Dulls vs. Extras

Remember when I talked about how my world building was basically trash in Crossed Souls? I’ve had to do a lot of exploring of the world in my head to figure out all sorts of little details of Willa and the guys’ environment to change while I’m doing rewrites.

One of the things that kept coming up was the question do the humans know supernaturals exist?

I went back and forth, but ultimately I wanted them to know of each others’ existence, at least on a basic level. The humans don’t know about all supernaturals or all powers, but they know people who have powers that mere mortals don’t exist.

But then this created a whole other issue. What do I call each side? Humans? Mortals? Supernaturals?

So many things had been done before, and I had a discussion with my 11-year-old because they read a lot of fantasy which was helpful in fleshing out what I didn’t want to call them.

Ultimately, I decided on Dulls and Extras. Dulls for the non-magic/non-supernatural humans because the Supes find them horribly “dull.” They don’t have powers and they’re not really worth interacting with because of it.

For the supernaturals, they go by “Extras” because they’ve got all the human pieces but with all sorts of extras sprinkled in. They’re “extraordinary,” hence “extras.”

So, if you re-read the updated Crossed Souls, or skip it but end up reading Bound Souls, you’ll see these terms quite a bit throughout the series, and now you know what they mean.

Magic

When you invent a world of magic, it can be pretty intimidating. Anything goes, so where do you begin?

I saw this meme once that inspired me when I was figuring out what sort of magic would exist in the world of Twisted Soul Magic.

So this was sort of the basis for Willa’s shop. I wanted her to create things that would make everyday life so much better if they existed. I didn’t explore it a ton in Crossed Souls, but I plan to in the future books just as fun little nuggets here and there of how much more awesome it would be to be an Extra instead of just a Dull (aka a mortal or non-magic user).

If you were creating a magical world, what would it look like? What sort of power would you have? And what kind of product would you wish existed? Leave a comment and let me know!

Character Flaws

When I start brainstorming a series, that can look different every time. For Crossed Souls, it started with the characters—Willa specifically. I saw her initially as a sort of cupid-like character who was destined to help people find love while also being a person who couldn’t find it herself. She’d never known what being in love felt like, and was a really lonely person.

So many of the reverse harems I read involve a female main character who’s badass almost right from the beginning. That’s not who Willa is, though. She’s just not. She’s been beaten down by life, and instead of rising to the occasion, she’s been defeated and is sort of just trying to get through her days and appreciate the things she does have and the people who are in her life.

Unfortunately, this means that sometimes life just happens to her. She doesn’t know how to handle it when life throws her a massive curveball she didn’t expect. Because she’s naïve and been sheltered her whole life, she doesn’t always make great decisions. In the first book of the Twisted Soul Magic series, this means that sometimes she’s a pushover. She lets her guys make decisions and goes along with them because she’s just trying to learn how this new world works before she jumps in.

She’s cautious and inadvertently reckless at the same time because she doesn’t have all the information. She’s doing her best, but sometimes her best is frustrating because she doesn’t seem to get it.

Trust me when I say this is all part of the plan. Yes, I’ve got a plan for Willa and how she’s going to grow throughout the series. She won’t always be the clueless and frustrating heroine she is in book one. If she were, that would make for a shitty series, right? But… if she doesn’t start somewhere low, how can she have the journey that will make you root for her to have happiness and everything perfect by the end of the series?

You’d get just as bored if she was a badass from the beginning and stayed a badass throughout. So, while I know book one might’ve been frustrating, I promise things will get much, much better as the series goes on.