Shaded Secrets Artbook

Shaded Secrets Q&A Part Two!

Back with Day 2! This was supposed to be released yesterday but I caught Covid over the weekend and felt like crap yesterday so I couldn't finish the questions. Because of this I'm extending the Q&A to Tuesday so please get in those questions guys! I particuarly love answering questions about specific characters so if you have any at all please submit them, I love talking about my characters and need something to do for the next several days while I recover from being sick :P

Question from Riverleen: How do you achieve smooth character interactions?

Dialogue-wise, I try to give each of my characters a unique voice, which is something I think helps move character interactions along. That can be by giving certain characters a slight dialect or disposition that affects their speech and actions and makes them memorable. It definitely makes scenes more fun to write! Another thing that I think helps a lot is having them talk like actual people. Circumventing correct grammar or the refined speaking patterns the canon books often use in favor of more casual speak helps distinguish younger characters from older ones, uppity character from chill ones, and so on, which also cuts down on wordy dialogue attribution and helps scenes flow better.

For example, if I have a scene with Slightstar and an unfortunate sap, and some quip like "The ones who know too much are the first to fall" is introduced into the scene, y'all know who said it. Clearly it's Slightstar, because over the course of Silent Shadows we've seen his affinity for increasingly flowery veiled threats materialize in a number of different ways.

In addition to this, you want to have a cast of characters that contrast one another. The inherent conflict in that is a great way to make scenes ramp up in tension while also flowing smoothly. Take this dialogue between Slight and Birchstorm in Chapters Four and Five of Silent Shadows.

"Ah, it seems I've been discovered. What a pity."

"What are you doing here? You know I don't want to talk to you, and I've told you before to leave me alone."

"That's no way to talk to your deputy...Oh, Birchstorm, why do you despise me so?"

"I'm not hearing this from you. Leave."

[...]

"I don't believe you understand...."

"And what don't I understand, Slightclaw? Care to enlighten me?"

"It's simple, really. Your disdain for me has become quite the obstacle, if you follow me. And I suppose those feelings will be burden you carry with you to your grave..."

[...]

"You wouldn't dare."

"You underestimate me. And you'll die for it."

Here, you can see the difference between Slightclaw and Birchstorm; the former is normally concise and stern, but is here spouting convoluted, veiled, and borderline melodramatic lines. He's in control here, he's planned this out [except for the Hailwatcher part, oopsie], and to heck with it if he's not gonna have fun while getting rid of his sworn enemy. Birchstorm, on the other hand, is on the defensive here. He's the concise, aggressive one now, trying to pry more information out of Slightclaw and knock him off his high horse by the sheer force of words alone.

Hope this answers your question, I could go on but I don't want to make this longer than it had to be haha

Question from Riverleen: How did you avoid cliches when writing the Shaded Secrets series?

One thing I think helped me avoid a lot of Warriors fanfic cliches is that I wasn't super focused on writing a Warriors fanfiction. That is to say, I was more focused on using the Warriors worldbuilding to tell my own story than to adhere too strictly to what had already been established. There's also the fact that a concerning amount of fanfic cliches revolve around romance and building up to romance plots, something I hate writing.

Also, there was a list of topics important to me when I started writing the trilogy, and here's the list [some of these things will be relevant later in book 2 or in book 3 so if you don't recognize the theme yet don't worry, you aren't missing anything]:

1] an opportunity to introduce some allegorical observations about how us-versus-them mindsets and by extension fear/paranoia-fueled discrimination fracture a society

2] the ways in which power corrupt a mind, psyche, and heart

3] good male character representation

4] the true toll war takes on a society

5] other spoilery things that will be discussed at a later time

What I try to do with characters is make their entirety easy to condense into a sentence, but then giving them character beyond that. Here are some examples:

Hailwatcher: anxious, horrendously scarred child doctor and witness to several gruesome crimes. There are things I don't even need to being up in this, like that he's functionally orphaned or half-Clan or victim of heavily implied physical/verbal/emotional abuse prior to the book [note that whenever Raggedfoot makes sudden motions or approached him he recoils defensively] becuase the basic description draws you in and then you learn about the rest of Hail's character from there.

Raggedfoot: stubborn, short-tempered morally dubious jerk. In reality Raggedfoot is much more layered than he comes off, though we won't get to see a lot of his character until later.

Slightstar: stonefaced, sharp, and possibly-sadistic chessmaster with indeterminable ambitions. Slight is also more emotionally driven than he may seem, particularly by

vindictiveness and contrarianism, but again we'll see more of that later

Rosebush: soft and sweet tiny lady who loses her brother by way of her terrible husband. Rosebush, I think, is the most surprising of the lot; she successfully escaped an abusive relationship with the kids and Hailwatcher and dooesn't go out of character while doing so. You definitely shouldn't screw around with her, small and fluffy as she may be.

Ivyhawk: sardonic, possibly depressed smart-aleck who somehow got into the medical profession. Beneath his tired, unimpressed demeanor, Ivy's packing a sharp mind and a surprising amount of big brother energy, which is fun.

Featherstar: stern, serious leader with a scarred pelt and a checkered part. What's fun about Featherstar is that she seems poised to fall into the strong female character trap because of her presentation, but is a whole lot beyond that. She has a dubious backstory hinted at by a few cats I won't name that'll be revealed slowly throughout Sneaking Suspicions so there's that

Rabbitwhisker: unbothered, sarcastic old guy who may or may not be visually impaired. Rabbitwhsker is also a fun one, since he's jaded for reasons no one currently knows and cares about his weird little medicine cat family in the most roundabout way possible. He doesn't seem to like Hailwatcher, but seems concerned for him when the medicine cats conduct an investigation, even cursing audibly when Ivyhawk discovers Hailwatcher's blood smeared on a rock. He has a big heart, though covers it up with sarcastic remarks, dirty looks and workaholism.

Question from Riverleen: What was the process you used to make the plot skeleton?

All my 'Planning' documents follow the same format:

Quick summaries of each POV character's arc

Allegiances, to which cameos and the like are regularly added

Chapters [mapped out in a vertical 3x??? table that has the categories of 'Chapter Name, Synopsis,' and 'Status' [completed, in progress, or blank]

Some short character bios near the bottom for MCs and relevant supporting characters

And that's it! The only extra thing I normally have are note docs filled with subplot ideas and where they'd be placed in the story.