Suddenly A Succubus Ch. 06 - Reflection

Oh boy! Chapter 6! This one was a lot of— blah blah you know the line.

This is, by far, the longest Chapter I'd written by this point. It's almost 10,000 words! I won't lie, I was really tempted to add another paragraph or two somewhere, just to hit 10k, but I decided against it. The story had been told, and I'd hate to start a happen of hitting word quotas just for their own sake. Still, this chapter being so long did make me a little self-conscious when future chapters came up shorter. I don' think longer is better, but also like, big numbers make brain go brrrr.

Anyways.

I hope no one was expecting a big sexy sleepover scene, some of our girls aren't quite there yet. My biggest concern about this chapter was that it was the first real info dump of the book. I'm incredibly self conscious about info dumping, I'm always nervous that, were I a better writer, I could find a way to weave all that information into a cool character moment, but sometimes you just gotta get it out of the way.

I originally wrote another few paragraphs between Amara and Tessa. You know what would be fun? A deleted scene! Some context - Amara is asking Tessa about Demons, why she was so scared of her. Tessa's trying to think of a metaphor, and the following exchange happens.

-

"Alright, imagine you really like paintball. You play on weekends with friends, have some nice gear, and playing keeps you in decent shape. Maybe you’ve won an amateur tournament or two. That’s what being a witch is like; You know the game, and you’re pretty good at it, but ultimately you can only get so far unless you’re prepared to sacrifice a lot.”

She downed the rest of her coffee before continuing.

“You enter a tournament one day, and there's a new player. He holds back just long enough to let you think you stand a chance, then gets bored and unleashes hell. Turns out, he's a Navy Seal, and in a fair fight he could wipe you with his eyes closed. But it's not a fair fight - he's got thermal vision goggles, he's using secret paths you never knew about, he's got tactical air strikes, and he's bribed the judges to let it all happen. Demons are… they're powerful on a level that's hard to understand, and nothing is too cruel or twisted for them.”

“But that's… they're from hell, right?” Amara asked. “That's why they're so awful?”

Tessa pushed Amara's tail away, pulling her knees into her chest. “Amara, I… no one knows. That's just how they are.”

Amara thought back to the football game, when she stood up to Derek. It had felt like there was fire in her blood, anger that demanded action.

“I was itching for an excuse to hurt him.”

Had she been stronger, what would she have done?

-

I'm honestly really happy with it, even though it ended up cut (That's why I saved it!). It teases a fear that Amara has, and I like the callback to her conversation with Nick after confronting Derek.

I mostly decided to cut it to keep things cleaner. I didn't want to dump too much info at once, and it made more sense for Amara to try and shut down the interrogation because she could see Tessa was upset.

We also get more of Amara being upset with her transformation. We saw this earlier, back in the magic circle last chapter, and now she's just voicing those concerns again. This is a dynamic I really wanted to stress, and I feel it's a pretty important part of the first book. I'm also really pleased with the conversation around it, I'm always looking for more chances to stress that her and Nick know each other really well.

Moving on, we get our first hint of a larger mystery with the circle that Tessa shows her. I love when stories make me believe that every character has their own life, their own stories going on even if we can't see it, and I was trying to channel that here. The idea that Tessa is a witch, and has been having her own mysterious adventure, was something that really tickled my fancy.

Even though they don't learn anything, I plant a lot of important seeds in this scene. I'm glad I was able to keep everything focused on the characters, rather than just a constant stream of lore. I won't name every important plot beat that I plant here, but I promise you, there are quite a few.

And then, at long last, we arrive at the gymnastics building. This was a scene I envisioned really early, and I was beyond excited to finally get here. I love that, again, I can stress how insightful Nick is, but I also like that this scene served as a culmination of Amara's frustration with her transformation.

I will admit, this whole scene is a little self indulgent. I've mentioned before that I hate when characters with tails never use them, or treat them as little more than decoration, and I really wanted Amara to have an incredibly useful tail. Yes, it's prehensile as fuck, and yes, that's totally gonna be a sex scene, but it's still cool. Writing out all the cool things it can do, and showing that Amara is so jazzed about discovering these things for herself, was a blast.

It was also important to me that Amara learn how to fight, at least in some capacity. I won't spoil anything, but I'll say that future chapters (and books) aren't always going to be resolved with hugs and friendship. I'd feel bad if Amara were suddenly a great fighter, and the only hint is a throwaway line that she, like, studied martial arts as a kid or something. Fuck that, I want to see the struggle.

The sex scene was a lot of fun, I loved incorporating her tail and hanging from the parallel bars, but the real crown jewel of this whole chapter is, of course, her wings.

They're huge, they're badass, and I'm so in love with them. The whole last stretch was another bit of self-indulgence, but I can't stress enough how important it is to me that Amara's proficiency with her demon bits feel earned. I'm absolutely the nerd that loves when superheroes take half the movie to learn how their powers work.

I feel a lot of media glosses over how succubi, or other humanoids with wings, actually fly. There should be skill to it, it's something they have to learn. Plus, as an added bonus, I'm really really happy with my decision to have her horns act as like, fancy flight instruments. I've never seen that before, though I doubt I'm the first to come up with it. Anyways, expect me to be a picky nerd about the specifics of how her wings work in future chapters.

Other than all the nerdy specifics about fancy demon exercising, the most important part of this chapter was showing Amara change her mind about her transformation. Like I've mentioned before, she's not always the most perceptive, and all Nick needed was to give her a little push for her tor realize that being a Succubus is really fucking cool.

(No, I'm totally not jealous of her. Shut up.)

Nyx <3