When You Have An Outline For A Wip But Your Brain Doesn't Know How To Open/ Start The First Lines Of

When you have an outline for a wip but your brain doesn't know how to open/ start the first lines of the wip

Helping teach kids writing has actually improved my writing. Now every time I have writer’s block I ask myself what sensory details I can use.

What are some chronic illnesses that can only occur in a fantasy setting?

Iris

Honestly, I constantly forget Iris exists but I was just writing a chapter with her and remembered she’s one of my favorite OCs.

Iris is a lady so she has a lot of power in the social system, but she’s very far down the line of succession. Unlike Daron, who is supposed to be the perfect image of a lady, Iris is very mischievous. She’s also lowkey a pirate, but we don’t learn that until much later.

Iris has one of my favorite designs, partially because she looks similar to me, but I also had a lot of fun with her look. She has dark brown skin and waist-length twists. She has orange eyes and red runes tattoed up her arms and across her chest.

Iris’ clan is very important to her character. The Arsonite Clan is the only clan that originated outside the mainland, so they have a different culture than the other clans. The Aquatic Clan stole their land, which started a war between all of the clans. After the war, the Arsonites were left with no land, money, or allies, and their language was on the cusp of death because they had to assimilate. Iris is very involved in her culture. She’s fluent in Arsonean and is experienced in their traditional dance.

The Arsonite Clan being left with nothing is how they ended up as pirates. They sink human ships despite the fact that humans and witches are not supposed to interact at all, and keep the spoils. When their betrayal is discovered, Iris shows absolutely no remorse. She stands by what they did to survive (as she should). I honestly want to write a spin-off of Iris’ pirate adventures when I’m done with the main story.

Iris has had a lot of development since the first draft. I didn’t know how to characterize her mischievousness, so she ended up coming off as tone-deaf and kind of annoying. In my second draft, there’s more of a balance between her causing chaos and her tenderness. I think it’s perfectly summarized when Daron asks her for a favor and Iris asks what Daron will do in return. Daron knows that Iris would help unconditionally and just wanted to stir the pot.

Fun fact: Iris was originally named Aralea after a classmate I had in second grade. Upon further thought, I realized that was too similar to Ariella—Aria’s full name—so I changed it to Iris, a goddess a learned about at a Ramses exhibit.

Spiritwalker taglist: @the-golden-comet @pixies-love-envy

Really wish people could learn the difference between a plot hole and a character making a mistake. Just because the character messed up doesn’t mean the author did.

It's time to finally kill someone