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rossa-motte · 3 years

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cielo rojo/red sky, short story update.

Hey, everyone! So today I want to talk about Cielo Rojo/Red Sky, the first complete short story I wrote not only this year, but in a long time. If you read my introduction to the community, I commented on how (thanks to perfectionism) I stopped writing for four or five years.

Reading about a “writer block” that takes more than a few weeks may seem scary af to a lot of people, but I'm kind of glad. I feel more confident now. Also #OvercomingMentalIllness, even if I wasn't a perfectionist, my focus was on other stuff.

State: complete... for now. Probably in a few months I'll read it again and clean it a bit more

Wordcount: 4888 (love the number idk why)

Genre/category: adult, dark fantasy, paranormal (vampires)

Premise/concept: A young woman accepts to be bitten by a vampire in an illegal vampire-party but she really isn't sure if that's what she wants, especially because she has the rarest blood type in the world.

Characters:

Urbana

the MC

a woman in her mid twenties with cool hair, who works as a stylist

a anxious and obedient golden retriever (literally in my notes about her)

Reyes

the vampire

we can't know much about him

but he seems pretty human... and boring

Begonia

our MC's best friend

the crazy one who convinces her to go to the party

I wanted her to have more screen time but I couldn't :(

Playlist:

Show it 2 me (by Night Club)

Gossip (by Night Club)

Dear enemy (by Night Club)

Miss negativity (by Night Club)

Your addiction (by Night Club)

Scheizophrenic (by Night Club)

Die in the disco (by Night Club)

Give yourself up (by Night Club)

Bad girl (by Night Club)

Scary world (by Night Club)

Sad boy (by Night Club)

Need you tonight (by Night Club)

Strobe light (by Night Club)

Tonight is the night i die (by Payale Royale)

Song for planning: (I have a specific song I put on repeat when I plan characters, and other stuff. Usually the vibes don't match that much, but credit where's needed) Little somenthing (by Melody Gardot and Sting)

Years ago I got this idea of a world with vampires and... let me clear up: I always wanted to write about vampires (and all that kind of creatures) but for obvious reasons I thought it wasn't a good idea. I think the Twilight and Twilight copycats era has passed and vampires can be cool again. Thanks.

So years ago I got this idea of a world with vampires, not like a secret world. In this universe, vampires are part of normal life like a bunch of goth kids... okay, no. My take was more political. I thought a lot about it: I wanted them to have power and privilege in society thanks to their... condition but I also wanted them to be seen as an other by no-vampires. To be marginalized in other aspects. I also wondered how law would work with them.

I wanted to write a short story collection in this world, and maybe some day I'll do it (not right now). One of the core ideas was seeing giving blood as similar to sex work (but not the same because it wasn't just the same). And later on I got the idea of Tinder (or a similar app) asking information such as blood type.And later of course I asked myself: which blood would taste better? (as yu do) And who has that blood?

But, besides writing only at night, I'm not a vampire so I don't know, so it changed to what type of blood would attract vampires? Probably a rare one.

Presenting to you: Rh null, the rarest blood type in the world. Only 40-50 have it.

Oh yeah, everything was perfect... except writing after five years of not doing so.

I ignored it for weeks. Specially because I was trying to rewrite an old short story with an interesting concept (the one I'm writing right now). It didn't take much to accept I wasn't ready for this other story. I didn't even told people I was leaving this story again and would want to write other, because I felt ashamed for not sticking to it.

At the moment, I've decided Cielo Rojo would take place in a party full of vampires, so imagine my surprise when YouTube, out of the blue, recommend me a 1 hour mix of “vampire electro/house”.

what the fuck

I didn't told anybody, I don't listen to that kind of music, I don't watch those videos, and I didn't search for ANYTHING related... only the bloodtype, but that doesn't equate with vampires and electro.

Anyways, for me: a sign. Write that shit. The universe screaming at me to stop fooling around and just do the damn thing. So I did.

My first draft took me a few days. Maybe two or three, I can't remember. And I hated it. I was proud and knew it was going to be difficult and I would be able to improve it. But I was still feeling really insecure.

Writing fantasy short fiction is hard: there's a lot you have to explain for the concept to make sense, but I didn't want to bore people or make the story too long.While drafting, and after ending it, I made a list of things that I needed to change or put. In my second draft I mostly restructured some things.

Not much really. Structure wise was better than I thought, specially for pantsing it. Somehow I only wrote useful scenes that happened during moments that traditionally work like that. Like a midpoint! I didn't even plan on putting something similar to a midpoint in my short story but not only it works: somehow it wouldn't ever work without.

Oh, and the second draft was a rewrite, not an edit: one document on a side of the screen, and a new one on the other. That helped a lot.

The third draft was me crying while paying attention to my writing and tearing the prose apart. Filters, abuse of -ing and -ly words (in Spanish are -mente and -ando/-endo), a lot of to-be verbs and a lot of them in unnecessary places or vague language/weasel words.

The fourth draft was the same but after a longer period of time and also polishing the dialogue. The characters had voices but I knew I could do better.

Reyes was so difficult to write. Usually I start with a vague idea of a character, almost as an archetype. But not with him, I just didn't see all of him until the last draft.

I really liked Begonia—I was going to use her more but in the second draft it just didn't made sense. She has a deeper story and personality that would be hinted at... but I didn't.

The prose was a nightmare.

I was trying to get equilibrium with a lot of little details: general stroy details, plot, characters, worldbuilding.

I'm the kind of person who like to suggest myself a theme to use as a compass. Usually when the story is done, I discover more, but a base one is cool. But this story didn't have it. The draft itself didn't took much but between those writing days I couldn't understand what I was going for with this... until I did.

I can't get over the structure. It made sense. And I wasn't even trying (that hard).

That midpoint. I didn't know what I was doing and it worked beautifully.

I thought the dialogue would be worst. Didn't need to change that much.

When I found the theme (to give you an idea, usually for me theme go hand in hand with internal conflict/desire) everything made sense.

The music was perfeeect. Ironically I didn't used the YouTube mix, but thanks to listening to it, it recommended me Nightclub and they reaaally got the vibes.

There's a bunch of details I didn't know why I was putting them (it just felt right or logical) and when you see the big picture they make sense and create layers in the story. Reyes only made sense to me after noticing that. Not only him... but specially him lol

#writing #fiction writing #writeblr #writing update #short story #dark fantasy #vampire #short stories #spanish #new writerblr #vampires

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