ThePoetSky Archive

essay

In many stories that focus around children or teenagers, it suddenly falls to them to save the world. In Harry Potter, Animorphs, and Wings of Fire teenagers suddenly find themselves responsible for the fate of the world. That leaves the question any responsible adult would ask: Where are the adults? Why aren’t they taking care of this? Why is it down to children or teenagers to save the world? I’m going to look at a few different approaches, but one I’m going to intentionally skip is that the adults are too incompetent to do it.

In Harry Potter, Harry is “the chosen one”. This is a cheap trick to explain away this problem. A prophecy claims someone has to change the world. No choice. No adults allowed. Otherwise, there’s no reason this person is doing this alone. As with all cheap tricks, they’re overused, because they’re easy. Fate says it has to be this way, so there’s no need to explain what qualifies – or forces – them to do the job. Further, the adults in Harry Potter are mostly absent from the main conflicts. A prophecy said that Harry has to defeat Voldemort, and everyone’s so afraid of him, that for the most part, they don’t try. I’m oversimplifying this, but the point is that Harry Potter takes a bad approach to this, and there are far better ways to do this.

The series Wings of Fire plays with this a little. There’s still a prophecy, but the main characters decide that if people are all expecting them to save the world, then they’ll do it their own way. They are in the unique position of being the only dragons (all the characters are dragons) that know about members of other tribes. In the midst of a war pushing two decades, this puts them in a unique position to save the world. But the adults outside of the war want to help them and keep them safe.

This is similar to the approach in Animorphs. The series follows a group of teenagers that were chosen to fight an alien invasion by virtue of being in the right place at the right time. They met another alien that told them about the invasion, making them the only humans who know about it. In this sense, they are “the chosen ones”, but chosen not by fate or destiny, but by another fighter in the war. Like in Wings of Fire, there’s no one they can trust to help them. Once their parents find out about the war, they offer their support, showing that they care about what happens to the main characters.

In Girl in Red, Hermione was the one that had to be involved in their war, despite protests from everyone from her parents to Dumbledore. As in Animorphs, she was chosen by another combatant (Rose) to fight an enemy only they understood, because it was too dangerous to reveal anything about said enemy. But this didn’t stop her parents from worrying, nor from the adults trying to help. It wasn’t that fate said it had to be this way, it was something about her and the people she knew. When children in particular read books about other people their age saving the world, they like to imagine that they can too. I think it’s better to teach them that there’s something special about them that they could use to save the world, rather than to teach them that one person is chosen for this for no reason. It’s also important that they know they can go to adults for help, even when they think they can’t.

When writing about younger characters tackling grownup problems, at the very least, the grownups should be protesting. If not, finding other ways to show that they care can go a long way, not only to develop the characters and their families and friends, but to improve the quality of your story. If you’re going to have children or teenagers saving the world, it should be because there’s something special about them, not because the adults are incompetent.

#Essay #Characters #Heroes #YoungCharacters

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Even when writing fiction, I find myself needing to do research. Whether including some historic events or figures, real places, or processes that other people might now, there is an element of fact in my fiction. Not to mention trying to stay true to Harry Potter when writing Girl in Red. When research is necessary, it’s critical to use primary sources.

A primary source is original research. This might be textbooks, encyclopedias, or their electronic equivalents. This is opposed to secondary sources, sources of information that may have been edited due to creative licensing.

One of the best examples of why it’s important is Hamilton. Even though Lin-Manuel Miranda did his research, the facts aren’t perfect. One example is in the play, Hamilton is confronted by Burr, Jefferson, and Madison about his correspondence with Reynolds. In reality, James Monroe, along with congressmen Muhlenberg and Venable, were the ones that confronted him. However, this would’ve involved introducing three new characters for this scene, which wouldn’t have been good storytelling.

And that’s the problem with secondary sources. When other authors use information, they have to tweak it for their work. Learning from stories isn’t always a good way to learn. Which is why when I began working on Skwyr Court, I didn’t rely on what I’d seen of blacksmithing, I looked it up. I found a series of videos of professional blacksmiths going over the basics. Thus, I was able to gleam enough to make it believable enough for the common reader.

In the end, the goal isn’t to get it perfect. Most people aren’t experts on history or blacksmithing, so it doesn’t have to be perfect. I only know that bit about Hamilton because I researched him (after seeing the play). But if you can get the big things right, people will trust you on the little things.

#Essay #Planning

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If there’s more than one of these, you’ve done something terribly wrong. In my case, most breakups happened when one side died. This was how most all relationships in sixth year ended. So I’m going to skip over those and focus instead on two relationships where it didn’t end with someone dying: Sally-Anne Perks and Viktor Krum, and Harry Potter and Ellie Langley.

Background: Both couples got together after the Yule Ball in fourth year. Sally-Anne, being friends with everyone at Hogwarts (including the visiting students), got to know Viktor Krum while finding out who was friends with whom for the second task. After encouragement from her former prefect, Alexandra “Alex” Nertlyn, she accepted his invitation to the Yule Ball. At the time, she had a crush on Harry, but after finding Ellie, a mute girl from Hufflepuff, pining for the only boy she knew that knew sign language well enough to understand her, Sally-Anne pushed her toward Harry, who could read lips (note: the fact that a mute girl was able to mouth words well enough to be understood, which is hard to do in general, was a mistake on my part).

Sally-Anne and Viktor stayed together through fourth year and into fifth year, until Viktor had an accident that warranted the removal of his eyes. Believing his Quidditch career over, he told Sally-Anne never to speak to him again, pushing her away so she wouldn’t be “wasted on him”. She later remarks to her parents that she likes helping people, and she didn’t want to be with someone too chivalrous to ever accept her help.

This was a valid reason for breaking up. They were two different people, with different plans for their respective futures. Viktor was noble and chivalrous, but expected that he’d be the one earning money, while his wife stayed home taking care of the kids. Sally-Anne was proactive and liked helping people, while Viktor refused to show weakness around her. These traits were shown throughout their time together (even if not always well), so while it hit Sally-Anne hard, it wasn’t entirely out of nowhere.

Harry and Ellie broke up due in part to Ellie’s insecurities. She’d lived her life as a burden to everyone around her, already thrown aside by her friend Max for another girl. When she found out Sally-Anne at one point had feelings for Harry, and that Harry had at one point had feelings for Cho Chang, she refused to be second place again. She pushed him away before he broke her heart, despite the fact that he had no intention of doing so.

There are a few takeaways from both of these. The first is define your characters well. The reasons for breaking up should be believable, and not involve “because the plot says so”. Establish that the two of them are too different to be together, or that there’s some major issue they can’t look beyond. The second is that while both of these breakups came out of nowhere, that’s because they were both set off by something that happened out of nowhere. Sometimes bad things happen, and things simply go horribly wrong. Even so, make the breakups believable. If the characters have become unhappy with one another, one will eventually end things.

Like everything else, breakups should be realistic. They will be emotional moments, as they are in real life. If the phrase “if only they’d talk to one another, they’d be alright” fits the situation, there should be a good reason they’re not talking. Breakups happen for all kinds of reasons, so if they break up, the reasons should fit the characters.

#Essay #Romance

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Once the characters get together, it’s all about the direction the relationship takes. Real people change in relationships, so the characters should change too if the relationship lasts long enough. But that’s not an excuse to completely change your characters. The progression of the relationship should feel natural.

In Amber Abandonment (year five), Neville and Luna start dating. They get along well together, but circumstances separate them. In that time, Luna changes, growing stronger and more independent. She does so because she believes that she’s holding her friends – Neville in particular – back. Even then, her odd self is underneath the new exterior. That desire to not burden him motivates many of her actions in the following year as well, causing her to remain hidden after she becomes blind.

Another way characters change in a relationship is when they try to “fix” one another. While this didn’t take too much of the focus of Villain in Vermilion, Lavender Brown did this with Ron Weasley. She nudged him in different directions, and often made him feel uneasy when he realized she was doing it. As this type of a relationship often does, this caused conflict between them, and likely would’ve caused them to break up if Rose hadn’t forcibly ended the relationship herself.

Not every conflict should threaten to break them up, though. People can argue but understand that it’s only temporary. In the show Firefly, Zoe and Wash argue when Wash feels she listens to the captain more than she does to him. At no point is there a chance they’re going to break up, but it still causes tension and conflict, shaping the rest of the episode. Even when Luna and Neville are separated, they still care for one another.

There are a lot of ways to write a relationship, and I’ve found that it’s the characters that ultimately decide how it will happen. The same principle applies to the plot. If they have the ability to shape it, then they will. As the writer, it’s up to you to find out how.

#Essay #Romance

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A trick to build dramatic tension leading up to a relationship is the “Will They, Won’t They” approach. This is the part in every Hallmark romance movie ever where the writers try to convince us that maybe the main characters won’t get together (spoiler: they do). There are good ways to do this, but if it’s done poorly, it can lose members of your audience to cynicism. As with the previous post on writing romance, I’m going to focus on the approaches I used in Girl in Red.

The wrong way is for the main character to constantly tell us (or his/her friends) reasons not to be with the obvious love interest. “I’m focused on work”, “It’s not good for so-and-so”, or “Maybe it’ll fail” are all common excuses. If we see in the beginning that they’re pulling all-nighters at work, only ever talk to the security guards or janitors, or see them mess up yet another relationship, that could work. But if they say “I’m focused on work” while out at a bar with friends, it’s a lot harder to believe them.

I did this unintentionally with Sally-Anne Perks and Ron Weasley in Crimson Caster (year seven). Ron was convinced that he wasn’t good enough for Sally-Anne, while Sally-Anne was still getting over the death of Draco in Villain in Vermilion and wondering if people simply shouldn’t be around her. This wasn’t the only problem with that relationship, but I overdid the “Will They, Won’t They” despite it being obvious that it was heading that way.

Of course, there are valid reasons for them not to be together. The important part is to not only have the character point it out, but to show that it’s a big problem. Romeo and Juliet is a good example of this. The first few scenes establish the family feud between the Capulet and Montague families, making it that much harder for Romeo and Juliet to be together.

In Girl in Red, after almost two books of build up, Sally-Anne and Draco got together in Villain in Vermilion. The “Will They, Won’t They” came from Draco’s family. Draco knew if his family ever found out about his feelings for Sally-Anne, the consequences would be dire for both of them. Sally-Anne was willing to help him get through that, until she learned he’d joined the Death Eaters, building on the feelings of betrayal she’d had the previous year with Umbridge.

As with most approaches in writing, it boils down to “show, don’t tell”. That comes up a lot in writing, and it’s one of the most valuable rules there is. Take the example earlier of the main character in a bar. The character is telling me that he/she is focused on work, but the writers are showing me that the character isn’t. That’s only scratching the surface, but it’s the biggest takeaway here.

#Essay #Romance

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For a relationship not already in progress at the start of a story (and sometimes for ones that are in progress), the introduction to the potential relationship will be initial chemistry. This is the build-up to the relationship itself, and has to get the audience invested in it. Without this, the audience is watching or reading about two people faking it, wondering if there’s something else they could be doing with their time.

When the relationship is the central plot of the story, it should be given time to develop. It takes more than simply having two characters spend time together to develop their chemistry. This comes up a lot in bad romcoms. The two characters will spend time together, but not get to know each other or find common interests. The male lead never sees the female lead as anything more than “some woman” or “a female friend” until she puts on makeup and a nice dress. To me, that says two things: 1. her only redeeming quality to him is her looks, and 2. that relationship isn’t going to last.

I mentioned finding common interests or getting to know one another. In Girl in Red, one of my favorite relationships to write was Luna and Neville. Luna helped Neville at critical moments during the Triwizard Tournament by being her normal, weirdly optimistic self, even helping him to find some confidence in himself. They both provided a shoulder to cry on the following year after Rose’s apparent death, which hit them harder than anyone apart from Hermione. Neville listened to Luna go on about magical creatures that may or may not have existed, and Luna listened to Neville talk about Herbology. This made it feel natural when the two became more than just friends.

If the relationship is already in progress, and it’s important, there needs to be chemistry between the characters so we understand why they’re together. In the show Firefly, there’s mutual respect between the characters Zoe and Wash, despite them being very different people, so we can understand why they’re together. Or it could be simple, like in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. When Roger’s wife is asked what she sees in him, she simply responds “He makes me laugh”.

Chemistry between two characters in a relationship is important, otherwise they’re just two people. If the chemistry is done right, people are invested in the relationship, so when it’s threatened, it will keep readers on the edge. They’ll care about what happens to them and if they get together or not, or if they are together, they’ll want to see them stay together.

#Essay #Romance

© 2023 Sky Starlight CC BY-NC-SA

When I started Girl in Red, I knew Rose was overpowered. That was the point, to have fun with her solving problems in unnecessarily complicated or violent ways. As it went on, I wanted more drama, more tension, and that was difficult with her being so powerful. This is a problem that I’ve seen come up in various media – mostly anime – so I’m going to discuss the different approaches to this problem I’ve seen.

Remove Their Power

The first approach is removing the power of the character, temporarily or permanently. I find that, unless done with subtlety and care, the direct approach is often the wrong approach in writing. Like using adverbs over and over, it’s lazy, and there are better approaches.

The example of this going poorly in my mind is the show Heroes, a show that ran back in the late 2000s about a group of people that discovered they had superpowers. One character could copy the powers of people around him, but as the series progressed, he was stripped of his powers. This isn’t necessarily bad, but the way they did it was. In the span of an episode, they took him from being one of the nicest characters to being one of the meanest, using that as the justification for taking his powers. When you make a drastic change like this, it risks alienating your audience. I still enjoy the first season, but if I had to pick a point where the show started going downhill, it’d be that moment.

An example of doing this well was in the book series Earthsea. Early on in the series, it’s established that it’s possible for a wizard to lose his power if he overuses it. Sure enough, this happens to one of the main characters later in the series. While this was a drastic change, it came at the end of one of the books, and wasn’t done in a way that felt like the author was just trying to get rid of this character, whereas that’s exactly how it felt in Heroes. Such a change should feel natural, inevitable, even if takes the reader by surprise.

Remove Them

Another approach that can get old is removing the character entirely. Removing a main character for any reason, even if it makes sense for the plot, also risks losing part of your audience (I lost half of mine when Rose left Girl in Red for a few books). Like removing the character’s power, it should be done well, and not look like you’re getting rid of them because you don’t know how to handle them.

An instance of this being done both poorly and well is in Dragon Ball Z. The main character often drops out of the show, leaving the other characters to bide their time waiting for him to arrive and handle the newest big bad for them. It goes poorly because this happens so much in the franchise. It goes well because at the time, it’s not obvious that this is being done intentionally. Characters are fighting all the time; the franchise is known for that. Thus, characters are knocked out of the fight. Once again, it feels natural until you look back and think “have you been doing this the whole time?”

Throw More Obstacles at Them

The series Scorpion focuses around a team of specialists solving problems “only they can handle”. The writers used this next approach on almost every episode to keep the plot moving, rather than having them solve every problem in minutes. That is, they kept having something else go wrong. When someone is actively fighting against the main characters, this is understandable. When bad luck happens over and over again, you can only hold onto your audience so long until you lose suspension of disbelief.

Apart from not doing this all the time, a better approach is to hint at the oncoming problems early on. For example, having someone mentioning that a door keeps sticking, then having it jam shut later. Or that the roof’s been leaking before it breaks apart from a torrential downpour. Otherwise, something’s just going to go wrong out of nowhere, and while it will work for the first 50 times, your audience will get tired of it eventually.

Improve the Antagonists

Sherlock Holmes wouldn’t be nearly as interesting without an opponent like Moriarty, someone who can challenge him on his level. When you focus around one central character, improving the antagonists to match their talent or power is a good way to go. It creates good conflict.

This can be a problem when there are other central characters that aren’t as talented. This is a problem I have with Dragon Ball Z, in that the other characters become irrelevant to the plot because the villains are so powerful so that they challenge the main character. That’s opposed to the franchise One Piece (another anime/manga), where not only the main character is improved, but so are the other characters.

If they’re not going to be improved to the level of the antagonist, then they need to have something else to do. In the finale of Girl in Red, while only one person could challenge the main antagonist, the others weren’t all sitting on the sidelines cheering her on. They were all busy doing something else important. This was something I always did for the finales; everyone had a part to play.

Challenge the Protagonist Outside Their Expertise

In my opinion, this is the best solution. In Maniac in Maroon (book three), there were Dementors at Hogwarts. Rose could’ve destroyed them easily, but Dumbledore reminded her that it wouldn’t help, that this wasn’t a problem she could solve with brute force. Rose had to work to find another solution, forcing her to think outside her normal approach.

This is commonly used in horror stories. It wouldn’t be exciting if the protagonists could fight the serial killer. Instead, they have to find another way to survive, while they keep getting picked off. They might all be smart or talented in other ways, and that could serve them well in their fight for survival.

Of course, eventually the audience will probably want to see a character break out of their shell and fight back. At the end of Maniac in Maroon, that’s exactly what I did with Rose. Especially when the audience knows how talented this character is, they’ll eventually want to see them use that talent.

Conclusion

As with every approach, there are ways to do it right, and ways to do it wrong. No one solution is perfect. If you’re going to make a drastic change to the story to manage the power imbalance, it should be surprising, but inevitable. If you’re going to improve the antagonists, don’t forget about the other protagonists. Challenge the characters on different levels, rather than throwing more obstacles at them without consideration for how challenging it’ll be. Many things in life require finding the right balance, and writing is no exception.

#Essay #Characters #Drama

© 2023 Sky Starlight CC BY-NC-SA

As I enjoy a good action scene, there are several fight scenes throughout Girl in Red. Having no experience with writing them, they started out so-so, but improved as I got more practice. This is a common issue with writers, so many others will give you different advice. What I’ve got here is just what I’ve learned.

Before writing the fight, ask yourself if it needs to be there at all. If the main character is a spectator, then minimal detail is sufficient. The important part then is how the character reacts to the fight, not necessarily who wins or loses. If she has no investment in either side, then make sure there’s something else for her to be doing. Whether it be finding a way to stop the fight, or walking away because it’s beneath her, she should have something.

When you decide the fight’s going to take center stage, start by listing everyone involved. The easiest fights are – of course – between two people. Even then, the next step is to make a map of the area in which the fight is taking place. Make sure you know everything in the area that could possibly be used as a weapon. Characters shouldn’t be pulling a table out of nowhere (unless magic was involved). The same goes for powers; never have your characters pull powers out of thin air because you wrote yourself into a corner.

It gets vastly harder when there are multiple combatants. I’ve ran into this multiple times, but the big two were the Triwizard champions vs. the Adamantine Clockwork Horror in Cherry Champion, and the Hogwarts heads of house vs. Rose in Villain in Vermilion. In both cases, I drew a grid, drew a letter for each character, and started writing out each combatant’s actions turn by turn. Arrows would indicate where they moved. Of course, that’s not how it ended up in the final draft; that’d be dull. But it helped me organize the entire scene before writing it up.

When writing the scene, I also learned not to overdescribe the action. As a reader, I don’t need to know absolutely everything each person is doing. That goes for any description in the story. Leave some room for the reader to imagine it. And as with any action scene, the focus should be on the action when the main character is directly involved. If they’re watching, as Hermione did when Rose fought the heads of house, then they should be feeling something. When Hermione entered the fight, I toned down the emotion.

When it’s over, remember to give a breather. Let the readers catch their breath before going into another scene. The characters still standing can take a moment to recover, since they are people (not necessarily human, though). And know when to end it too.

Fight scenes can be tricky to write at first, but like anything, practice makes perfect. I wouldn’t say I’m perfect at it, but certainly a lot better at it than I used to be. It’s important to keep trying if that’s what you want to do.

Remember, this is for your writing. It’s worth the effort.

#Essay #Drama

© 2023 Sky Starlight CC BY-NC-SA

When I reached the fourth book in Girl in Red, Neville Longbottom and the Cherry Champion, I had a choice to make. It was the Triwizard Tournament, one of the biggest events in the series. At first, I was going with the obvious approach: Rose would be entered into the Tournament, disassemble the tasks with relative ease in ever more ridiculous ways.

But as I wrote different ways for it to go, I found that I didn’t really like any of them. I talked with my friend, who’s been my patient beta reader throughout the series, and she suggested “Why not have Rose build the tasks instead?”

Thus, I had my new path forward. As I recently finished reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire with my son, I keep thinking back to everything I’ve done to handle the Tournament, so I wanted to write a post about it for my wildcard week.

Champion Selection: The Chosen Ones

“What’s your name?”

“Fred Weasley.”

“How old are you?”

“Obviously sixteen,” Fred said, then clapped his hands over his mouth.

“You’re not old enough,” Alavel said. “Clear away from the goblet, or we’ll have to forcibly remove you.”

“Which I’ll enjoy, so it’s up to you,” Taltria added.

With Rose helping with the tournament, I thought I’d go the extra mile and have her help with the goblet as well. So there were a few extra precautions for someone entering.

In Luna Lovegood and the Maniac in Maroon (third year), Rose constructed a pair of animated suits of armor called Nimblewrights. They don’t need to sleep, so Dumbledore asked her to have them patrol the goblet of fire, providing a constant set of eyes in case someone tried to get around the protections.

Dumbledore still drew the truth line, but Rose added another layer of protection: a spell called zone of truth. It’s exactly what it sounds like; you can’t lie when you’re inside it. The Nimblewrights asked three questions: “What’s your name?”; “How old are you?”; “Who are you entering?”. If they didn’t like your answers, you weren’t allowed to pass.

Despite this, Barty Crouch Junior came up with a workaround. Controlling his father (Pettigrew had been caught, meaning someone had to watch Voldemort, so Junior couldn’t directly be involved at Hogwarts), Junior had him put a name in the goblet, transfigured the parchment so it would look like the bottom of the goblet, then set a rune on it that would fade over time. The instant the goblet was activated, the rune finished fading, the transfiguration spell wore off, and a name was registered.

However, Crouch fought back against his son and got enough freedom to change the name. It had to be someone at Hogwarts, and there were few names he could think of, so he picked the first one that popped into his head.

Harry met Professor Dumbledore’s gaze, but Professor Dumbledore slowly shook his head.

Harry frowned, then realized that he was sitting between Professor Dumbledore and someone else. Someone that was always so quiet that even Harry often forgot he was there. He slowly turned around and realized whose name it was that was on that parchment.

Professor Dumbledore wasn’t looking at Harry; he was looking at Neville.

First Task: Orb in the Arena

“The first task was originally going to be dragons. Dragons! Come on! How boring is that?”

“I can see why you would think that’s a bad idea,” Hermione said.

“I know, right? I’ve seen this world’s dragons, and they’re pathetic. In my world, they’re the stuff of nightmares. Little children are told tales of dragons to scare them into following the rules. If you saw a dragon flying towards you, you didn’t stop and check if it was one of the nice ones, you just ran for cover and hoped it wasn’t hungry.”

As with any transformative work, you’ve got to set yourself apart. Why am I reading this instead of the original? What’s different? Choosing Neville for the champion instead of Harry was a good start, but the first task had to be original, more or less, while still sticking to the restrictions of the story.

The main restriction was that the champions would still retrieve something that would later provide them a clue.

At first, I thought about other creatures I wanted to use. I didn’t think of anything that interested me, so that ultimately led to a dead end. My inspiration for the task really came from a friend of mine. I had mentioned I thought the dragons would be boring, to which he replied (sarcastically) “oh yeah, dragons aren’t enough. Why not make the walls dragons?”

A note to anyone that sarcastically makes suggestions for my work: I will always consider them.

The walls didn’t end up being dragons, but I liked the idea of the walls firing on them. But that wasn’t good enough; I decided I wanted the object they grabbed – an orb – to be airborne. Even then, I wanted more. So I let my mind wander, and eventually came up with more: let’s have it move.

So here’s what we ended up with:

The arena wasn’t anything special. It was mostly stone, with the crests of each school engraved in the center around a giant “T”. A blue orb sat in the exact center of the insignia.

The moment he stepped inside the insignia of the three schools, the blue orb turned red, and the field came to life.

Red cracks bled out from the orb and slithered towards the outside of the insignia. They branched out around the crests, reaching past Neville, as the orb left the ground, followed not long after by the chunks of stone formed by the cracks.

As everything took to the air, it all spiraled and whirled around the orb. Even the platform beneath him flew around the orb, nearly throwing him off balance.

Most of those chunks of rock fired either lightning, acid, or fire towards the orb, which itself had a field around it pushing out anything that got near. Those specific threats were chosen because in the world of D&D, those are three of the main energy types. This gave a hint to both Neville and the reader that Rose had built this.

Also, as Neville found out, once you grab the orb, the entire thing collapses.

Neville grabbed onto another boulder, then leapt towards the sword. He nearly reached it when another boulder fell onto him. He leapt back, then looked at the field. All around him, the storm was collapsing. He tried to escape, but another falling rock knocked him onto his back. He climbed to his feet in an attempt to escape, but with the falling rocks, he couldn’t get out in time. All he could do was grab the sword in one hand, and the orb in the other. He returned the sword to his glove and curled up around the orb.

The Orb: Problem Solving

“[The orbs] activate tonight, so it won’t be long before they start to work them out.”

“Are you sure? You didn’t exactly make it easy for them.”

“Still easier than the eggs would’ve been! How were they supposed to guess water?”

“Well–”

“They’d guess! It’d take them forever to work it out, and it all came down to blind luck! This way, they’ve got to work together, and I know they’ll figure them out!”

I went through a few iterations with figuring out the orbs. The idea was that I wanted a riddle still, but it wouldn’t be more or less blind luck figuring out to put it in water. So instead, the riddle appeared on its own after a certain amount of time, and they had to solve it in order to activate the orb fully.

But after looking at the completed book, I realized I could do more with it. Dumbledore wanted to bring the champions together. Rose would honor that, but in an unnecessarily complicated way, because that’s what she does.

So when Neville’s activated, this is what he saw:

P os lacx ophn crzxx Iiz E nvowy kkap Z ysks oj tyx dpunp Blm lofore zg los jwrb Bx fca herkf tm ozeemaam O sice kocc uol rgbf taxk mszy

That is a Vigenère cipher. It’s outside the scope of this, but you can look it up on Wikipedia if you’d like to know more. Basically, you take a keyword, repeat it as many times until it covers the entire message, then add it to the message to get new letters.

The keyword in this case – at least for Neville’s and Cedric’s orbs – was Hogwarts. For Krum, it was Durmstrang, and Fleur, it was Beauxbatons. In Rose’s head, that meant they’d have to compare notes and work together to figure it out. The boys did, but Fleur was too busy being competitive to want to help. With help, they worked it out (Although as Hermione pointed out, Rose could’ve made it easier and just given each of them every fourth word of the riddle).

Here’s the solution:

I am pale with grief But I never weep I fade in the light But thrive in the dark If you learn my identity I will show you your next task

I needed something that would work for an activation. That one was straightforward: the moon. Bathe the orb in moonlight and you’d get your answer. That one would arguably be easier to come across by accident (which again, never would’ve occurred to Rose), but fortunately, no one did.

Instead of them only knowing that it was the lake, they were shown images of what they’d have to handle. Specifically, I wanted the path to the center to be revealed to them, otherwise it’d be blind luck (again) that they made it to the right place.

First, he saw a clock indicating eleven o’clock, which faded to an image of the Great Lake. In the image, he descended into the depths of the lake, coming to an abandoned underwater civilization. A platform stood at the middle of the ruins, upon which there were four people tied to poles. He couldn’t see the faces of the people, but they weren’t struggling, so he assumed they were unconscious.

The people became smaller as the view changed to show the ruins again, revealing underwater mines around the ruins. The four prisoners vanished from the platform, and a large vortex descended on the ruins, taking the mines with it. It all grew smaller and smaller as he returned to the surface, then the clock reappeared showing twelve o’clock. The moment the minute hand struck twelve, the whole thing was washed away, leaving the orb as it was.

Second Task: Girl at the Bottom of the Lake

“It’s regarding one of your ideas for the second task.”

“Which one?”

“The one that’s less likely to get them killed.”

Rose frowned and tilted her head.

“The one that doesn’t involve monsters from another world.”

“Oh, that one!”

This one is the most similar to its counterpart in the original book. Its still the Great Lake, they still need to retrieve someone from the bottom and bring them back within an hour. I’d considered the Forbidden Forest instead, but there’d be some issues. My issue with it was that Neville had already spent tons of time in the forest while Rose got him ready for the first task. She wouldn’t have been allowed to do this if the second task was in the forest. The issue Dumbledore would’ve had would’ve been that relations with the inhabitants of the forest would’ve been strained by Hogwarts deliberately dropping people inside.

So the lake it was. But Rose, being Rose, couldn’t make it that simple for the champions. My first thought was mines. My second thought was a maelstrom. My third thought was a kraken. I liked them all, but knew Dumbledore would not let her use them, so I got rid of the kraken. Fetching the hostages was still too straightforward, too simple, especially since the orb had shown them the way (again, removing part of the guesswork from this task – Harry only figured it out because Myrtle pointed the way). I wanted another challenge to it.

Back in first year, I’d invented something I called a “dimensional prison”. It’s an experimental spell developed by Professors Vector (Arithmancy) and Babbling (Ancient Runes) that takes a slice of the world and puts it in another dimension. In order to escape it, one must counter the runes that hold it in place. While this is going on, the prison is drawing its power from its occupants, slowly draining them.

I’m sure you can guess what’s coming: the hostages were put inside this, but with some modifications. It activates once a champion draws near, and puts him or her into a separate prison. The only escape is to leave with your hostage, but there are still apparently four hostages.

The four most important people to each champion were conveniently missing from the second task, reappearing as they all dove underwater. Once they reached the prison, one real hostage was there, and three fakes. The fakes all had something wrong with them: missing freckles, not wearing their signature jewelry, etc. It was up to the champions to decide which one was which. If they chose wrong, the prison would sap more of their strength.

I had another issue with the second task: it was boring. Not for the champions, but for the audience who are staring at an empty lake for an hour. They can’t see below; the merpeople had to tell Dumbledore that Harry had tried to save the other hostages. So I asked “Can Rose fix that?” Of course, as Rose would say “I can fix anything!” There’s a spell in D&D called Scrying, and more importantly, a stronger version of it called Greater Scrying. It displays an image of a person as they are at that moment on some sort of reflective surface. Like a lake. The greater version of it lasts for well over an hour. Rose cast this on the four champions and had the image come up on the lake, allowing everyone to see what was happening.

Once all four hostages had been saved, the maelstrom started. I didn’t want to put them in a maelstrom the entire time, because I couldn’t see any of them surviving it. Even then, Neville ran into some complications. Unlike in the original, Neville doesn’t have anyone helping him along. Rose knows what’s going to happen, but she promised Dumbledore she wouldn’t tell anyone. He isn’t good with magic, so he wields the Sword of Gryffindor, which he’s allowed to use in the tasks in place of his wand. He got a vine of Devil’s Snare that he attaches to the hilt, with the other end tied to his wrist. For this task, he has a piece of leather that attaches to the hilt. The leather has runes carved into it, enchanting it so that when he squeezes it as hard as he can, the sword will fly until it reaches air. This is how his hostage, Luna, Cedric, and Cho escape.

With the maelstrom pulling him back, Neville has to release himself from the sword so the other three (all tied to the sword with the vine) can get to the surface. Neville himself fails this task. The gillyweed wears off, and he drowns. Unbeknownst to everyone except Luna, Rose brings him back to life before anyone can verify that he’s dead. This decision I made for two reasons. First, I wanted it to feel more like it was challenging him. In the original, Harry feels too talented. He’s a fourth-year, but he’s beating six- and seventh-years. That doesn’t seem realistic; it seems like he’s using his main character powers to win. Second, I wanted to underline how out of touch Rose was getting. Sure, the other three had managed to make it to the surface, but Rose was more excited about the task than she was worried that her friend had died.

D’so Thorthen alhel.

Luna caught Rose’s voice over the sound of the crowd and Professor Dumbledore informing them that there was no need to worry. A moment later, Toad started coughing and spluttering, and Madame Pomfrey rushed to extract water from him.

Toad climbed shakily to his feet, aided by Madame Pomfrey. As he joined the other champions and scores were announced, Luna and Rose exchanged glances. Luna knew no one else knew what Rose had said, but she did. She’d heard almost the exact phrase in one of her dreams. Except Rose hadn’t been standing over Toad, she’d been standing over Princess.

Luna also knew that the maelstrom had been Rose’s idea. So for the second time that day, Luna looked at Rose and wondered if she were still looking at her sister.

Because “d’so Thorthen alhel” was Dwarven for “I wish Toad were alive.

Third Task: Horror of the Clockwork Maze

The Triwizard Cup stood in the middle of the Pitch. It shone blue light in an aura around it, but none of them saw a maze, just an empty pitch. What they did see was Professor Dumbledore next to a red button that was bigger than Dumbledore himself. As they walked to a clearly marked boundary, he pushed the button, and the whole pitch began to shake.

Solid black blocks erupted from the ground and flew into the air. One by one, the blocks collided with one another, then began to shift around. They encircled the trophy, blocking it from view. Entire groups of blocks shifted at once as more joined to form a larger block. The way the blocks moved with one another reminded Neville of something. Neville couldn’t tell exactly how big they were, but he guessed they were exactly five feet by five feet by five feet, since that was how everything seemed to break down in Rose’s world.

The large block rose into the air as more blocks joined it. As they did, Neville realized why they seemed familiar. He’d seen the same motion hundreds of times since his first year at Hogwarts. Staring at a peculiar girl playing with a toy her best friend had gotten her for Christmas.

It was a puzzle box. The final task, the grand maze, was a giant puzzle box.

I LOVED THIS TASK!

Throughout Cherry Champion, the characters commented on how Rose had been absent for most of the year. With Hermione absent from Hogwarts, they’d assumed Rose was spending time with her. Hermione, to whom Rose was generally honest, knew the truth: Rose had been obsessing over this task.

That being the case, it had to be something spectacular, something that screamed “Rose made this”. The only requirement I had on it was that it had to be a maze, and the Triwizard Cup had to be inside.

At first, it was going to be a simple maze, filled with constructs made by Rose. To start with, that was good enough, until I got there. Then I started to think bigger.

In Dungeons and Dragons, there are creatures called clockwork horrors. They look like large beetles, with saws or pincers. There are four types, getting progressively more difficult. The strongest of the bunch is called an Adamantine Clockwork Horror. I’ve seen this thing nearly wipe out an entire party before. Instead of using a variety of monsters for Rose to make, I went with the horrors. As you get deeper into the maze, they got stronger, culminating with the Adamantine Horror. My original idea was to have it guarding the cup, but I thought “No, I can do better”. So I put the cup inside the horror.

Then there was the maze itself. When I put thought into it, I realized making it 3D would be perfect. But I went one step further, doing exactly what Rose would do: I made it a puzzle box, shifting and sliding while the champions were inside, filled with deadly constructs that made the other traps look like nothing.

But it’d be boring if they were wandering a maze forever. The inside of the maze is bathed in light. It starts purple, and, as the champions soon realize, it changes through colors of the rainbow, ending on red (Rose’s favorite color) in the center. So you know when you’re getting closer by the color, and the bigger constructs trying to maim you.

Neville meets with Fleur part way through the maze, and they work together to reach the center. When they get there, they find the cavern with the Adamantine Clockwork Horror. The four champions had to work together to beat it; it could (and did) easily take them on individually.

I worked through several iterations of this scene alone, trying to get it right. Having five moving fighters made it tricky. I won’t go into the details of writing a fight scene; that’s another post.

I did have to work out how Neville won this fight, because he does win the tournament, but it couldn’t be too easy for him. I went through several drafts until I got it right.

Unlike Harry, Neville struggled with each task. The first task collapsed on him. He pushed the rocks away and dragged himself to the starting tent to complete the task. He had to be pulled out of the second task after drowning. I wanted this one to be just as dramatic, making the readers wonder if he’ll make it out.

Fleur went down after Cedric stunned her. She was so determined to win, she was going after them rather than the clockwork horror. The horror took out Cedric, then disarmed Neville (not literally). While trying to work with Krum, Neville got stabbed in the side. He tried dragging himself back to the sword. He – and I – knew that if he could get within 30 feet of it, he could summon it to his hand (thanks to an enchantment Rose put on it).

I wanted him to fight for every inch. Not only did that show how much he’d grown through the book, but it gave more weight to his victory. I had an advantage that the original did not: this was Neville’s character arc for the story. It came to a dramatic finish, rather than feeling flat in the original. I believe this is because the original didn’t end with the tournament. It was only a stepping stone to Voldemort’s resurrection.

“I survived,” Neville breathed.

He drove the sword into King Bug.

“I lived.”

With a loud grunt, Neville forced the sword through King Bug’s body.

“And I win.”

King Bug stood motionless in the cavern, but after a few seconds, it began to shake. Pieces fell off its body, one by one, until the gem on its head fell. Once it hit the ground, the gem shattered.

The cup sat among the wreckage, casting a bright blue light on the red of the maze. The glow got brighter, and Neville saw his wounds heal. He reached down and picked up the cup. When he did, blocks shifted around and formed a pathway out of the maze. He and his recovered companions walked out into an applauding crowd.

Conclusion

Writing the Triwizard Tournament took a lot of time, but it was one of my favorite parts of Girl in Red. It still is. That’s not even mentioning everything else that went on in Cherry Champion.

I’m keeping that in mind as I go forward. All the work I put into my new stories will be worth it, like Cherry Champion was.

#Essay #GirlInRed

© 2023 Sky Starlight CC BY-NC-SA

I find that one of the hardest parts of writing is writing the first draft. Whenever I look at it, it’s hard not to keep comparing it to a final draft of something, or even to the idea in my head. On top of that, I keep thinking that it’s only the first draft, so there must be a second, third, and fourth. Which means this one will likely be tossed. Does that mean this time is wasted?

The point of a draft is to get ideas onto paper. It doesn’t have to be perfect the first time. If you think your entire draft is perfect, you probably need to raise your standards and expect more of yourself. That’s not to say parts of it won’t be, but you can’t expect perfection of yourself every time. Especially with the first draft, it’s important to get words on the paper. You can outline it first, but I’ve found that, while helpful, I discover a different direction for the story while I’m actually writing. So instead, get words on the page, and don’t worry if it’s not perfect. You can fix it later while you’re editing.

Once a draft is finished, it provides you with an opportunity to look back on it. With Villain in Vermilion (year six of Girl in Red), I had a first draft done long before I had to post it. This gave me the opportunity to make necessary changes before I had to post it. In Cherry Champion (year four), I was able to stretch out a few plot lines, rather than have them scrunched up at the end, as they had been in my original draft. Finally, there’s the ending to the series. I’ve written several different endings, finally settling on the one that made the most sense. That’s not wasted time, that’s what it took to get to the end for me.

But there will be times when your original idea isn’t working. On my current work, I ran into that problem. Specifically, my main characters were boring. They each had exactly one mood, and each scene was a repeat of the one before it because of that. I rethought the entire story, and realized that my antagonists were not only redundant, but both were unnecessary. I got rid of them, then added more depth to my main characters, which allowed them to grow in different ways. It means a lot of what I wrote can’t be used, but that wasn’t time wasted. What would’ve been a waste was if I’d realized there was a problem, but carried on as though everything were fine.

While writing drafts may feel like a waste of time for little reward, they’re necessary for a good finished product. I look back at Girl in Red, and the parts with which I’m the most happy are those that got first and second drafts. Not all of it did, and the series suffered for it. But I learned from my mistakes, and I hope other people will too.

Remember, this is for your writing. It’s worth the effort.

#Essay #Advice

© 2023 Sky Starlight CC BY-NC-SA