Activity

YOU RANG? *heheheh*
Oooh I love that clip of Chicago! Gave a perfect image of everything interesting, and kept a rather dull plot (some dude waking up in the middle of the night to normal ol’ Chicago gunshots :D) vivid and punchy and promising excitement.
I have several ways I use subtext. In my current WIP I keep using the image of a doll both to forward the witchcraft underlying plot and to symbolize manipulation or someone being dehumanized and I also use the word “doll” to connect plotlines that I don’t want to outright state are connected because that would involve too much preemptive explaining. So anyway this bit starts it:

He folded a paper doll, murmuring backwards as he worked, wizard spells inking through the fragile mote of shattered, soaked and dried wood making up burnished brown parchment. Paper dark eyes reflected light lifelessly as the pieces pulled together. Curling paper twisted into shape, with spindly parchment hair. A tiny red set of origami-like feathers netted in a small quiver for the soulless doll. Years ago.

And then I connect it to a particular character (my MC):

It’s the sort of rain like icicles that melts your bones. Been two years and nothing’s changed. Every sloshing clip clop sends a roller coaster through his heart. The shadowed lad coughs as his dripping cloak clings to his skin, clutching his sides and trying to muffle the sound. Everything a blur by now like looking through a foggy mirror. Down a dark street, mud tripping his torn boots. A susurrus echo rumbles under the pattering sound like fingers thumping on glass.
Dead if they find him. Used like a child’s doll.

I also used a lot of subtext to say he’s ill and close to unconsciousness without actually saying that and the image with the fingers felt more “haunted” to set the sort of “I feel like I’m being watched” feeling and slip into my POV’s paranoia and the sense of being hunted. I use a lot of subtext to prep plot twists too sometimes!

Another thing I really wanted to describe my characters without it getting in the way of the plot so I wanted to “show” my character was a very anxious, very shy person with a lot of secrets so I did stuff like this throughout his POV time;

Unsteady, with that weird sense of space and altered awareness from pain, Alessio glances warily along the inn before creeping down the staircase, clutching the rails for support. His thumb bumps the scar on his forehead thoughtlessly as he tugs the hood over his face. Ember eyes still in a daze focused on each step as if staring at no one would keep them from staring at him.
Dry air bashes him the moment he steps outside, curling burnt tangles of hair into his eyes again, almost concealing his scar.

And then I wanted to show more personality while normalizing his anxiety, and give a bit of a glimpse into his trauma and his twisted sense of humor too (I can go on and on and on and on about my cute little sarcastic and morbid sweet MC):

Today the air is so brittle and thick it smells like hot kerosene. It doesn’t bother Alessio at all as long as he can breath air that isn’t caged. And so, the day manages to have the audacity to fry him while he has the audacity to be defiantly unbothered by it. Quite a situation there they both would’ve agreed.
One thing that does bother Alessio though are the people coming and going through the dirt streets. It’s not busy but he’s not been out in the open this long for a while. Bright cloths. Most of them are dull, but he keeps noting flamboyant colors like the traveling striders wear. Ducking through a bazaar of woven rugs (“the best in Casumbra”) he touches edge of his hood as if it might have been jostled off by the atmosphere. “I feel like an imposter.” he thinks. He can hear some people draekon riding and some kids running and tossing a fur pelt across the road without looking up.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” He whispers to a woman yelling at one of the kids to get back to the fields. “can you direct me to the Library please?”
“Library who? Never heard it down here.” She says without bothering a glance at him until she’s scolded a boy for being irresponsible and not caring about their own well being. In the middle of it she trips and turns to him some irritably. “Say, would you keep your wulfling out of the way?”
Alessio drops his gaze to the fuzzy reprobate that, yes, is still following him.
“Ah–sorry. Thank you for your time.” He says, scooping up the wulfling. For some reason he feels followed, maybe because that’s his constant state. Alessio determinedly ignores it, trying hard to glare at the creature that keeps trailing him.
“See, that’s exactly what I was talking about. This co-dependent relationship you want to establish won’t help either of us.” He sets it on the ground, propping himself on his heels and almost playfully tugging the corner of the wulfling’s floppy bat-ear. “You can’t really learn to love anyone if you don’t love yourself first, so stop looking to others to supply that love. Accept yourself and just be real–”
“Are you… giving dating advice to a wulfling?” At the words Alessio stiffens slightly, unsuccessfully trying see the speaker through his peripheral vision through the hood of his cloak. Slowly he rises to his feet and slides his crisply dark eyes toward the voice, the man at the well earlier. Asrael, was it? In the heat of the day, Alessio can see a shiny edge of sweat along his thick muscles as the stranger seems to pretends to just be slouching off the wall of a building enclosing them. But there’s a very assessing air to his casually amiable demeanor.
“Yes sir,” Alessio murmurs, tilting a rye look in his direction. “I’m afraid I lost my sanity with my naiveté.”

…okok I just like talking about my MC (he’s adorable)!😂 But if any of that was useful statistically speaking…XD