Nyx Nyghtingale
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Suddenly A Succubus Ch. 03 - Reflection
🕑 Added 2024-03-13 14:15:14 +0000 UTCChapter 3 was a pretty intimidating chapter to write. A LOT happens here, and the scope of the story expands considerably. This chapter has our first scenes from a POV other than Amara, the first scenes from our mysterious angel, the first scenes with Tessa and Chloé, and just a whole bunch of other fun details.
I spent the entirety of the first two chapters attempting to keep things focused on Amara, to really establish her as the main character, but I knew this would be the perfect time to start laying the groundwork for the main plot of Book 1 - Who is the angel, and what does she want?
Maybe you figure it out ahead of time, maybe you don't, I really think it doesn't matter. What's important is that we spend a fair amount of time with her, and as we revisit her in the future, we'll start to paint a picture of what's happening with her. I'm purposely incredibly vague when it comes to details about why she's here, what she's preparing for, and exactly how strong she is, which was a lot of fun to put together. There are a lot of hints in this section, both for the rest of the book, but also beyond that.
When we finally return to Amara, we tackle a pretty important question, even if we don't get many answers. Where did she come from? In my mind, Amara is a pretty practical person, and doesn't always think through the various implications of things, so it's fun when we catch her in a contemplative mood.
I had to do SO MUCH behind the scenes work to figure out this scene. As the all-powerful author, I happen to know quite a few spoilers about Amara's past, and it was important that I understand everything as I start to tease what might be out there.
Unrelated to that, as someone who's chronically online, I'm having a blast writing someone who isn't. Amara not knowing what furries are is such an unimportant detail, but it makes me laugh every time.
It was also important to me, both in this chapter and in this series as a whole, to really emphasize how connected Amara is with her tail. I have a bit of a pet peeve when it comes to characters with tails that never use them or think about them. It's a full fledged limb, just like an arm or a leg, and it can cramp just like any other part of her. While she's still pretty annoyed about it in this chapter, she's starting to accept it on some level.
Our next scene is all the friends together at the football game. This scene took FOREVER. I'd never written group scenes before, and 4 of the 5 characters present are women. I spent a lot of time making sure that everyone knew who was talking, but I also wanted all the girls to feel unique, without boiling them down to cartoonish stereotypes.
This scene is also really special due to its mundanity. There's nothing weird happening, it's just friends hanging out. Fun fact about me, but when I'm not writing, I have some pretty specific tastes when it comes to media consumption. I LOVE smaller character pieces, and I hate when characters don't get time to breath because they get turned into plot vehicles or exposition machines.
That being said, we do meet Derek for the first time. It's still a bit of a mundane problem, even if Amara approaches it in a surprising manner due to some of her emerging emotionality. At some point, I realized that I never described Derek, and then decided to keep doing it on purpose. He doesn't deserve a description.
I'm also especially happy with the POV hopping here, even if it might be a little stilted. It was definitely a learning experience, and I was really happy to show an outsider's perspective of Amara, and how she confronts Derek.
After the game, we get our big sex scene! My goal was to have them both frantically tearing their clothes off while they argued, and I think I pulled it off really well. Not only does this stress that Amara's emotions are starting to grow more intense, but I also use this scene to plant a sneaky bit of information - Amara is not stronger than Nick, and never has been. I really enjoyed smuggling that information to the audience in the middle of such an exciting sex scene. (I also have friends that have repeatedly pointed out that this is their favorite sex scene so far, and I mean, I get it.)
And of course, we end the chapter with the hint of Amara's first mystery. I'll have more to say about this in later chapters, when it's actually explored more, but needless to say I'm pretty happy with the first hint we got here.
RIP Amara's bedsheets, we hardly knew ye.
Nyx <3
