding them in a warm tent.
It's no surprise she greets spring with elation and relief. Time for her to resume hunting with the wolves, to gather the food that blooms around her, and to dance.
#WordWeavers 2403.03 — What food from your fridge or favorite restaurant would your MC enjoy the most?
Wintereyes lives amongst wolves, so of course she eats a lot of meat. Since her teeth aren't strong enough to eat meat raw, she cooks it enough to chew. Her pack has gotten a taste for it that way, especially the eldest wolves. Thanks to her magical gift, they can use fire, too.
It's not the meat in the fridge that would attract her, it's the cheese. Nothing so delectable is imaginable to her, especially the Romano and gouda. She might like the smoked salmon, especially since everything she eats is also smoked by wood fire.
/Inklings/ (Wands and Spirits Series): Someone who likes magical fantasy and urban fantasy with a modern twist. It'll also appeal to readers who like romance written as a slow burning sexy tease.
/Accomplice/ (Reluctance Series): Someone who appreciates SF and fantasy done with predictable rules, science, and no mysticism. It's a world of limited magic, human dragons, modern conveniences, and interstellar travel. It contains elements of cyberpunk (magic-punk?) and urban fantasy. It will appeal to those who like feminist and egalitarian fiction as it ditches patriarchy, wealth inheritance, invisible friends, and gender roles as we know them.
[Titles and series names preliminary. Author retains copyright (c)2024 RS.]
#WordWeavers 2402.24 — If your love interest was a writer, what sort of books would they write?
If Caramello from /Inklings/ were a writer (he's a photographer and a magic student), he could write great slice of life stories about growing up on a tropical island reminiscent of pre-colonial Tahiti. In the aftermath of the events of the story, he might be able to reconstruct the intrigue around the succession battle for the chieftain of Crab Island. (He was sent into seclusion on the mainland by his mother.) That would be a murder mystery thriller. It would be autobiographical, partially anyway, since he was the last born child of the murdered chieftain.
Devil-girl: Yes. All the wrong people know her reputation and will do anything to trick and use her. She wishes she were a nobody.
Wintereyes: What's a rep? Is that a human thing? Living amongst wolves has so fewer less confusing symbolic things to figure out. Befriending beasts and talking to a dragon is just something she can do and really is no big deal! She wishes she could just return to the forest and the Blue Feathers pack and the hunt, instead of attending school.
#PennedPossibilities 230 — What characters in your WIP or your latest work are most similar to you or to people you know?
Wintereyes from /Inklings/ is specifically written to be /like me./ Not her gift... not that, oh my! But her shyness. She has a specific kind of shyness, brought on by different circumstances—she isn't autistic. How it causes trouble and how she can make it work for her are the same, also. In a sense, it is a story of self-discovery. This may be one of the reasons I keep not writing it, though I have worked out most of the details in my head.
#WritersCoffeeClub Ch 6 Nbr 19 — Do you give your characters mannerisms? How do you do this?
Yes, but I don't plan it. As the characters live their lives, certain things click. It's entirely accidental.
For example, Wintereyes speaks the local human tongue, but is more or less fluent in the communication styles of a number of beasts she lived constantly amongst. Her "Human" is rusty, thus her manner of speech is slightly clunky. The best example is she drops logically unneeded words, as in this dialogue:
#PennedPossibilities 229 — How comfortable is your MC in their body? How do they feel about their height, weight, strength, and body type? How important is being attractive to them?
Wintereyes suffers from what could be termed /species disphoria./ She's lived amongst and hunted with wolves two-thirds of her young life. Her family has worked to see her educated, preventing her from going feral. Because of her gift with beasts, someone powerful has coerced her into attending a magic university to make her more human. Her body language and reflexive actions are... off. Her mistakes, her lack of understanding, renders her shy as she cannot predict human behavior. She'd just assume fade into the background and become invisible.
The problem with that plan is that she's supermodel beautiful—despite the scars her gift, and living in a forest with wolves, has given her. She's taller than most women. People are attracted to her; both genders. People lovingly call her "their wild woman," though she doesn't understand what they mean, or that it's actually friendly.
Being more human is the last thing she wants. She feels cursed. In her dorm room, /alone,/each night, she she's sheds her humanity and sleeps amongst her found family.