Suddenly A Succubus Ch. 27 - Reflection

Hey! I wrote two whole books! What a wild place to be in, picturing the ending of Book Two all those months ago, and then finally having everything click together. Chapter 26 even spent a whole day at the top of Literotica's charts (Literally, Number One of any chapter across the entire site), and now it's settled comfortably into Number Two. I've said this before, but thank you to everything reading this. Your support means the world, and I'm so happy to have found so many people that enjoy my storytelling.

Anyways, it's time to jump into Book Three. Now, when I started Book Two, I skipped forward a week, and that's essentially what I did here as well. However, the big difference is that I didn't have too many lingering plot threads from the previous book. I introduced the magic circles pretty early in Book One, but the conflict with Vee forced them into the background. That meant that, when I started Book Two, it was really easy to jump back into that mystery. I'm happy with that decision, I think it added a nice layer of business and complexity to the world, but obviously I didn't do that again this time.

The end of Book Two set up a pretty exciting premise; the Planar Gate has been rendered inert, and now the campus is exposed to whatever plane happens to brush close enough to bleed over. I love this idea, I think it's a great setup for future stories, and I have so many plans on how to explore that concept in fun and interesting ways.

Now, to the chapter at hand. One thing I wrestled with was how much time to spend wrapping up the plot of the next book. Unlike the fight with Vee, there are bigger implications to the events of Book Two. A bunch of people will now be missing, and there's no way no one notices that. From the character side of things, I always knew exactly what my girls would want. Tessa doesn't care, and wants to ignore everything. Vee wants to give the world an explanation, and I think that's also a neat insight into her angelic upbringing; she's used to smaller conflicts, and having the might of her Church behind her when it comes to cleaning up messes. Amara, who's still new to all of this, sides with Vee.

Originally I didn't have the introductory scene of the girls walking around the underground complex. Beta Readers thought the events of the cult could use a bit more attention, and I agreed with them. I like seeing hints of whatever dynamic might exist between the girls moving forward. Of course, we also see a few hints that Amara's personality shift might be sticking around.

I confirm again that the cultists she fed on aren't looking too great, and Amara doesn't seem to care. She also doesn't hesitate to threaten them, and even seems to enjoy it.

One thing I tried to keep in mind this chapter is that I'm starting a new book. Now, sometimes authors will include full recaps of the characters, and maybe some of what they went through, to try and onboard new readers that happen to join later in the story. While I do like that approach, I think my books are much more entangled, and I didn't want to spend time rehashing all the events that led up to this point. That being said, I think the first chapter of a new book is a great place to hint at what might be important in the coming story. As an example, the bulk of the cult coverup is explained pretty quickly, which hopefully clues readers into the idea that the coverup isn't going to be a huge part of the story. I also reinforce multiple times how much Amara has changed, and I hint at her feelings about that.

Tessa says she looks like an entirely different person, but Amara feels this has always been her; she just didn't have a way to express it. Amara is also dressing to show off, high on the attention she's getting as a crazy hot college student. I think this sets the groundwork beautifully for what we can expect from Amara this book. She's no longer driven by guilt, she's confident, maybe a little egotistical, and she's not second-guessing herself anymore.

I also get to introduce a new character! I know we don't see too much of her, but I hope you all like Naomi. She was honestly a really late addition to the outline. As in, I'd written the entire chapter, then decided after to add Naomi in.

I've mentioned this before, but normally I work from an outline when I writing books. Each chapter has a brief synopsis, and I elaborate those ideas into full chapters as I get to them. Book Three is a bit of a different beast. For one thing, I don't have a full outline, I only have the first few chapters detailed. I'm doing this for a few reasons. One, writing Blood & Chlorophyll has gotten me comfortable with working without an outline. Two, Book Three is going to be a bit more character focused, and I don't think those kinds of narratives work as well with detailed outlines.

Books One and Two had a little of mechanical pieces that benefitted from an outline. When Amara's powers appeared, when she finally hooked up with Tessa, and when big plot point happened. However, one thing I noticed later in the book was that everything with Vee changed quite a bit.

In my original outline for Book Two, Vee was a lot nastier. Her inner conflict had a bad habit of manifesting as anger, and she was going to be overall a more abrasive person. However, when I started writing Vee, I realized that didn't feel right. Yes, she's got some anger in her, and it does manifest a few times, but there's not a lot of it. At the end of the day, she's confused, and she's struggling with what to believe. She's trying to find proof that can guide her hand, give her a clue about which path is right, but that proof is hard to come by.

Seeing Vee's personality change from my outline made me rethink how I wanted to approach Book Three. I won't spoil future chapters, but since this is going to be a very character focused arc, I felt it wasn't necessary to have a detailed outline. I like to discover characters as I writing them, and often I find nuances that I wasn't expecting. I'll have more to say about this is future chapters, but again, I'm trying not to spoil where the Book is going.

Anyways, back to Naomi. Often, when I write chapters, I have a clear picture of the big ideas at play in the book. I try to seed hints about what's coming, but I also think about how the narrative can best set up for certain plot points.

Example: Book One, Amara is attacked by Derek. She's paralyzed, she can't bring herself to act, but then Derek calls her Vee. Now, I purposely left this a little vague in the chapter, but in my head. part of the reason this snaps her into action is because it changes the context of the attack. Suddenly, he's not attacking her, he thinks he's attacking Vee. Amara, faced with the ugly truth that someone would want to hurt her friend, is now able to fight back. After all, in her mind, someone who brings harm to Vee would have to be a pretty terrible person, right?

Flash forward to the end of the book, and Amara finds herself almost killing Vee. Then, the entire second Book is dedicated to her guilt over that matter.

That's kinda what I mean about setting up plot points. It's not just foreshadowing, it's establishing character traits in smaller, more controlled scenarios, so that the bigger events feel more interesting.

As an example from Book Two, I have multiple times where I let Amara embrace her inner demon, terrifying others for her own goals. This attitude is then revisited in the finale where she finally drops all pretense, embracing every part of her demonic nature and reveling in it.

So, Book Three. (I'm trying not to ramble, and I'm bad at it.) I write the chapter, then I look forward at future plot points, and I try to think of what I could add now to help set up those plot beats. Naomi is going to be a really interesting addition to the cast, and I think she represents a fun story thread. She's proof that I'm not ignoring the cult cover-up entirely, I'm just approaching it a slightly different way. I have other fun things in store for Naomi, but we'll get to those later :P

And finally, with the last scene of the chapter, I lay the groundwork for this Book's plot. It's still pretty vague, obviously, but I can't wait to show you all where this is going.

Nyx <3