Apologies for the delay. I got sidetracked on a writing side-project that may or may not see the light of day. It’s a very personal project that may or may not see publication. So now, we focus on how the plot of Raven: Priestess of Nocturne came to be.
So, the plot for Raven: Priestess of Nocturne evolved slowly. I had the idea for the prologue far before I had the rest of the plot thought out. In fact, there were many directions I actually wrote before abandoning. Even figuring out the main conflict with Sekler was sort of a spur of the moment thing. Once I got the plot of Raven figured out, the rest sort of fell into place. The only things I knew from the start were that it should involve lesbian love, a battle against slavery, and those three rules of prayer I came up with, and I came up with the rest on the fly, essentially.
If you want to see the original ideas I had, download these ODTs. They don’t have viruses or anything, don’t worry: Raven ch 1 v2. Raven ch 1 Raven Ch 2
As you can see, they took a very different direction from our outwardly stoic protagonist’s final form. I threw them out simply because I couldn’t see a way forward with them and had to rework Raven’s personality to make the story work.
The end result was what you read, but it took several attempts. I’m willing to throw things out if they don’t work, but sometimes I don’t know they’re not working until I try to write follow-ups to them. Making Raven emotionally fragile was, in hindsight, a bad idea that limited the story far too much. This is why I refocused her into the emotionally guarded, strongly anti-slavery woman she became. Once I had nailed that down, things went more smoothly, though not without hiccups. I’ll talk about those when they become relevant
Regardless, as I wrote, I kept planning further and further ahead in my head, tweaking as I went. I planned out the final battle while I was writing the scene where Raven and Evi followed Tom around and decided that I wanted to defenestrate the guy. That was so satisfying to write, by the way.