Blood & Chlorophyll Ch. 05 - Reflection

This was definitely a chapter that, while enjoyable, I was a little nervous about. I try really hard to focus on showcasing my characters, letting them do interesting things, but this chapter necessitated a not-insignificant bit of worldbuilding. For many authors, worldbuilding is a pretty tough beast to wrangle; how do you introduce it in a way that feels natural? Ideally, you tie it in with character or plot beats, so that you're never just sitting down to watch a Powerpoint presentation about the history of the world. One great solution that happens all the time is to make a protagonist who's new to the world, so they naturally ask the same questions the audience does.

I've done that a little bit here. Alicia has never been interested in delving, and Katrina needs to explain what their options are, especially that that we know every Guild in the city is looking for this Dungeon. I was also able to showcase how nervous Alicia is about this discovery, which is something I've been stressing for quite a bit now, but it was nice to see things ramp up in intensity here.

Still, I'm happy with how many character beats I got to weave in. Katrina is surprisingly good at comforting Alicia, despite years of avoiding people, and I also get to cement that the attraction between the two is mutual, if expressed rather differently.

Once I started the second half of the chapter, I initially wasn't sure where to go with it. I've mentioned this before, but I haven't outlined Blood & Chlorophyll much at all, in stark contrast to how I write Suddenly A Succubus. I knew the girls needed to get into the city, but I had to make a decision on how much to linger on Alicia's day before getting on the train. Still, she does eventually get on board, and I think I did a good job of painting how tense that ride was for her.

I'm actually the first person to introduce a Dryad into the Becoming Monsters universe, which gave me almost total control over how Dryads function. Do they need to be by their tree 24/7? Can they wander away a little bit? I've also seen Dryads in fiction do the opposite; they can go pretty much wherever, but their life is tied to their Heart Tree.

I knew I wanted Alicia to have some mobility to her, partially because I really wanted to write scenes where she gets to go to the Dungeon Camp. Eventually, I settled on a sliding scale, where she needs to have that connection, but there are many factors that can affect her health. I've teased this in her earlier chapters already; the idea that concrete can feel stifling, which is why she's spent so much time upending the streets around her house. I'll actually be explaining this a bit more in Chapter 6, though, so I won't detail everything here.

Another interesting side effect of these two protagonists is how time works. Naturally, one is nocturnal and the other is diurnal. They're polar opposites, night and day, which is why I'm so excited to be writing them. However, this means that tracking time becomes a bit more of a challenge. I'll be messing around a bit with the timelines, sometimes writing multiple chapters that features scenes from similar time periods, and I'll be doing my best to make this as easy to read as I can. The other big decision I had to make was how to get Katrina and Alicia to be awake at the same time. Right now, I've settled on what I feel is the easier; Alicia just sleeps in and stays up later. She can survive during the night, whereas Katrina needs to avoid sunlight on threat of death. However, there might be other ramifications of this particular dynamic later in the story, I've got some neat ideas.

Anyways, that train ride was pretty rough, right? I didn't do this intentionally, but it's pretty funny that both my protagonists hate trains. It was also refreshing to have al the lore dumping out of the way, which let me really focus on character struggles and interactions for this part. I'll admit, I was a little nervous about having the girls get along this well, especially in a pretty short time period, but hopefully it feels natural. I tried to stress that they both miss socialization, and I'm hoping the general assumption is that their eagerness to have a social life if a factor in why they team up so effortlessly.

Next chapter is going to be fun! I actually have a bit of overlapping time, like I mentioned earlier, and I'm excited to show you all.

Nyx <3