We Faceless Folk Wip - Tumblr Posts

One of my favorite things about writing is characterization but I’m tweaking so hard when it comes to the mystery I’m writing. Like I spent one second thinking about the missing girl who isn’t even in the book for about 90% and I was like she’s a photographer, an adventurous spirit, a prospective business owner, a dark-skinned queen, and she’s outspoken but introverted. Then I thought about my main character and was like she has braids, I guess.

18 days ago I said I was going to start a mystery novel. What have I done since then?

I made a list of characters

We got Chinwe, the college student who went missing. Rachel, her girlfriend who is trying to find her. Alyanna, Chinwe's best friend who was also the last known person to see her. Yejin, Chinwe's toxic ex who goes to a different school than the rest of them. Ms. Jones, Chinwe's mom who is also very close to Rachel.

2. I outlined a plot

Because the police aren't investigated Chinwe's disappearance, Rachel decides to do it herself. Chinwe is a photographer and loves to post on instagram, so that's the first place Rachel goes for clues. She finds incriminating evidence against Alyanna and a possible connection between Alyanna and Yejin, who she has never met in person. Yejin and Rachel end up teaming up to find the girl they both love, which leads to Rachel having to cross state borders to get to her.

3. I wrote some quotes

I don't want to completely write it yet because I'm focused on another wip right now, so I just wrote some basic quotes. Because I'm a hopeless romantic, I wrote Rachel's first conversation with Chinwe and their interactions together that will eventually be memories Rachel is reliving while driving to where she thinks Chinwe is being held.

4. I came up with a title

I cycled through a lot of options for the title and landed on We Faceless Folk. It's supposed to represent how the police (at least here in the US) don't see marginalized people as people. I will use it as a tag when I post about this story from now on.

Side Note: During this time I also finished writing a labor-heavy chapter for my main wip. This took me nearly a month to complete.

Side Side Note: It's going to take me years to finish We Faceless Few, but I have a google doc with the second draft of my main wip, Spiritwalker, open to other writers/readers to read and offer feedback. If that sounds interesting, send me a message and I'll send you the link!

And that's on productivity!

Intentionally trying to find a song that matches the vibe of my mystery novel has not worked out, but while listening to a playlist I made for when I can’t sleep has struck me with serendipity. This is it exactly!! I can practically hear my main character sing this to her girlfriend as she searches for her.

Yejin

Ok I also have to rant about my character that I hated the most. While coming up with characters for my mystery wip, my first thought was a crazy ex would kidnap the missing girl. Then I realized that was too obvious, but I kept the crazy ex anyways to have more suspects.

She was a trope, and one I find annoying at that, but her character was important to my story. To give her more use than just being a suspect, I gave her the role of begrudgingly helping my main character find her missing girlfriend. She has more information on the girlfriend because she dated her first and for longer.

Things really changed when I made a mood board for her. I scoured all of pinterest for a picture I thought suited her and landed on a really pretty one. I was conflicted because in my mind she was too crazy to be that pretty, but I also couldn't find any other pictures I thought could be her. That's when I thought of a solution that changed this character from crazy ex to a girlboss that I now adore. Yes, she will be pretty...and she will know it. She's weaponizes beauty and hides her crazy under her pretty girl mask, but you can still see it poking through at times. This development also led to her being smart and cunnning.

How did I get her name? Well my first year in college I had a roommate named Sejin, and I hated her. Sejin was so selfish that she once asked a friend to put up lights above her bed then went to shower instead of helping to put up her own damn lights. Sejin was so cruel that she stopped talking to me about two weeks in and never explained why. But that didn't stop her from talking about me in the halls. Sejin was so dumb that she once opened the door to our room while I was half naked. So of course I would name my crazy character after a crazy person, but I didn't want to give her the full satisfaction so I changed the first letter.

Yejin is now my favorite character to write. Under the cut is my favorite scene I've written with her. Keep in mind that I don't have a full first draft yet so this is VERY rough.

“I’m here to talk about Chinwe.” Yejin’s eyes narrowed. “What do you know about Chinwe?” “She’s my girlfriend.” Yejin’s eyes narrowed further. “And she’s missing.” Yejin sat there like that for several seconds, eyes narrowed, studying me. Then she relaxed back in her chair. The only expression in her eyes was boredom. “Well that has nothing to do with me.” “Really? Then why do you follow Chinwe’s friends on instagram?” Yejin pulled a lip gloss tube out of her purse and started applying it. “Is it a crime to follow people,” she said mid-stroke. “Why do you follow these specific people? You have no connection to them other than Chinwe.” Yejin capped her gloss and smiled at me snarkily. “Maybe I did find them through Chinwe, but I make it a habit to follow every pretty girl I see.” She held out her lip gloss to me. “Want some?”

WIP Introductions

I’ve been posting about my wips for a while, but I never formally introduced them. So here they are!

Spiritwalker

Genre: YA fantasy, dark fantasy

Tag: spiritwalker wip

Status: Second draft

Triggers: Death, murder, suicide, self-mutilation

Summary

Lady Daron Spiritwalker lives in a world of witches, plague, and war. She is the seemingly perfect heir to her clan and is known across Serenta, the country of witches, for her beauty, intelligence, leadership, and ability to bridge spirits, which only her clan can see and communicate with.

When she is sent to an academy that only the most elite witches attend, she expects a normal education, but instead receives a deadly fortune and discovers secrets within the walls that reshapes the way she sees her world.

Daron is not the type to make friends, but when faced with this problem much bigger than herself, she learns to rely on and even love a group of her schoolmates.

Snippet

Ann Marie, Maya, and I all looked at each other. From their blank faces I could tell that they were just as confused as I was. “What does that mean?” asked Maya. “I presume it means that pressing the hand on the wall opens something. A passageway maybe.” “I already checked the other mosaics and none of them have runes. Who would defile a depiction of our goddess like this?” Ann Marie asked with as much indignation as her soft voice could muster. “There is only one way to find out,” I said, placing my hand atop my goddess’. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” Maya asked. “It could be a trap.” “That is why you are here. You know what to do if something happens to me.” I knew how to read the signs. Someone was calling out for a Spiritwalker’s attention, and no matter who it was or how many warnings I received, I was not going to ignore the call. I would be a failure as a primary lady if I did.  The icy tiles warmed beneath my skin, letting me know that I was taking too long. I pushed and the section of wall behind the mosaic shuttered, but I still needed more force. I pressed my other hand to the wall and pushed harder, straining the muscles in my back and shoulders. The wall moved inwards this time, rotating like a cog. When it was just a sliver centered between two gaps, I gestured to Maya. “Are you coming?” The younger witch, ever loyal, followed me into the pitch black that awaited us. The smell of mold slapped me in the face, and I had to resist the urge to cover my nose in order to keep my grip on the wall. I stretched my foot as far as it would go, trying to gauge how far the passage went, but only felt emptiness. This vast, dark, unknown space should have frightened me, but instead I was struck with a strange familiarity. I had been here before—in my dreams.

We Faceless Folk

Genre: Mystery

Tag: we faceless folk wip

Status: First draft

Triggers: Racism, kidnapping

Summary

Rachel is a second-year Black college student and loves nothing more than watching movies from her comfy bed and hanging out with her photogrophy-loving girlfriend, Chinwe. But one day Chinwe goes to a concert and never returns. When Rachel gets no answers from the police and is sure they aren’t even looking, she takes to finding Chinwe herself.

Rachel finds clues in Chinwe’s Instagram and even enlists the help of Chinwe’s unhinged ex girlfriend. In her search, she discovers more about Chinwe than she’s ever known, including where Chinwe’s really from.

Snippet

Sometimes when I lay still long enough for my mind to lose control over where my thoughts roam, and the late summer heat blurs the lines between reality and imagination, I swear I can hear her voice. Her lips just shy of my ear, whispering something unintelligible. I turn to hear her better, but of course she’s not there. Chinwe’s been missing for two weeks. The door clicks as my roommate enters the room. We hardly ever talk. I don’t hate her, and I don’t think she hates me, but she lost interest in me pretty quickly after she discovered I’m a homebody. She’s been talking to me more ever since Chinwe disappeared. Not starting actual conversations, but reminding me of things I needed to do. When she walks in and still sees me in bed when I’m usually heading out the door, she asks, “Don’t you have class soon?” I do, but I don’t want to go. I don’t want to sit in that room that feels too large and yet suffocating with Chinwe’s empty seat next to mine. I groan and run my hands over my braids. Just one class and then I can get out of here. I can do that.

I worked on we faceless folk for this first time in months today and this is what I wrote. It’s about Rachel finding out that Chinwe’s ex, Yejin, might be connected to her disappearance. But it’s my first draft so I’ll probably change it later

I will never forget the way Chinwe talked about her. Her voice would grow loud and fast, but not with the type of passion that would make me nervous. It was an anger unsettled.

Chinwe told me that Yejin is horribly possessive. At first, Yejin would tell her that hearing Chinwe talk about other girls upset her. Then that escalated to her calling Chinwe names and making her feel guilty, so she stopped talking about anyone else at all. Finally Yejin started taking up all of Chinwe’s time so she was the only person in Chinwe’s life. Chinwe didn’t even realize until several of her friends questioned why she never hung out anymore.

“She completely drained me,” Chinwe once said. “She was like a vampire, sucking away all my love.”

I suddenly yearn for the way she wrapped her arms around my middle. For the way she said, “But you’re so giving. I only want to give you enough in return.”

Just seeing Yejin’s name on the screen fills me with hatred.

This is so cool! I love reading about everyone’s wips and here are some of my posts

My wip intro

Worldbuilding post

I made a bunch of those but that is the last one so it has links to all of them

Are you a writer, artist, or creative of any sort, and you want reblogs on your original work? Submit them to my queue!

Reblog this post and add links to the posts you want me to share.

I'll try to leave comments in the tags but I make no promises

If I like your stuff, I might trawl through your blog for more posts. If you have a tag for your original works, leave it in the tags on your reblog and identify it somehow so I can isolate your original work easily. (Like mine is #etta's art or #etta rambles)

Pls no fandom stuff. I'm behind on the last 80 years of pop culture and this is about supporting OCs and indie projects.

Content warnings/tropes/other info is appreciated but not required

If you see me like your post, that means it's been viewed and added to the queue, you can expect to see it reblogged in 10-30days.

(My queue posts 10 posts a day and I'm down to under 100)

Even if you don't have anything to add to the queue, boosts are appreciated!

I’m putting good use to my Africana and African American Studies minor because a few weeks ago I wrote a scene in We Faceless Folk where Rachel stops at a grocery store by Chinwe’s house to buy her mom a cake.

But I learned in a lecture this week that most Black neighborhoods in the U.S. have way too many liquor stores and not enough grocery stores.

So now I’m going to change this scene to draw attention our reality. I’m still figuring out what to do with it but I think I want her to look at a map on her phone to find grocery stores and seeing none in that area before driving over.

The people have spoken! I got 8 votes for We Faceless Folk so I wrote 8 new sentences. Context: Rachel is trying to find a way to contact her girlfriend’s unhinged ex to get clues about her disappearance. Here it is:

Can I trust Alyanna to message her? There’s too much that can go wrong with that plan. It would be easier to make a second account, but Yejin would notice if an account with no followers requested to follow her.

I slam my phone down as the answer dawns on me. I already have another account. The first one I made, back in middle school. By the time I got to high school, I deemed everything about it cringy and made a new one for a fresh start. But if I could just remember my password, I would have an account with followers and posts ready to message Yejin.

WIP Questionnaire

Thanks for tagging me @owlsandwich! This is such a cool tag. I'm tagging @poethill @spideronthesun @cssnder and I'll leave an open tag but no pressure as always!

I'll do this for both of my wips as well.

Spiritwalker

What was the first part of your wip that you created?

I actually created a lot before I started writing because I never thought I'd accomplish writing a book. It's murky since I didn't document anything for around a year, but I'm pretty sure I created the clans first.

2. If your story was a TV show, what would the theme song/intro be?

I made a post about this not too long ago. It'd definitely be Daughter by Beyonce

3. Who are your favorite characters you've made? Why?

I have two different answers. My favorite in terms of craft is Daron. I think she's a really unique character and I'm impressed that I'm managing to pull off her personality. My favorite in terms of likability is Aria. She's sassy and really fun.

4. What other pieces of media do you think would share a fan base for your story?

I hate to say this but My Little Pony.

5. What has been your biggest struggle with your wip?

Making it make sense. I have a lot of different concepts and sometimes I forget them or struggle trying not to overstuff my work.

6. Are there any animals in your story? Talk about them!

Yes! Aria has a wolf. It follows her everywhere and terrorizes people at her command. Daron also forms a bond with a horse.

7. How do your characters get around? (ex: trains, horses, cars, dragons, etc.)

Horse

8. What part of your wip are you working on rn?

I'm editing chapter 20.

9. What aspects (tropes, maybe?) of your wip do you think will draw people in?

Maybe magic schools and found family.

10. What are your hopes for your wip?

I hope it'll get people talking. I'd love to see discourse about theories or little details I included the way I see for books like ACOTAR.

We Faceless Folk

What was the first part of your wip that you created?

I started from the beginning of the first chapter.

2. If your story was a TV show, what would the theme song/intro be?

Where I Sleep by Emeli Sande.

3. Who are your favorite characters you've made? Why?

Yejin is my favorite. It's so fun to write and read her passive aggressiveness, even if she is insane.

4. What other pieces of media do you think would share a fan base for your story?

Probably The Hate U Give.

5. What has been your biggest struggle with your wip?

Honestly, just writing it. I work so much on my other wip that I haven't had time to write much for this one.

6. Are there any animals in your story? Talk about them!

Sadly, there are no animals.

7. How do your characters get around? (ex: trains, horses, cars, dragons, etc.)

My main character drives.

8. What part of your wip are you working on rn?

I don't even know. After I started at the beginning, I started writing random scenes from all over the story. I don't have chapters yet or any other sort of structure. I'm somewhere within the first draft, if you can call it that at this point.

9. What aspects (tropes, maybe?) of your wip do you think will draw people in?

The useless police.

10. What are your hopes for your wip?

I hope it'll create a change. I bring up several different types of racism and show their impacts. I hope reading about it will make people acknowledge its existence and try to change the system.

Last week I made a post comparing the my Spiritwalker characters to the people I stole their names from, so here’s one for my We Faceless Folk characters. Tbh I think this one is more interesting

Chinwe

My first year in college I was in a program with a girl named Chinwendu, but she went by Chinwe for short. I thought it was such a cute name, but wait there’s more. My second year in college I transferred to a different school on the opposite end of the country and met another Chinwe. When I created the character, I knew I wanted an ethnic name, so of course this one immediately popped in my head.

I didn’t really know either Chinwe so I can’t say if they’re similar to mine, but when I met the second one she had a girlfriend and my character is also queer so there’s that.

Ms. Jones

This character is Chinwe’s mom and I named her after my introduction to Africana studies professor. I chose the name because my professor was an old black woman and my character is an old black woman so I thought it fit.

Other than that, they have nothing in common. My professor was so adventurous she went skydiving for her birthday. Meanwhile, my character barely gets out of her house because she has a bad knee.

Yejin

This one’s a bit complicated. My first roommate was named Sejin, but I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of naming a character after her. So I named her Yejin, the name of a student in the center I work at, and it’s close enough to Sejin to be a dig.

The character Yejin is exactly like Sejin—a selfish, toxic bitch. Sure, she’s more exagerated, but is it really by that much when the real Sejin cried when I told the RA she opened the door when I was topless and made excuses to how it couldn’t have happened when she could have prevented it in the first place by paying attention to me for one measly second?

Alyanna

Alyanna is the name of one of my closest friends. When I couldn’t think of a name for this character, I used hers.

The real person and character are pretty similar. Both are college students who like going out places and posting on instagram. I think my friend has more of a sense of humor.

Lol I don’t post about We Faceless Folk much because I barely ever work on it, but it’s about a black college student named Chinwe who disappears at a concert. The police don’t really look for her because police are useless so her girlfriend, Rachel, takes on task of searching through her instagram for clues and even teaming up with Chinwe’s crazy ex to find her.

My few posts about it are tagged: we faceless folk wip

WIP Name Tag

Thanks for tagging me @the-letterbox-archives! Hope you don’t mind that I gave the tag a title

Rules: Post all the names of your wips and open the floor for questions

I have 2 wips:

Spiritwalker

We Faceless Folk

Any questions about them?

Gently tagging @pixies-love-envy @ddgraywrites @illarian-rambling

Bold What Applies to Your OC Tag

Thanks for tagging me @ddgraywrites @alinacapellabooks @kaylinalexanderbooks and @unrepentantcheeseaddict

This is for Chinwe from We Faceless Folk

Killed Someone Under Orders | Had Someone Killed On Their Orders | Killed Someone In Self Defense | Spared Someone’s Life | Invented Something | Been Hungover | Kissed Someone | Slow-Danced | Been In A Long-Term Relationship | Had Sex  | Had Sex And Regretted It | Had A One-Night Stand | Had A Threesome | Experimented With Their Sexuality | Had A Kid | Adopted A Kid | Wanted To Have A Family With Someone | Done Something On Impulse They Regretted | Gone Traveling | Had A Bounty Put On Them | Eaten An Insect | Been Groped/SA'd | Been Dumped | Dumped Someone | Smoked | Gotten High | Put Someone In A Headlock | Won A Bet | Lost A Bet | Forgiven Someone Who Wronged Them | Indulged In Petty Revenge | Hallucinated | Gotten A Noticeable Scar  | Kneed/Hit Someone In The Groin | Had An Unattainable Crush | Laughed Themselves To The Point Of Tears | Been Kidnapped | Been Brainwashed/Hypnotized  | Had A Recurring Nightmare | Been Bullied  | Bullied Someone | Experienced Survivor’s Guilt | Been Tied/Chained Up | Given Someone A Massage | Received A Massage | Been Backed Up Against A Wall | Shot Someone | Stabbed Someone | Saved Someone’s Life | Cheated On Someone | Been Cheated On | Been In An Open Relationship | Had A Friendship With Benefits | Been In A Queerplatonic Relationship | Had A Stalker | Been Betrayed | Been A Traitor | Been Possessed | Been In A Bar Fight | Been Thrown Out Of A Bar | Been Arrested | Broken Out Of Jail | Been To A Funeral | Been To A Brothel | Had Surgery | Broken Someone’s Trust | Broken Someone’s Heart | Had Their Heart Broken | Broken/Damaged Something Out Of Anger | Broken/Damaged Something Out Of Spite | Gotten A Piercing | Gotten A Tattoo | Used A Fake Name | Been Beaten Up | Been Tortured | Tortured Others | Been Abused | Been Blackmailed | Gotten Away With A Crime | Framed Someone Else For A Crime They Committed | Shared A Bed Platonically | Been In Love |  Suffered From Sleep Paralysis | Been Forced To Flee Their Home | Learned A New Language | Joined A Rebellion | Fought On The Losing Side Of A War | Fought On The Winning Side Of A War | Become A Godparent | Become An Aunt/Uncle

I’m pretty sure everyone’s done this at this point so I’ll leave an open tag <3