On Pillowfort, there's a tradition of Blanket Boxes, that are sort of questionnaires / prompt lists on some particular topic, meant to inspire people create their own posts there. ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mtassarin did a borrow on this one and damn me down dead if I don't like it too.
What is a blanket box?
Lesbian vampire political thriller! Not that kind of lesbian vampires! I'm not like that I swear!
mtassarin did a borrow on this one and damn me down dead if I don't like it too.This Blanket Box was originally created by Pillowfort user XanthussMarduk and can be found here.
What is a blanket box?
A blanket box is a way to break the ice on your new Pillowfort Dreamwidth. This one is about writing! To reply to the questions, create your own post (or several posts, if you be like that).
Rules
The first rule is that there are no rules
Interpret or bend the prompts however you like
Remember to link the OP so other people can use the clean version!
The Blankets
1. Who are your main characters of your present WIP?
This is Chloe, and that's Rachel. They're both nineteen years old, they're in love, and they're from a podunk town on the Pacific Coast that nobody has ever heard of. They're also from a video game called Life Is Strange: Before The Storm. They're basically nice people.
That's Vandal and this is Nadia. They're both ghouls - which is to say semi-useful servants hooked on vampire blood - and they're bit-part players from a video game called Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines. They're fucking horrible.
Also, there are some vampires.
That's Vandal and this is Nadia. They're both ghouls - which is to say semi-useful servants hooked on vampire blood - and they're bit-part players from a video game called Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines. They're fucking horrible.
Also, there are some vampires.
2. What genre is your story (get specific if you want)?
Goodness alone knows any more. It's... two parts case study in inherently unequal, dubconny, secrets-driven relationships, one part political thriller, and now one part murder mystery. And it happens to be full of vampires. I don't think "vampire story" is a genre. Vampires doing stuff whilst happening to be vampires is interesting. Vampires just being vampires isn't... there's no plot movement there, y'know? A Sense of Fatal Allegiance as a whole is about relationships - personal and political - and what makes them form and fall apart, and how people cope with being in this tiny community of immortals who are constantly competing but also the only possible peers they can have, and what it's like to be on the edge of that and have your world rearranged because someone, somewhere screwed up and the battlelines have moved.
3. Quick, you're stuck in an elevator with a stranger. Badly explain your WIP to them in one sentence
Lesbian vampire political thriller! Not that kind of lesbian vampires! I'm not like that I swear!
4. When did you start writing and why?
Because I was feeling really, really sad and bored and lonely and needed an outlet. That goes for this specific fic too. I had Life Is Strange on the brain because it was breaking my heart (this was before Episode 3 of Before The Storm came out and Was Not Good) and there's that one throwaway line of Rachel's about going to Santa Monica, and because I'd just finished a Let's Play of Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines, which is of course set there, the ideas just sort of mashed together. And I wrote the first chapter of this while I was laid up in bed on Boxing Day of last year, which is pretty much how I wrote the most recent chapter too.
5. What is your favourite book/author?
My favourite individual book? No. Refused. I always go off about The Historian when I'm talking about vampire novels, and I stand by that, but it's not - I don't know.
Author's easier. Terry Pratchett is possibly the single biggest influence on me as a writer, and reader, and human being. I don't always try to write like him, but I try to think like him - keep that focus on the self-interest of the wicked, the banality of evil, the indifference of a non-interventionist God.
Author's easier. Terry Pratchett is possibly the single biggest influence on me as a writer, and reader, and human being. I don't always try to write like him, but I try to think like him - keep that focus on the self-interest of the wicked, the banality of evil, the indifference of a non-interventionist God.
6. What quote from your WIP are you most proud of?
I'm irrationally proud of all the Chloe journal entries (yes, there will be more of them). It's not so much for singular quotes, as for the moment when I realised Life Is Strange offers me a perfect device to explain the World of Darkness content to readers from that fandom - as soon as Chloe starts finding out what happens, so can they. (And OK, I still really like 'CHLOE, THE VAMPIRE SLAYER' as a sign-off.)
7. If you could see more fiction written about X, what would it be?
I want more fiction about established couples, who are together and have been through some Times and have their ups and downs but are still either together or, if they have to break up, have established how to still be friends. Not romance as prize, not romance as the entire point of the story, but romance as part of the story's texture and meaning; just like life. And people fuck sometimes, just like they get into fights sometimes, but what's important isn't the graphic details of those sometimes but how people react to them.
I want more fiction about established couples, who are together and have been through some Times and have their ups and downs but are still either together or, if they have to break up, have established how to still be friends. Not romance as prize, not romance as the entire point of the story, but romance as part of the story's texture and meaning; just like life. And people fuck sometimes, just like they get into fights sometimes, but what's important isn't the graphic details of those sometimes but how people react to them.
8. What about your writing do you want to improve on most of all?
Pacing and control. At the moment I write things and when I have something that feels like a chapter it gets posted. I did have a much more coherent outline, once upon a time, but I've fallen back into that RPG mode of setting up a situation and letting the characters surprise me. The last chapter and the next are both lacking in coherence, as a result. I'm going to stick with it for the time being, but the next story - 'And Now He Is The Prince Of Darkness' - is going to be more planned up front.
Pacing and control. At the moment I write things and when I have something that feels like a chapter it gets posted. I did have a much more coherent outline, once upon a time, but I've fallen back into that RPG mode of setting up a situation and letting the characters surprise me. The last chapter and the next are both lacking in coherence, as a result. I'm going to stick with it for the time being, but the next story - 'And Now He Is The Prince Of Darkness' - is going to be more planned up front.
