Nyx Nyghtingale
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Blood & Chlorophyll Ch. 02 - Reflection
🕑 Added 2024-06-26 17:00:09 +0000 UTCI'll admit, I'm pretty proud of the opening paragraphs of this Chapter and the first one. I loved the idea of introducing my nocturnal character by setting the scene as if it were morning, so it was doubly exciting to do the opposite here.
This is also where I let myself go further into detail regarding how Alicia's cherry blossom tree looks. I did a LOT of research on cherry blossom trees, and put a lot of thought into what hers would look like. For a while I thought about making it a weeping tree, but eventually I decided against it. I also struggled to try and pick an appropriate height for the tree. I wanted it to be the biggest thing in the neighborhood, but also I didn't want to be absurd. I spent a lot of time looking at comparison images for different heights of trees, and I'm happy with where it ended up; 60 feet is definitely huge, but it's still far smaller than like, a California Redwood.
In general, this whole opening section was just a really chill time. Katrina's daily life is full of struggles, whereas Alicia has a pretty good handle on everything. She's got her collection of plants, a whole neighborhood to herself, lots of projects to keep herself busy, etc.
But then, dear reader, we get to my secret weapon. When I was first envisioning this story, I knew I needed Alicia to have some kind of work from home job. But what? Would she write computer code? (She wouldn't be the first BM protagonist to do so!) I almost had her work in insurance billing, but in the end, I settled on a fictional government agency in charge of Race Relations. This is something I'll explain a bit more in future chapters, but I'm quite chuffed with its inclusion.
The world of Becoming Monsters is one I find very interesting, which is a big part of why I wanted to write in it. Once I had my characters, I began thinking of all the neat ways they could interact with the Changed world around them, and that's why I'm so happy Alicia works for the department she does. I have an amazing excuse to explore various parts of the world, while also adding to the slice-of-life realism that I often strive for.
I'm gonna tangent here for a moment, but I've been thinking quite a bit about the term "Slice of Life" recently. I've never used it to describe my work before, and I decided to start using that term when I was applying tags to Blood & Chlorophyll on Literotica. As soon as I thought about it, though, I realized that Slice of Life applies to quite a bit of Suddenly A Succubus, too. Like, I know it's not actually Slice of Life, there's a lot of plot happening, but I go out of my way to show a bunch of quiet moments between characters. Those quiet moments are often my favorite, and those are the types of scenes I tend to miss most when I'm watching big movies or shows. Like, yeah, that explosion was cool, but was if I just want to watch Superman cook breakfast for 15 minutes?
Tangent over. Ahem.
After our little snippet of Alicia at work, and I guess a little bit before, we get our first hint at some bigger plot points for the book. What's up with this dungeon? I hope you're interested! I'm really excited with how the plot will weave in with the characters, and the sudden appearance of a dungeon was actually one of my first ideas for the hypothetical BM book that would eventually become Blood & Chlorophyll.
It's time for the last scene! I'll admit, I'm so happy with my decision to have the first two chapters end with the same line. when I wrote that line at the end of Chapter 1, it had some pretty specific connotations. Was Alicia suspicious? Maybe a little angry? I honestly wish I could see into the minds of my readers, and see what assumptions they made about that line.
However, when we get to that line in Chapter 2, I feel like the context has switched up a bit. Now we know that Alicia is kind of fascinated with Katrina, and was actually watching her for a bit in awe. There's a nervous energy to her delivery, at least in my mind, and I hope I was able to capture how amazed Alicia was at Katrina's unexpected appearance. Alicia's character didn't fully click with me until I had written most of this chapter, and this last scene really set the stage for me. We'll have more time to explore Alicia moving forward, obviously, but for now I'm thrilled with how I introduced these characters.
What will they say now that they've met? Who knows! (It's me, I know. I'm just making you wait two weeks to find out.)
Nyx <3
Comments
Nyx Nyghtingale
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I'm super happy to see the desired effect coming through :)
AFanofRoses
"I honestly wish I could see into the minds of my readers, and see what assumptions they made about that line." At the end of the first chapter, I imagined the speaker was annoyed, asking with a slight frown and a raised eyebrow. At the end of the second chapter, I imagined the speaker in a sense of wonder, speaking quietly so as to not scare off the wonderful stranger. It really did change a lot between chapters, and I applaud you for making the line feel so different given proper context.
