Suddenly A Succubus Ch. 41 - Reflection

Ohhh boy was I excited to write this chapter. I've known since the very beginning that Evelyn was a succubus, and the source of Amara's own transformation. Back in Chapter Three I made it clear that Amara thought her dad was the demon, but I always wanted it to be clear that this assumption was not based on any actual facts. The other big moment was when Vee and Amara talked about Evelyn in Purgatory. Some of you picked up on it ahead of time, but when Amara was talking about her mom not eating much and always been a little hungry, I was planting seeds for this reveal. I really didn't mind if people caught on ahead of time, I just wanted it clear why Amara didn't see the signs earlier.

Plus, kids are pretty good at noticing details but not questioning them. It made sense to me that Amara would internalize Evelyn's excuses and then never revisit them, even after starting her own transformation.

I actually almost ended the previous chapter a few paragraphs later. My initial plan was to have Evelyn show up, then Amara break down and shout “Chloé’s dead!” before collapsing in her arms. This would have been a slightly different cliffhanger; rather than focusing entirely on the surprise that Evelyn is a succubus, it would redirect a little bit of energy back to Amara as she finally admits Chloé's death aloud (which she purposely avoided doing at the start of the chapter).

This Chapter has a lot of heavy lifting to do. On a more mechanical level, this is the first time I've really had a solid chance to explain a bunch of the lore. I wanted to start painting a picture of what the larger world looks like, and what kind of forces might be at play. This particular setting (Christian-adjacent biblical demons a la Supernatural or Buffy) has been re-imagined so many times, it's helpful to establish what exactly I'm doing with my version. I accomplished this by trying to point out a couple big things; the existence of the Garden of Eden, and the existence of Anubis.

Even if I explained nothing, I figured cementing those two facts would paint a pretty decent picture. I actually have a lot of plans for the larger world of the SaS universe, and I think this chapter does a good job of setting up future points of conflict. How does the Garden make sense in a world that also has Anubis? I don't go into many details, as it's not really relevant right now, but I think it's an interesting setup.

On a more personal level, we also learn quite a bit about Amara's situation. When I started building this story and this world, I ran into a pretty big problem. The story necessitated that Amara not know about her demonic heritage, but I also knew that Evelyn was going to be a demon.

All choices have consequences, and those two facts can combine in many different ways. Why doesn't Evelyn tell Amara that she's a succubus? If I want to paint Evelyn as a gentle, caring mother (which apparently I've done quite well), it feels weird that she would ignore such a huge point. It would be easy to make this a surprise if Evelyn was a bad mother, but she's not.

My first thought was that Evelyn always planned on telling Amara, but didn't know when a good time would be. She would have told Amara "Hey, sex is great, and I have no problem with you doing it, but it's VERY important you talk to me before you lose your virginity." However, Amara ended up losing her virginity very suddenly, catching even herself off guard, and she never would have gotten a chance to let Evelyn explain their succubus ancestry.

I didn't like that version of events. It felt too contrived, and I felt like it made Evelyn look like an irresponsible mother.

What if, instead, Amara was never supposed to be a succubus? That question excited me much more, and it created a perfect reason for Evelyn to have never mentioned anything up until now. Conveniently, it also created a narrative space for a plethora of other ideas that I sadly can't share at the moment.

Of course, explaining necessitated some creativity on my part. Again, I didn't want this chapter to be nothing but Evelyn monologuing about lore. My goal was to share enough information for Amara to feel like she was finally getting some answers, but to still leave some things up in the air for future books. If I did this correctly, "Why can't Evelyn share the full story" is, itself, an interesting plot hook.

We also get to learn that Evelyn is Lilith's firstborn daughter! This doesn't have as much impact on the current plot, but it was still something I was excited to share. I think it gives Evelyn a really fun gravitas, and it stresses exactly how old she is. All of my main characters thus far have been in their twenties, and I'm excited to have a character that is so old she's practically ageless.

In trying to keep this chapter interesting and dynamic, I put a lot of effort into giving Amara chances to respond and guide the conversation. Nowhere is this more important, in my mind, than when she asks about her dad. I realize that Amara's feelings about her father haven't been all that present, and I've probably only mentioned them once or twice, I've always envisioned those feelings as quite significant to her. We don't hear about them because it's been so long since she accepted he was just gone.

Here, thankfully, I had a chance to stress just how important the idea of her father is. Her mother's trying to explain that the Garden of Eden is real, that she's thousands of years old, but Amara's just like "Yeah, whatever, tell me about Dad!"

I'm also rather fond of the incredibly unique time difference at play. The thought that Amara's dad died fifty years before she was born is something I find pretty humorous, and I love that it's a problem that's pretty unique to this setting. Honestly, I'll bet Evelyn could have given Amara the name sooner, and she would have assumed that she'd found the wrong person.

The entire chapter isn't all about Evelyn, of course, although I'm sure some of you wish it were. After Amara goes to sleep, we've got some time to check in with Vee, Tessa, and Nick. In terms of the structure of the story, I think it's important to stress that the world keeps turning. Tessa is just at frustrated at Amara for not helping as Amara is at Tessa for thinking she's not grieving. Not only does this highlight the differences in how they're grieving, but I think it also illustrates the differences in their current lives. Amara has no real reason to panic about the other students knowing about magic, other than a vague understanding that Tessa doesn't like her Coven.

Tessa, however, is incredibly concerned about this getting out. I've been trying to tease her Coven for a while, honestly. This is a big reason why she freaked out at Naomi for posting those pictures, after all. I was happy with the texture this added to Tessa's character, but I also think it worked really well as a setup for this Book.

I even had a couple people guess that Tessa's Coven might show up!

It's taken a lot of work to get the Coven on the page, partially because they're a pretty complex group of people. I needed to fully flesh out each and every one of them, which took quite a bit of time. Thankfully, this makes it easier to actually write the Coven.

For this chapter, however, we only meet one of them; Headmistress Davenport. I wanted the introduction of the Coven to be a big "Ah-Ha!" moment for my readers, and hopefully the Headmistress's behavior explains why Tessa was so scared. As far as villains go, I would say I'm most proud of the introduction in this chapter. Wellington was just kinda... there. Brandon was pretty one-note, and he was more of an annoyance than a genuine threat, at least until the end.

The Coven, however, shows up and immediately starts hitting and degrading Tessa, which I think cements them as interesting antagonists. There's a bit more going on behind the scenes, obviously, and I'll have plenty of time to dig into that in future chapters, but I'm happy with how they appeared.

Once the Coven carts Tessa away, however, we finally get to return to Amara and Evelyn. I'm happy I took this break, I wanted to give all the lore some space to breath, but I also thought it worked as a great example of just how overwhelmed Amara is.

Still, despite all her anger, she kinda reverts to a quieter, nicer person around her mother, doesn't she? I wanted this small shift in demeanor to help illustrate how motherly Evelyn is, and I think I nailed it. It also gave me a great chance to write some small, cute moments between the two. I love Amara showing up and asking for breakfast, then having to awkwardly explain why she brutalized a frying pan.

(Though, this is the second time Evelyn has seem a little confused about how Amara's body works. Hm.)

Which leads nicely into the next topic of conversation, conveniently enough. Amara's powers, and the process of discovering them, was a big part of Book One. Thankfully, I get to pull a little secret out in this chapter; Amara's had a power she never knew about.

I've always characterized Amara as someone who tends not to think too much about details or what-ifs, and I love how her discovery of illusions plays into that. I also think, (or hope, at least) that this revelation makes some readers go "Of course, that makes so much sense!" Now, this revelation works if there's a strong understanding that Illusion magic comes from the Dreamscape, and I honestly can't remember if I clarified that at any point. It's definitely something I'll be more aware of when I'm polishing up the final versions of the story for publication.

However, I'm super pumped for Amara to have illusions. I think illusions are super fun, and they also help solve a few of her more practical issues with clothing.

Sadly, the rest of Book Four can't just be Amara hanging out with Evelyn while practicing her powers. I know I'm being a bit of a tease, bringing Evelyn in and then immediately getting rid of her, but trust me, I have lots of good reasons.

Some of them are a little boring, like that this is Amara's story and it wouldn't be fun to have her mom hanging around fixing all her problems. However, I also make it clear that Evelyn is pretty weak; she even postulates that Amara is probably stronger than her. Most importantly, however, I wanted Evelyn to feel like she has her own life, and that she's more than simply a side character in Amara's story. She's got stuff she needs to do and, besides, nothing is happening on campus right now. The planar incursion is over, right? What are the odds another bad thing happens?

For the last stretch of the chapter, I actually had some trouble. I knew that Evelyn would be leaving, and that they'd both be sad about it, but I couldn't find a way for this to happen in an interesting, character-driven way.

I eventually thought about using teleportation as an excuse, and immediately knew it was the right answer. It plays off of Amara's joy at learning new abilities, and it gives Evelyn a way to say goodbye in a kinder, more motherly way. I think they part on really sweet terms, and I love the idea of Evelyn slowly being consumed by flames as she reaches out, then lets go of, Amara.

Anyways, that's all for this pretty beefy Reflection. Hopefully you all had fun learning about Evelyn and some bigger lore, and I hope you're ready to meet the Coven next chapter!

Nyx ♥