Tessa Ch. 01 - Reflection

I finally started my Side Stories! Woo! I hope it didn't feel like too long a wait, but this story is taking longer to write than I anticipated. From the beginning, I knew Tessa would be a great character to focus on, but how would I do that?

I have a lot of opinions regarding spin-offs, side stories, prequels, everything in that vein of storytelling. On paper, they sound great! Take a story or universe you love, and add more to it! But, how many times have you seen a prequel that felt relatively bland? How many times have you seen a spin-off that failed to capture the spirit of the original work?

I think this happens for a lot of reasons, and it's a writing challenge I've thought a lot about, especially after committing to write this story about Tessa. In my personal life, I quite enjoy consuming content that focuses on writing, exploring how ideas form, and what might cause them to break down on execution. (If you're curious, I watch a lot of Hello Future Me and Overly Sarcastic Productions over on YouTube.)

One thing in particular that bugs me about prequels is when they fail to expand the world. They take fun ideas from the original, explain how they came to be, but never add anything else. The original story, instead of being just one adventure set in a big universe, suddenly becomes the focal point of everything, both in the world of the story and on a meta level.

So, when writing about Tessa, how do I avoid that problem? Well, for one thing, I'm putting a lot of effort into giving Tessa her own universe, her own social group, her own issues. In a perfect world, Tessa should feel like the protagonist of her own story, not a supporting character in someone else's. I've hinted at Tessa's polycule before, but we've never seen them or given them names, but I finally got a chance to flesh them out and bring them to life! I hope you like them - Raine, Sydney, and Riley certainly play a small part in this chapter, but I think I succeeded in making them feel like a polycule just going about their lives.

This chapter also gave me a chance to write a committed, romantic relationship for my first time. Amara and Nick are friends with benefits, after all, and they tend to only be affectionate when they're fucking. It was a refreshing change of pace to show Tessa and Raine having some non-sexual, intimate scenes.

Of course, I am writing moments that were hinted at in the main story. Brandon's back, and Tessa has already shared what happened with him, but I made sure he wasn't the only problem in Tessa's life. One thing I've been very proud of is that my plots tend to have a variety of different layers; in Book One, we had Brandon, the mystery of the Circles, Amara discovering her powers, and we were following Vee as she tried to hunt Amara down. If Tessa's story were entirely focused on her dealing with Brandon, I don't think I'd be very interested in telling it.

I also think my writing is at its best when I'm focusing on my characters, and that's definitely something I'll be doing here. Obviously I won't spoil where this story is going, but hopefully you won't have to wait too long; this little side arc will likely only be 4-5 chapters.

One huge benefit to writing content like this is that I get a chance to further populate the world. I like having large casts of characters, all doing their own things while sometimes overlapping with events appearing in my story. Not only do I introduce Tessa's polycule, but I gave some details to some of the people that run the coffee shop in Lysander Hall. Sure, it's a small detail, but worlds are built on small details! Plus, now I have a sassy, black-haired barista on hand if I ever need a new character ;)

Writing the scene with Vee, Amara, and Chloé was actually pretty tough. We pretty much never see pre-demon Amara, so it's a bit of a rare treat. Still, she's difficult to write for a few reasons - she hasn't yet figured out that there's a huge secret about her identity, but I've also spent so long showing her change and adapt to her demonic side. In this scene, I've got to step back and rediscover the Amara that still thinks she's a nervous, college virgin with nothing else really going for her.

And finally, we're at the last scene. We get more cute moments with Raine, and I must say, I'm really happy with how Raine turned out. Personally, I think I did a good job at giving them a fair bit of depth, despite their limited screen time, and I'm excited to spend more time with them moving forward. Once the phone call is over, we get our dramatic cliffhanger, and that's that!

I really hope this story proves to be one worth telling. Remember, it only exists because I asked what I might be able to do to show my appreciation for all you lovely patrons, and extra story content was one of the ideas! I'm really just so incredibly flattered by the support you all give, and hopefully I can keep rewarding all your generosity for years to come.

Nyx <3