My Writer's Speaks:

        Evangeline's Flame was inspired by a prompt I got in a prompt book, The Genre Writer's Book of Prompts and Story Ideas. Fantasy prompt 77: "A hunting expedition goes awry when it's organizer reveals they are hunting a mythological beast". It was also inspired by a song by Three Days Grace called "Infra-Red". The idea for the flames in Eva's hair came to me when I was thinking about red-headed Fantasy characters. Red = fire. I worked very hard on this story, to make it creative and fun for my readers. Because of this, I absolutely adore it. It's one of my most favorite pieces I've ever written. I want to do more with it in the future and turn it into either a novella or novel. I haven't had enough of Eva's adventures. My goal for this story was to show my readers just how important love and flaws are to a character. Eva is extremely flawed. She gets a bonus with her flames. I also wanted to teach my readers how to write Fantasy. It takes a lot of work and imagination to pull off.

        The world-building for Evangeline's Flame came very naturally to me. I've had plenty of practice with my other Fantasy books. I've been told that I'm a natural when it comes to soft world-building, and I hope it shows in the story. Eva also came naturally to me, because when I was in the brainstorming process a few weeks ago, I knew exactly who I wanted her to be… a girl with the power of infrared. Axis was also a fun character to write. He reminds me of so many teenagers in movies and TV shows who have an insane crush on a girl. His flaws were also fun to put together. When we were given this assignment, my writing was rusty, because I took a break last semester, so I did not know what I wanted to write about. I then found my prompt books, and I spent a day going through them, choosing my top three prompts, and making my final decision. After that, I brainstormed the basic idea of the story. It went through a few title changes before I settled on Evangeline's Flame. All my ideas came to me when I was out exercising and listening to "Infra-Red" on my phone.

        I rewrote the beginning of the story a few times before I was satisfied with it, but I struggled with the ending. The ending plot twist happened last minute, so I think I need to build-up to it a bit more. I also struggled with a few of the secondary characters, especially Percival. I had his plan in mind, but I did not know how soon I wanted it to play out. Therefore, my call to my readers is to help me figure out how to improve Percival's character (I do not want to cut him) and to give me some ideas to play around with when it comes to the ending.

Questions for Improvement:

1. I've always struggled with the "show, don't tell" rule in writing–enough to be called out by judges. This partly has to do with my writing style. While I think the "showing" is improving, I don't think it's enough. What do you guys think? Do you think I "tell" more rather than "show", and if I do, what can I do to stop myself from making this common mistake?

2. As I mentioned before, I had a hard time with Percival's character in the story. What can I do to improve his role and give him longer screen time before I get rid of him? I really do not want to cut him.

3. How should I approach the plot twist at the end of the story in the rewrite, when I turn it into a novella? Should I have clues leading up to it, a prophecy, etc.? Hit me!