What ho, my friends! We’ve come to round four of this month of tag catch-up. In December, Deborah O’Carroll @ The Road of a Writer included me in the Snippet Tag (created by Madeline J. Rose).

The rules are as follows:

-Include the graphic somewhere in your post (or make your own, just so long as you include a link back to Madeline’s blog).
-Answer all the questions, however you want to. Creative interpretation is key here! You can use the book you’re currently working on to answer the questions, or other books you’ve started or have written.
-Tag 2-5 other bloggers.

I wanted to feature The Brightest Thread, seeing as it’s my primary writing focus right now, but I didn’t want to limit myself to just one story (nor did I want to bore you all with nonstop gushing about Luci and Hadrian and spindle trees and dreams). So to diversify things a bit, I thought I’d bring in my other two fairytale retellings (both novella-sized): Blood Rose, and The Glass Girl. I haven’t discussed either of them a whole lot on the blog, so it’ll be fun to share a couple of glimpses.

Although I must admit, after skimming through them in search of snippets, I cringed to myself at the stories’ weak spots. Yet it was encouraging at the same time to see that I have grown and made progress since then.

Without further ado, let’s get on to the questions. My {comments} are inserted in fancy shmancy brackets.

1. Share your most gripping, fascinating, and hooking first line of a story.

Not in centuries had the mountains rung with such gladness.

–The Brightest Thread

{This remains one of my favorite first lines.}

2. Share a snippet that literally just crushes your heart into a million feelsy little pieces.

She was Iroran—not one of the thousands he’d always yearned to help—and yet she, too, was chained. And he could break those chains.

“I must break them,” he whispered to the shadows.

Hadrian threw on a cloak, stuffed crushed gildroot in his pocket, and snatched a pack for provisions. As he rushed down darkened passages, his heart beat painfully in his chest. Strange—he was sure his heart had been stolen by the weeping maiden in his dreams.

–The Brightest Thread

{It’s off to the rescue!}

3. Share a snippet that makes you want to shout to the world that you’re SO. HAPPY.

But time went on, and I learned to find happiness in what I had left. I spent hours in the studio with Father, helping him stoke the furnace and learning how to use the glassmaking tools. While his team of six workers mixed ingredients, poured molten glass into molds, or formed vessels by hand, I stayed at my father’s side. Watching. Experimenting. Learning his magic. He was so skilled, sometimes I thought he was a Vibrant, a legendary individual blessed with supernatural powers. But of course he wasn’t – Vibrants were only fairy-tales, after all.

Whenever I tired of the furnace’s heat, I would make my way to the shop at the front of the building, where daylight played over Father’s brilliant wares. Crystal clear goblets, painted dishes, and multihued vases were artfully arranged in the front windows. Prisms and ornaments dangled from the ceiling, throwing rainbows and spots of color across the walls. Glass trinkets and baubles and figurines graced the shelves like little treasures dropped by fairies. If I wasn’t spending my day in the studio, I was whiling away the hours in that wonderland of color and transparency.

–The Glass Girl

{From the opening act of my Cinderella retelling. Although the story bears many flaws, the visuals in this scene capture a childhood happiness that I still love.}

4. Share a snippet that gives a bit of insight into one of your most favorite characters ever.

She entombed the star in her fingers. No, such hopes could not be afforded. Not when death lay weeks away, immovable as a mountain. Hoping would only make it more painful when it came.

Her wrist tingled where Hadrian’s fingers had touched her. Strong and slender fingers, calloused, with dirt under the nails. He liked digging in the dirt. He liked making things grow.

“I’m just a dream to him.”

Luci curled into a ball, imprisoned star pressed to her sternum, and tried not to think of the prince who plucked light from the heavens and asked for her name.

–The Brightest Thread

{Luci just breaks my heart. She spends far too long pushing away exactly what it is she yearns for.}

5. Share a snippet that literally melts you into a puddle of adorable, squishy, OTP mush.

The first thing she noticed in the transition from sleep to wakefulness was pain—in her head and in her right foot. Emi moaned.

“Good, you’re awake.”

Prying her eyelids open, she struggled to work out where she was and what had happened. A soft pillow cushioned her head. Whose bed am I in? She tried to rise, but lightning seared inside her skull. “Ow.” She covered her face with her hands.

“Just stay still,” Will said. “You knocked your head.”

“It feels like a rock bounced off me,” she muttered, peeking at him through her fingers.

“I think it was the other way around.”

–Blood Rose

{In case you didn’t know, OTP stands for one true pairing, and refers to a fictional couple you love. In this case, I still adore Will and Emi together. The beginning stage of their relationship is so light and fun compared to what comes later. Heheh.}

6. Share a snippet that gets you beaming with pride and you’re just like yep, I wrote that beauty.

Long-forbidden memories tugged at him, and for a moment he relented. They drew him back to hazy summers, when laughing eyes teased him and a girlish giggle chased him down the corridors. When all it took was a plump red apple or a daring climb up the wall to enchant her. How distant those days seemed. Years and use had polished the memories to a sheen, softening their edges and lending them the golden air of dreams.

And yet for all their beauty, both idealized and real, these echoes of yesterday brought with them a sharp pain. For always the summer was swallowed up by winter. Forest romps, once spirited adventures, became attempts at distraction. Her laughs grew less frequent. Unfamiliar faces passed through the manor, arriving confident and departing solemn. Hushed whispers, closed doors, forced smiles, lingering glances…

Thus, summer died at winter’s hand. And then even winter surrendered to darkness, and the night reigned supreme.

–Blood Rose

{Still a favorite excerpt of mine!}

7. Share a snippet of genius, deliciously witty dialogue between your characters.

Luci eyed her company. “Master Boris.”

Her tutor raised his head. “Yes, Princess?”

“Have I ever mentioned you have the nose of a pig?”

Boris blinked and touched his round, upturned nose. “I—no, Princess, you haven’t.”

“I think it goes lovely with your squinty little eyes.”

Aleida hiccupped, but Luci suspected it was a cloaked giggle.

Boris’s face reddened. “Er, thank you, Princess.”

“Alucinora,” Mother said. “I’ve never heard such an insult leave your lips.”

Luci fought back a grin. “I was merely pointing out his natural talent.” In truth, every time she sat under his schooling, she couldn’t put the image of a pig out of mind.

Aleida’s shoulders quaked.

Mother set her fork down with a clang. “Alucinora, perhaps you should keep your compliments on others’ talents to yourself.” She forced a smile. “After all, today is about you.”

–The Brightest Thread

{When a princess “blessed”–or in her mind, cursed–with the gift of diplomacy finds a way to repress her gift for a day, and is finally free to speak her mind . . . well, that’s when the fun begins.}

8. Share a snippet that makes you feel like an evil genius for thinking up such a malevolent villain (Mwa-ha-ha!)

Lady Lurline stepped closer, seeming to tower over me on my little workbench. With her ebony hair swept up on her head and her sharp nose pointed down at me, she made me feel like I was under the shadow of a large raven. “Do not question me, Cinderella,” she hissed. “If I ask for something, you give it to me.” She put one hand over my burnt one and squeezed hard, her fingernails digging into me skin. “Do – you – understand?”

Something inside me finally cracked. Father’s death had shoved my heart into a fiery furnace. Then the Lady’s demands had yanked my heart out again into instant cold. I should’ve known that such an abrupt change would cause me to shatter like glass that hadn’t been cooled properly.

I stared up into Lady Lurline’s dark eyes. Isadora, Mysteres do exist. Your mother is one, the devil. Her grip tightened. I glanced down and saw little beads of blood where her fingernails had pierced my hand.

“I will ask you once more, Ellesandra,” she whispered. “What is your recipe?”

“I’m not going to tell you.”

She flung my hand away and stepped back. “Then you have brought this upon yourself.” Fingers splayed and palm down, she extended her right hand. Her skin seemed to darken, first to ash grey, then to coal black.

I jumped off the bench and backpedalled, heart racing. My thought had come true!

She began chanting. “Fires hot and rocks so deep, thunderclouds and skies that weep – to my side you now amass…”

My legs hit a bench, stopping my backward path. Whimpering, I raised my hands in a weak attempt to protect myself.

The Lady’s eyes glowed yellow. “…Turn flesh and bone to limbs of glass!”

Blinding white flashed across my range of vision, bringing with it both searing heat and glacial cold. A scream – my own? – pierced my eardrums. Pain lancing through every nerve, I collapsed on the floor.

–The Glass Girl

{Probably the best scene involving Lady Lurline.}

9. Share a snippet that leaves you breathless, in a cold sweat with action-induced intensity.

The twinge grew to a throb beating in time with his heart. The air thinned; [Will] sucked in a shallow breath. “Emi, there are…things…I need to…explain.” He blinked hard, tried to clear the fog enfolding his brain.

She shook her head. “I think you’ve explained enough.”

“No, there’s…more,” he grunted, swaying on his feet and gripping the bars for balance.

Roar.


Take.


Kill.

The girl said something, but her words sounded garbled and strange. Will stared down at the floor and fought off the mounting wave of bestial desire.

Run.


Own.


Fight.

It descended all at once. Tearing, rending agony; a maelstrom of crimson. He dropped to the ground, felt the vibration of a growl low in his throat.

Clawing at the stones. A howl streaming from his lips. Blood rushing through his veins. Red.

Stone rose up on either side, hemming him in, trapping him. Muscles bunched beneath his skin. He threw himself at the bars.

Live.


Kill.


Flee.

He crashed against the walls. Pain flared. He lunged again, snarling, scraping, panting.

A sound, high and offensive to his ears, knifed through the air. He turned. A she-creature cried out in a language he didn’t know. He crouched there, staring at her. Heat radiated from her flesh. She was alive. She was prey.

Lips peeled back in a roar to end all roars, he slammed into the bars. They quaked but held firm. The she-creature stumbled backward. He smelled fear.

Prey!


-Blood Rose


{I think I was almost breathless when writing this scene.}

10. Share a snippet of a most interesting first meeting between your characters.

“Are you alright?” the dove asked. It wasn’t a bird, but a girl standing pale in the moonlight, golden-red hair loose and windblown. As if suddenly aware of his gaze, she turned her back, but not before he caught a glimpse of rainwater eyes.

“It’s you!”

She stood with arms crossed and spine rigid.

“You’ve been haunting my dreams,” [Hadrian] continued. “Who are you?”

“My name matters little.”

“It does if it belongs to the one who rescued me.”

“Falling would’ve woken you up, not killed you. I hardly call what I did a rescue.”

Hadrian sidestepped in an effort to see her face, but she turned too. “Since this is a dream, it makes no difference if I know your name.” But never before had his dreams been so lifelike. What could have inspired his mind to conjure her?

After a moment, her posture relaxed. “Fine. I’ll trade my name for three items from you.”

He chuckled. “One for three? You sound like a valley bargainer.”

“Sensibility isn’t required in dreams.”

–The Brightest Thread


{I’m so looking forward to expanding, perhaps even changing, their first meeting. A dream realm allows for some pretty fun experimentation, a strange and otherworldly backdrop to the beginning of the story’s central relationship. Yay!}

Thanks for reading! Now the time comes to tag some fellow writers . . .