#Bone King

[amandacanwrite]

Update on Projects; Sort of Poll I Guess?

So I've been chipping away at this story about a sickly girl being courted by the god of death. It's very much like a lush, velvety romance with some spooky, uncanny elements. It's based in a victorian setting, sort of leaning into the trope of the consumptive beauty.

You get what I'm getting at, yeah?

So here is the sort of struggle I've been having lately: The story has an antagonist, but he feels contrived and a little bit forced on the narrative.

I'm about to start what will be my second friggen rewrite of this and I'm wondering your opinion on this. What if the conflict was the main character stuck between the choice of joining her suitor by ahem...leaving the physical plane and living her life in order not to break her widower father's heart again by taking his daughter away?

Do you think that's an intriguing enough plot line? If the story focused on experiences she has with her father who she adores set opposite the romantic courtship between her and the Bone King? Would her internal struggle about that be interesting enough for you to read?

tagging the tag list! It would be greatly appreciated if you could give this a little boost, too, for a larger sample size?

@steh-lar-uh-nuhs @sm-writes-chaos @michael-thepoet @carrotsinnovember @a-crystallen-author @csdarkfantasy @eldritchx

[dndtreasury]

Carapace of the Bone King by Dragons & Stories

[dxwnxdusk]

"Things just got a lot more interesting..."

[arrimorr]

I also had this space roadtrip idea because I was very sad about Collector returning to space all by himself

This is Part 4 of my platinum bones art dump

Part 3/ part 2/ part 1

[cupcakeshakesnake]

The Collector plays Undertale

[cathchicken]

The birds and the bees- a toh mini comic

I apologize, the first few panels look a bit clunky since the sketches were so lazy (I initially doodled it without the idea of it being a comic) but I hope it’s still ok

[kingarubin]

A while ago I made a post about how cute it is that Collector likes Titans so much.

And today I was watching The Owl House with my family (this is their time seeing it) and there was this scene in episode four. When King says that no one is interested in his species. And I thought about Collector.

I adore these two so much.

[chaos-bringer-13]

I've seen a lot of people writing Danny as a space ancient and Dan and Dani as ghosts with moon and sun cores, being sort of parts, versions of Danny and therefore weaker. Now, consider: Dan and Dani are both powerful ghosts with really cool cores and stuff but Danny is just some guy™

Dan, who came from an alternate timeline and is kind of from the future but also not, is Clockwork's apprentice and will eventually become an ancient of time. He probably only agreed to have some lessons with Clockwork to understand better what happened to him, but he enjoys his apprenticeship now.

Dani, with her love of travelling, loves seeing all the different places the world offers to her, and that includes space and different planets and maybe even parallel universes, and she accidentally ends up being an apprentice of the space ancient. For now she's probably a baby ancient of freedom or something like that, but she might become an ancient of space in the future.

We can also have something like Dan having a core of destruction or Dani being the Speed Force if you want it to be dcxdp, or any headcanon of yours about their cool powers.

And then there's Danny. And yeah, everyone knows that he's super powerful, but also he's just some guy.

It can go different routes. Does everyone know that Danny is just Danny? Or do they think that with siblings (well, technically a clone and an alternate version, but whatever) so powerful, he must be even stronger? Is Danny actually something terrifyingly eldritch and ancient and strong, almost a god, but he just doesn't know himself? Or is he just really some guy?

Now, because it's obvious that I have a dcxdp brainrot, have a regular "JL summons/meets a powerful ghost" but its Dan and Dani, and they keep mentioning their original/brother who won a fight against them at some point. The JL is very concerned about Dan and Dani's godlike powers, and they can't imagine what Danny is like. And then they meet him (in his human form), and it's just a young adult in casual clothes, very friendly and helpful, with no evident powers. Imagine the confusion. Imagine Dan and Dani, radiating power, in their eldritch ghost forms, admitting that fighting Danny for real is the dumbest thing to do and not even they would succeed... And then there's Danny is jeans and silly t-shirt, waving shyly.

[kefi-catfish]

Bai He deserves a whole animatic. I love that girl <ззз

[sunnyirry]

yes there's a hole in their head don't make fun of him guys 💔

[highwaylife]

TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET - A SMALL FILMOGRAPHY GLIMPSE (2014-PRESENT)

[amandacanwrite]

So, I'm Rewriting Something I Just Published

This post has two acts. First, a confession of sorts. Then, an update, a little peer behind the veil, please pay attention to the woman behind the curtain.

So, here’s the confession.

I was going to just secretly, quietly, unnoticed-ly re-release a recent short story I published in the form of a tiny book on amazon. I was just going to finish rewriting it and update the original file I uploaded and pretend that nothing ever changed. Do the ole-one-two-switcheroo.

But then I remembered that I’ve just been wanting to be overall more transparent and honest in my newsletters. And that I actually want to tell you guys about the process of writing it and what I’m learning in the process.

So here I am, telling you about how impulsive and goofy I am. I hope you enjoy it.

Here’s the thing. My idea in publishing it on a whim was to claim my amazon author profile so that I could start promoting it, encouraging people to follow it, so that when my debut novel comes out next year people actually get notified about it. Seems like a clever idea, right? Or at least it did to me. Honestly, marketing is at best a hobby I do poorly at this point, but I’m trying to figure it out.

I figured I would just put something out that I was decently confident about and focus on just linking to the profile itself and forgetting about the specific work.

The problem being I actually really like the story and have wanted to expand it for months. After receiving a proof copy of the physical book and reading it, I found myself stuck on the potential it had and I shifted my focus to writing more of the story.

In classic “me” fashion, what started as the intention to add maybe two thousand words to flesh it out a bit more has now evolved into a narrative that will probably require another ten or eleven thousand words. It’s becoming a novella. Because I have approximately zero chill.

(By the way, this is not new, The Hallowed Wilds was only supposed to be forty-thousand words and now with another twenty-thousand to go it’s already clocking in at a whopping sixty-thousand words. So yes, I routinely have to double the size of my projects because they take off without me.)

And also due to my inability to harness any chill, I also just want to scream at you guys about the whole thing. I wanna talk about the drafting, the editing, the visuals, the inspirations. I want to just gab about all of it.

So that’s the backstory, let me get into the stuff that I actually want to tell you about now, a little peer behind the curtain for my simultaneous WIP mixed with an already published novlette called A Waltz with the Bone King.

This idea came to be years ago, collaboratively, with my best friend Eden, who I have mentioned before in this newsletter. We are big fans of text-based role playing, and before you get awkward, it’s not the sexy thing. It’s the nerdy thing.

This was a story we came up with together about a woman obsessed with the macabre literally being courted by death. It was one I always loved and, with her blessing, I’ve been playing with writing it as a narrative for a while now—several times over the last year, honestly. The idea first came to us after seeing this lovely image by Illustrator Abigail Larson.

The story follows a sickly, frail woman named Lorelai Hunt. She’s the sole daughter of a wealthy widower that lives in the country, away from society. He purchased his estate there after his wife, Lorelai’s mother, fell ill and they have lived there ever since.

Oddly enough, this looks almost exactly how I envision her.

Lorelai’s mother, Hanne, died when Lorelai was only six or seven and it shook her deeply.

Not long after her mother’s death, Lorelai started to be visited by spirits. She was doted upon by ghostly nannies while her father processed his grief, in many ways she was reared by these paranormal experiences until she started to get too old to peer past the veil quite so easily.

She found comfort in reading about theories on what happens after death, reading dark poetry, and as she aged, even reading about what happens to the body after a soul had left it.

As a result, many people thought she was odd and, at the time of the story, tend to avoid her and ridicule her behind their gloved hands. Much to her father’s dismay, she has had no gentleman callers or prospective suitors, but Lorelai herself isn’t bothered. She would rather die a spinster than consign herself to a life with a husband who doesn’t understand her, especially with the example her parents set as a perfect love match.

But matters get complicated when Westley Harper, a young man from the city, takes a curious interest in her despite his clear distaste for the things she is interested in. Honestly, one of my favorite parts to write was Lorelai and Westley’s first conversation and I hope you enjoy it as well:

“Do you like history, Mr. Harper?” I asked.   “Please, Westley is fine,” he said. “And of course, a young man must be well versed on such subjects.”   “I’ve been reading about the French Revolution and Marie Antoinette,” I said. “It really is a tragedy what happened to them, don’t you think? Coming to power when they were no more than children—only to fall in love and have their romance cut short by their untimely deaths.”   “I suppose it would take a tender heart such as yours to extend such compassion to monarchs who were so unliked,” he said.   “I heard that Marie Antoinette collapsed in the courtroom when the bells tolled signaling King Louis’s death—” I said before adding as an aside. “Did you know that some doctors theorize that the head continues perceiving up to several minutes after being removed from the body?”   Westley’s face tightened, only slightly with how well he managed his own reactions, but I saw it nonetheless.   “Don’t you think that’s fascinating?” I pressed on. “What do you suppose he thought of in those final moments?”   “I imagine he thought only of pain,” he responded.   “Why ever would he think on pain when he was no longer connected to any of the anatomy that could cause the sensation of it?” I challenged.   “Maybe he marveled at the fact that he was still thinking at all—”   “Is that what you would do? Think ‘Ah, I’m still sentient. Fascinating,’ and then die?”   Westley sighed and smoothed a hand through his perfect hair again, his irritation apparent and growing. “I imagine that I would be thinking of vengeance against those who had wronged me.”   Finally, an honest answer!   “I see—” I said, tapping my lace fan to my lacquered lips. “So, you’d continue to the next phase of existence as a vengeful spirit.” 

I hope this gives you an idea of why Lorelai is so fun to write. She’s strange and a little hard headed. I love the dichotomy of her stubborn qualities offset by her openness to the unexplained; her intelligence paired with her oddness and superstitions.

By no surprise, shortly after this meeting Lorelai meets The Bone King during one of her visits to the graveyard and that’s where our story really starts to unfold.

“Who are you?” I asked him.   “Well, you already know exactly who I am, don’t you?” he asked me as he carefully picked up the shattered teacup, the crimson liquid staining his satin gloves like blood. “Or you at least have an inkling.”  His tone wasn’t the same condescending indulgence that Westley had used with me when I’d attended that social with Papa. It was conversational, light, and a little playful. If he’d had any flesh on the bones of his face, I could almost see the little dimpled smile he’d have when he said it.   “So…you’re…the king of death?” I finally made myself say.   “I am,” he said. “I’ve had many names over the millennia—Hades, The Grim Reaper, The Angel of Death, Thanatos, Hel… the list continues, and the faces and genders change based on region.”  “What do you call yourself?” I asked.   “I do not call myself anything,” he stated as he finished picking up the last of the teacup and vanishing it before my eyes, along with the red stains on his gloves. “I simply am.”  “That’s a very enigmatic thing to say,” I said, a little put out. “What should I call you?”  “Call me whatever you like, Little Flower,” he said.  

And this is basically where I’m left off in the drafting process.

The story right now sits at about 13,000 words and I anticipate it finishing up around 20,000 words. I’m writing it as quickly as my brain will let me after finishing my daily freelancing writing, and I’m hoping to have it finished in the next couple of weeks. However, if you’d like to read the current iteration, it’s available on Kindle Unlimited or for just a dollar for the e-book version.

It isn’t bad in its current form, but it definitely will benefit from being fleshed out, I think you’ll see that.

In the meanwhile, I’m going to try to keep you guys in the loop on the whole process and the lead up to an Actual Proper Launch TM.

In the meanwhile, do you guys like updates like this? Or is this too much of an info dump? Comment below and let me know!

[bigjinx]

Truly one of my greatest callings in life is making fan art for underappreciated fantasy books I read as a child

[riuhere]

They are constantly on my mind 24/7. I literally can't get them OuT of my hEad-

...Yup... I'm screwed-

Triad Au belongs to @novelcain

Vault Hunters AU & Eternal Servants AU belongs to @emelinstriker

Twice As Bad AU & Monster Boyfriend belongs to @semisolidmind

Bone King Au belongs to @ninjasmudge

Cross belongs to @jakei95

[arrimorr]

That feeling when your best friend visually reminds you of the most traumatic event in your life

Part 1/ part 2/ part 3 / part 4

[cupcakeshakesnake]

Tell me everything!