Tina Writes

#WIPSnips - screen

Her stepdad works offshore for weeks at a time, so she doesn’t see him much. But they get on well - he’s more of a father figure to her than her bio-dad. She loves her mum, but there’s a little distance there, as she was working a lot to keep them fed growing up (single mum) instead of being around.

Cassie got laid off, so temporarily moved back in with her mum and stepdad until she could get back on her feet. She’d rather have her own place, but needs must.
Ben lives on his own, in one of the little old houses now surrounded by new flats.
Magda also lives on her own, in a little studio flat.

#WIPSnips - city

Some of the fae live in the branches of giant trees. When she first walks among the tree-dwellers, a golden-coloured child follows Cassie, until her father scolds her for running off. Later, in very different circumstances, Cassie meets the father once again.

So I hardly use #Spotify these days (since I prefer to actually own my music) but my wrapped says I listened to 264 genres this year - I didn’t know there were so many?

#WIPSnips - dominate instead of dominant.

Nyx leads them through a portal into a volcanic wasteland.

#WIPSnips - percent. The only mention in any of my WIPs.

Nyx and the wolf are thoroughly confusing Cassie’s growing theories about the Spirit Realm.

Exciting! I’ve been enjoying your snips. Looking forward to the day I might get to read the whole thing.

For example, there are six people in the vampire hunt, who meet just before it starts - one being the MC and another the antagonist hunting her. But the other four all get names, even though only two become important later on.

I think only if they come up in natural conversation for the POV character. Mostly, it’s characters that are important to the development of the plot, however some others also get names if there’s a group, and only one is important, but I want to keep which one under wraps.

The characters from Earth are used to having it, but the ones from Fae are not.
Feno will be suspicious and try to avoid using it he can. Taengi will be excitedly ordering in all the different food options available to try. Iofen might be trying to figure out how to get it to work back on Fae.

The main one throughout book 1 is initially working under his boss’s orders, but it spirals when he accidentally turns her supernatural. In this world, to control the population, that means one of the two of them has to die. So it’s largely self-preservation that’s driving them.

A longer one for #WIPSnips today - belong.

Cassie asks the old selkie for a knife. She doesn’t expect to be handed a weapon depicting both Nyx (the black panther that returns with them to Earth) and that particular wolf.

I think it was the characters to be honest. They’re all complex and well-characterised, with compelling reasons behind what they do, so you care about them. And yet, it’s done in such a way that the plot doesn’t get bogged down with description.

Everybody thinks the best music came out during our teenage years. Truthfully, it’s just that we’re generally not looking in the right places for the good music now (ie. not the popular music), and we’ve conveniently erased the bad music from our memories. There was a lot of crap back then too.

I’d say a year is probably long enough. It’s enough time that unless I’m in an editing spell, I’m more than likely actively working on a different WIP by that point anyway.

The most recent one? Godkiller, by Hannah Kaner. I sat down, zoomed through it in a single sitting, then went to the bookshop the next day to order the next one.

I’ve been waiting for feedback from my first beta-readers, and in the meantime, doing a bit of editing on another piece and taking some time out to read.

I like the humour in that last paragraph 😆

Thank you! 😊

#WIPSnips - number

Ben is facing the backlash of another vampire’s uncontrolled feeding frenzy, despite his own efforts to avoid the blood of fae.

Finally got a CD player separate to add to the #hifi stack, so I can actually play my CDs through some decent speakers.
Had to plug it in one of the two tape deck inputs on the amp though as it’s old enough to pre-date CDs (and still going strong!).

#WIPSnips - dedicate.

The mystic discuss going to the old prison fort, to help some of the others that are held there.

For the witches yes (with the exception of the hybrids, where you get some subtle early foreshadowing by their colours being “wrong” for the world they were born on).
There’s more variability in the supernaturals (like the merfolk scales), but colour still signifies when there’s something unusual.

I don’t think my characters themselves have a specific colour scheme. I play much more with colours as they relate to which world they’re on (Earth=green, Fae=blue), and what sort of magic people have.

Paper books for me. Because of how I write, reading ebooks feels too much like editing for me. However sometimes I get stuck on paper books, and an audiobook is the way to get “unstuck”.

I love this piece. Really cute and sweet, it almost feels like we’re intruding, but they only care for each other.

#WIPSnips - nothing but absolute *vibes* today.

One of few chapters I wrote completely out of order and might still get chucked and rewritten from scratch when I actually get to that part of the story, but it’s the only bit I could think of that has enough moving around to think “zigzag”.

Then there are the supernatural (humans), and mystic (fae), who were given their powers by witches/wizards/mages. While witches etc. have wide-ranging abilities, supernaturals etc. have very specific ones (eg. Salamanders have powers over fire, but only fire), and often a price to pay for them.

The witches, wizards, and mages are collectively “magic-bearing”, meaning they take their magic from the world and manipulate it into doing what they want (so classic magic). They’re ~5% of the population. Witches and wizards are born into magic families, while mages are spontaneous occurrences.