Suddenly A Succubus Ch. 22 - Reflection

Woo boy, this a relatively new experience for me as a writer, and it took me longer than usual to really cement everything that was happening in this chapter. Still, before we get into the meat of things, lets start at the beginning.

We pick up just moments after our last chapter, with Amara fleeing from the cult. She joins up with Tessa, while disguised as Nick, and the two head back to meet up with the actual Nick waiting back at home. This is when Tessa speaks up and recommends they develop a code word as an extra measure of safety, now that other demons are for sure running around. This was actually an idea I had quite a while ago, and I struggled to find a place for it. It felt like something that should have come up earlier, but as soon as I found a place for it here, I'm glad I waited. It makes perfect sense in this context!

I also get to reveal Tessa's weapon of choice! I mean, technically I mentioned it back it Book One, but I was happy to confirm here that she's gotten in scrapes before. I've always seen Tessa as a bit of a rogue-ish character, and having her use knives with her telekinesis always felt right to me. Still, since she needs to focus on un-magicking the circle, she's not going to be able to fight, so how is Amara going to hold off the entire cult on her own?

Well, she doesn't think she can. This brings us to the most requested plot point I've ever had; Amara asking Vee for help in taking down the Cult. I've had so many people asking about Vee, wanting her to help out with this problem, and I'm happy that people are so engaged with my work.

However, adding Vee to the party isn't very easy, which is the entire point of this chapter.

Small aside, but when I write, I tend to put myself in the mindset of my characters. I like to feel what they're feeling, understand what's important to them, and figure out how they would approach whatever problem I've thrown their way. this often mean that scenes will be slightly altered from my original outline.

As an example, later in this chapter Amara and Tessa go to Vee's apartment. Originally, my outline called for Vee to be even more rude. However, as I sat in Vee's mindset, that kind of reaction just didn't make sense.

Anyways, one reason I brought this up is to illustrate why this chapter took me longer than usual. Amara is fighting with Tessa, who then fights with Vee, who's hurt and confused by everything. This meant that I, the stalwart author, spent a fair amount of time sitting in a somewhat combative mindset, and it took some time to sort through those thoughts and find words that felt true to each character's inner conflict.

Amara tells Tessa that they need to ask Vee for help, and our snarky witch is not having it. Tessa has been playing the blame game for this entire book, and she definitely has some baggage she's not talking about. One thing that I really wanted to stress, both through subtext and literal text, is that she's messed with the Church before, and whatever happened then is clearly influencing her decisions now.

Still, as much as Tessa likes to throw blame and escalate problems, I hit a point where it felt right for her to back down. She's not cruel, after all, and she seems to be motivated by a desire to keep people safe. I'm happy with how this conversation went, on both sides. Amara has been trying to apologize to Vee for the entire book, and after Tessa stopped her from sharing everything back in Book One, there was no way she was going to leave Vee out of the picture this time.

Then, at long last, we get to the most important scene of this chapter. Personally, I felt a lot of pressure going into this scene. So many people have been asking for Vee to come back, to help with the Cult, and I wanted everyone to see her side of things. As an audience, it's safe to assume we're all on Amara's side; we've seen her transformation, we know her motivations, but Vee doesn't have that luxury. In a perfect world, I want people to read this chapter and realize that, objectively, there's no provable reason that Vee should trust Amara. To me, this is a crucial part of Vee's character. She has desires, and she's being torn in two different directions, but she can't find anything to latch onto as she struggles for answers.

I'm particularly proud of the decision to have this conversation be between Vee and Tessa, not Amara. Again, from Vee's point of view, Tessa could easily be a thrall and not know it. Vee wants to prove this to Tessa, and Tessa is being forced to shoulder this uncomfortable conversation that she didn't even want to have.

One small downside to this scene is that I wish I could have done a better job at showing that Vee and Tessa used to be friends. There are a couple lines that I think point to this, but I'm not sure if it came across as much as I'd hoped. Still, other than that small gripe, I have three lines that I'm immensely proud of, and the first one is Vee's.

“Don’t you dare try to convince me that demons are a threat to this campus, while also being mad that I tried to stop one on Halloween.”

To me, this is a perfect distillation of how legitimate Vee's arguments are. Again, I really wanted people to see the inherent hypocrisy of "We need to stop all these demons! But not this one, she's good I swear."

It was also a great chance to show Tessa's view on the situation; she doesn't care about the big picture the way that Vee does, and she's much more offended that Vee turned on a friend without giving her the benefit of the doubt.

“Yeah? And when were you planning on telling us you were an angel?”

While the last line showcased how strong Vee's argument was, and highlighted Tessa's hypocrisy, this line kinda does the exact opposite. Vee seems most upset that Amara hid her identity, yet never intended to share her own angelic heritage. Vee's surprise here is, I think, emblematic of some deeper issues, and I'm excited to explore those a bit more in future scenes.

The last line is technically Tessa's.

“You’ve been friends with her since college started. Do you think that whole year was a lie? That everything you did together meant nothing?"

I absolutely love the idea of Amara arguing with Tessa, trying to convince her to trust Vee, and then Tessa using that exact same argument to try and convince Vee to help them. Not only does this fit for Tessa, as someone who's bad at these conversations, but I think it really shows that Tessa is going through her own changes. Even in the last scene, she admitted that she's not used to working with other people about magic stuff, and I'm happy to see these small hints that Tessa is changing, even though she's not exactly the focal point of this book.

The last scene is shorter, and I think functions well as a bit of a cooldown from how charged the last scene was. We get to hear Nick's version of Amara's transformation, his perspective on what was happening. I'm happy to give him more of a voice, and a chance to exist outside of supporting Amara. (Fun fact, if you're a fan of Nick, and want him to get a bit more exploration, I think you'll like the next book!) This is also where I reveal what exactly was going through his head when he left campus for a week in Chapter Four. Ideally, his motivations still came through in that chapter, but it made perfect sense for him to explain everything for Vee.

Vee clearly trusts him, she once wanted a relationship with him, and I'm happy that she got a chance to talk with Nick about everything. Nick is such a sweetheart, and I think it's telling that talking with him helped convince Vee to help Amara out.

In the end, I'm extremely proud of this chapter. I think I'm really digging into some deep character drama, and I think that's where my writing shines brightest. The conflict between Amara and Vee is pretty central to the overall series, and I'm thrilled with how it's coming together. Hopefully you're all just as excited to see what comes next for the two of them!

Nyx <3