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 its 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 hard on this story to make it creative and fun for my readers. Because of this, I adore it. It's one of my favorite pieces I've ever written. I want to do more with it and turn it into a novella or a novel. I need to have more 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 highly 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 regarding soft world-building, and I hope it shows in the story. Eva also came naturally to me because when brainstorming 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 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 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 story's beginning a few times before being satisfied, but I struggled with the ending. The ending plot twist happened at the last minute, so I need to build up to it more. I also struggled with a few of the secondary characters, especially Percival. I had his plan in mind but needed to figure out 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 regarding 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, I struggled with Percival's character in the story. How can I improve his role and give him longer screen time before I get rid of him? I 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!