Style: The writing style is generally simple and straightforward in tone. Jargon is usually explained but there are occasionally longer words just sprinkled in. There is a lot of attention to mundane procedural details, and sometimes entire paragraphs detailing or discussing models or spell theories.
Tone is generally pretty dark. Action scenes are clipped and quick with lots of things going on at once separated by short paragraphs of internal monologue and strategizing.
Process: Usually starts with notes in a notebook of ideas. Gets an outline, general clues and things. Once he decides to work on it, he'll write a few scenes he feels like, then start planning out the entire thing in notes during breaks. Writes a few scenes as exciting once he decide. Then starts at a beginning and writes a brief exposition-heavy introduction, leads to a scene or two. These go to Lizzie, Mallaidh, and/or Sona.
More scenes building tension, action, resolution. These are assembled in order along with outlines and notes and sent to Jeremy for content advice and to make sure them are coming across properly.
Back and forth with Lizzie/ Mallaidh/ Sona, occasionally Aeryn. Rewrites the beginning and important scenes. Will sometimes talk to Sawan or later, Sawyer, about it.
First full draft is sent to Ferdie for technical writing advice and comments. Edits are made, Mallaidh makes copy edits, and then sent out to Ferdie and Jeremy. Maybe once showed Jonah. Sona and Lizzie get his copy and then he just keeps it in a folder under his bed until inevitably stolen by Vespera/ Rhea/ Aidene.
Retelling of fairy tales? ←(Dragon Pitch: A feature on the different magical creatures at Hogwarts?)
Snow White as a veela Red Riding Hood + a werewolf Little Mermaid is a mermaid.
A Quidditch story. Referees find out that someone has sabotaged the balls: Once the snitch is spotted, the bludgers will target the seeker. A down-on -their-luck team that started winning shortly after the curses strives to prove their innocence. Something about the Witch Trials. A wizard searching for immortality has discovered a way to forcibly create ghosts when people die. As the number of ghosts grow over the years, they develop their own society and city. Elder Futhark runes are discovered on modern machines. Why?
Night Tide: Old Dennis Hopper film. Sailor, whirlwind romance. Captain tricks a girl into thinking she is a mermaid. Spoopy madam + tarot reader warns danger. People tell him her previous boyfriends were drowned at sea.
Posted: Sat Jul 13, 2019 1:20 am
"Dead Men Tell No Tales" Written: December 2043 - August 2044 (Mid year 1- End of Summer) Tags: murder mystery, thriller
Summary: A detective’s daughter goes missing. Ten years later, the father gets a call from her older self. He listens in fear because he was the one that killed her one dark night years ago. As the detective scrambles to piece together what happened afterwards, he reveals his own conflicted motives behind the murder and accidentally unearths evidence pointing to his guilt. Now pursued by his former colleagues, he meets and is killed by his daughter.
Notes: One of his first short stories. Quite a few cliches.
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Posted: Sat Jul 13, 2019 1:30 am
"Jharu" Written: January 2045 - August 2045 (Mid year 2 - End of Summer) Tags: murder mystery, suicide, broommaking.
Summary: A broom maker commits suicide. In settling the accounts for the workshop, her son uncovers evidence pointing to designs being stolen, and murder instead of suicide.
Notes:: The story contains a lot of miscellaneous detail about Quidditch and broomaking history. A lot of the mystery actually hinges on these tiny details.
The broom maker very vaguely resembles Aeryn, but with his own mother's personality.
"Jharu" is "broom" in bangla
Posted: Sat Jul 13, 2019 1:35 am
"Innocent Blood" Written: September 2045 - July 2046 (Year 3) Tags: murder mystery, law, ghosts
Summary: Ghosts (A poltergeist) commit a murder. A disgraced seer and a retired muggle attorney are the only ones who have a hint of the truth and have to prove everything before the only eyewitness turns the investigation into a vengeance to accuse his unfaithful but innocent ex-girlfriend of the murder.
Notes: Borrows a bit of imagery from noir films and has a lot on muggle law processes. It's very pessimistic but resolves positively.
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Posted: Sat Jul 13, 2019 1:40 am
"The Will of the Dead" Written: June 2045 - August 2046 (Summer after year 3) Tags: murder mystery, law, ghosts
Summary: (An unofficial sequel story to Innocent Blood) The Wizengamut members are trapped in the courtroom prior to presiding over the murder case. The ghost of the victim appears, and explains exactly what they want to happen, which, as established in the earlier story, is not the truth of the case.
Notes: A lot of it contains descriptions of the Wizengamut procedures, but there is a conflict showing spells to control ghosts. He later repurposes much of this story into a essays for Wizard Law and Ghouls and Ghosts.
Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2019 1:03 am
"Ansh" Written: December 2046 / July 2047 (Year 4 winter + Summer after) Tags: philosophy, magical creatures
Summary: People in an urban seaside city are suddenly doing strange but eco-friendly, pro-social things. People are almost strangely forgiving and kind-hearted. It turns out a mermaid has bottled and captured their voice and influence and is using it to try to make their lover’s home a nicer place. But the mermaid is dying--at the end of the tale, will the people stay kind?
Notes: An exploration of free will and the freedom to fall. The cast includes quite a few half-breed characters, inspired by his getting closer to Eion and his feature in the Daily Dragon.
First draft written over winter break and edited over the summer because he was starting the OWLs grind early. Written in more disjointed scenes from many different character perspectives.
"Ansh" is a hindu boy's name for "part/portion" and also "lot/ inheritance".
"Best Day Ever" Written: March 2047 (~Spring break if they get one) Tags: happy!, autobiographical
Summary: Just a really good day.
Notes: Based on a really great few weeks in November/ December 2046.
Referenced in "Of Patronus Memories, Sunsets, and Chocolate Strawberries" Inkfeather: He ended up pulling out his “Best Day Ever” short story and thinking about the real week back in fourth year it had been based on. Lizzie, walking into The Great Hall Monday morning, paint-stained and beaming: a set of five paintings to commemorate the final draft of his latest story—his first pieces of fan art, each painted with meticulous, breathtaking detail. He remembered Ferdie’s letter, positively glowing with extra, extra happiness and praise. How flattered he was when he found out Eion was a secret fan of Tanzil Rosescythe’s yet-unpublished short fiction. He remembered Aidene kicking down the Daily Dragon door and waving her first O paper in Transfiguration, then offering him cream puffs laced with Hair-Raising Potion— a direct application of a book he’d recommended her earlier.
But if he was thinking spells and magic, the best example that week was clear: Rhea’s Portare Flamma, immediate and wonderful. Her confidence in that moment was iridescent, and he still felt a small rush of pride for it, even though she was obviously casting more complex spells now. The rest of that evening had been pretty happy too: talking about sunrises and colors as they walked to the art club room. And her smile: pure, innocent, and beautiful.
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Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2019 1:04 am
"Reflections of a Comet 95" Written: November 2047, June 2048 (Year 5) Tags: death, broommaking,
Summary: A series of short reflections from the perspective of a broom, passing from owner to owner and throughout time.
Notes: Started as a short rant that he wrote after being stuck in a broom closet. Expanded upon later in summer. There are a few entries that are very dark and describe owners dying.
"Hallowed Feathers" Written: Started in October 2047 Tags: fanfiction, death
Summary: The start and outline of a Princess Tutu fanfiction where the characters get the Deathly Hallows. Dark Mytho, captured by the Raven, is the personification of death who charges his friends with assembling the Hallows to "save" him: Fakir gets the Elder Wand, Tutu gets the resurrection stone, Rue gets the Invisibility cloak.
Notes: Unfinished fanfiction. What is written involves some very disturbing scenes, including one where Fakir's hands are stabbed, cut off, and hung on the hands of a clocktower. The outline indicate more suffering and betrayal.
Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2019 1:15 am
"Sea Foam" Written: July 2048 - December 2048, edited April- July 2049 (Year 6) Tags: murder mystery, romance, mermaids, ghosts
Summary: A mermaid and a boy dying of dragon pox/ some magical disease fall in love. The story is their last five months together and trying to find a cure. They meet a potioneer who may have a solution to their particular case, but said potioneer is killed. As the boy goes about trying to find and stop the killer, the ghost of the potioneer and the mermaid race to save the boy's life.
In the end, the killer manages to stab and kill the mermaid before dying themself.
Notes: This is a dark story, featuring inferi, boggarts and curses. At the end everyone except the boy is dead. In contrast to any romance written in his old stories, the romantic moments which are actually really sweet and poignantly written (for some reason!). Some of the yearning and desperation is pulled directly from his own thoughts that year. He writes the last few sections at Rhea's bedside when she passes out from exhaustion. The first draft is a very tragic thing that he gives to Rhea in desperation before the Valentine's Dance. It's edited afterwards but retains the tragic feel.
Cast:
Rit (tradition, usually a girl's name) (vaguely himself)-- a human boy dying of dragon pox. Maya (princess) (obviously a Rhea-like) -- mermaid who sacrifices herself to save Rit, following stab wounds. Lahari (waves) (referenced on Verine/ Eliana)-- a potioneer-healer who uses inferi as hard labor. They are the first murder victim and spends most of the story as a ghost. Ximena (hearken/ listen) (obviously Sona)-- a cursebreaker who is clawed to death by inferi. (obviously Lizzie) -- an auror investigating the murders who is strangled by apparently a poltergeist (obviously Aldrick that is good at herbology)-- an herbologist who is mangled to pieces by a fanged geranium, which itself is burned. (obviously Jonah) -- a journalist covering the murders that is poisoned and drowned.
Snippets: “I would have always chosen you,” Maya told him, her voice hoarse and distant, more a breeze than water at that moment. She put her hand on his chest, covering the curse that darkened his heart.
Rit felt her melting back into the water and tried to push her away. “No--no-- Don’t, I told you--”
Too late. With a gentle smile, Maya dissolved into a wave of sea foam. As the cool foam fell on his bare skin, the molted marks evaporated, leaving healthy, fresh flesh. Yet it felt like a knife of ice ripping him up from within. Rit screamed into the night, the pain from losing his love greater than any pain his family’s curse had ever caused him.
Rit remained by the water’s side in a dead stupor long past when his tears had run dry and his body cried for food or water. On the fourth day, Lahari pulled his body away and nursed him back to health. But a hole had been carved permanently from where his heart was, never to be filled again in all his days.
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Posted: Sun Oct 13, 2019 8:15 pm
"1-person Hogwarts Series" Written: Over the 2049-2050 years (6th and 7th year) Co-Authored with: Sparrow Winchester Tags: screenplay/ script, history Summary: 1 person performance in which the history of Hogwarts is presented as a series of dramatic monologues. The actress plays as historical figures making speeches or soliloquys about major events or core subjects.
Notes: Written to help Sparrow study in her first two years, August only wrote a few of these before showing her his process of thinking through a subject or scene, then doing research to figure out a particular character or monologue. While many of them touch on spell theory or potions theory, there is a heavy historical grounding in all of them that reflects his own love of history.
It kinda works. Sparrow gleefully does her homework/ research for classes to write these scenes and then rehearses them as studying. She does tend to go off the deep end on some things and ignore others, but at least she's studying!
Retellings Series Written: Over the 2049-2050 years (6th and 7th year) Tags: mythology,
Summary: Simple retellings of wizarding and muggle myths. They mostly stick to the usual content, but the characters will have allusions to other myths and the short scenes are laid out as little mystery episodes.
Notes: Mostly done as homework submissions for Mythology in year 6/7. The content is very by-the-book and more interesting in rhetoric than in content, mostly because he was using it as studying.
Posted: Thu Jul 16, 2020 11:18 pm
"Numbers and Heartbeats" Written: December 2048/ June 2049 - August 2050 (year 7 + summer post grad) Tags: romance, arithmancy, herbology, theory
Summary: A young wizard is crippled and near-blinded and kept at home, where he starts studying numbers to pass the time. His neighbor is a dancer who was in love with him, and starts bringing plants and taking care of him in the aftermath. The boy is frustrated and ungrateful, at first and breaks her heart, but he softens up and falls for her. He starts making predictions about what is going on by counting her steps and words.
Notes: Started as a little prose-poem about arithmancy and taking care of plants without sight.
Even the prose version is still one of his shorter stories in terms of word count, but written almost like poetry in places. Very nonlinear. There are a lot of arithmancy and herbology references woven in, and a few subtle references to potions and spell theory-- every specific word (e.g. henbane instead of dittany) is carefully selected for properties and mythological references. Putting together all the plants tells a story of its own of hurt and healing.
The poem version, written while Rhea is passed out in the hospital wing/ directly after he panics over her going missing, ends tragically, with the implication that one of them commits suicide. The prose version, started over the summer, ends with the two of them confessing their feelings and starting a relationship.
Summary: An auror investigates the robbery of a bunch of magical creature figurines. Main characters involve an auror (insp. by Lizzie) and a court scribe. The evidence points to a merman, but it turns out to be the court scribe, who stole the figurines as a gift then selfishly put the blame on the merman because he knows the merman won't be able to defend himself properly.
Notes: The first piece started since graduation, August is very excited to write this, but doesn't get much time with adjusting to work/ life. The morality of the theft is explored after hearing about another robbery case at work, and the characters point pretty clearly to himself and his friends.
This is one of the largest casts of characters he's working with, on par with Ansh, due to the number of suspects that come up. There are quite a few implied overlaps with characters from Ansh, and each of these suspects gets a lot more detail than before. The format is straightforward, with each suspect getting short mini-story about how they could have committed the crime in creative ways and what their motivations might be.
"Sunset" Written: October 2050 - February 2051 (Winter post grad) Tags: romance, multilingual
Summary: Straight sap about a boy pining for his long-distance lover and being reminded of her with every sunset. Sap. Fluff. Each stanza is another thing he loves about her. Short parts are written in various different languages.
Notes: Started as half poems and half just indulgent rambling, along with a collection of sunset descriptions. Rhea finds part of it during the winter? SOMEONE find this embarrassing fluff and tease him pls.
Anyways, he finishes, reorganizes, writes the entire thing in calligraphy. Then he chickens out and only mails the first and last few stanzas to Rhea as a Valentine's/ Second Anniversary present. It's also supposed to end with a bit of untranslated chinese: 我爱你, 亲爱的公主 ("I love you, dear princess") This too also doesn't get sent, and the full version remains hidden with the final story draft where Rhea can eventually discover it.
