Multimedia Novel: Can you keep a secret?

elevator pitch

Years after a rift shattered a circle of friends, one of them - Earth - is found dead, branded a suicide. But when strange notes and cards from the old game that once bound them together begin resurfacing, the surviving friends realise someone is watching - and knows what really happened, what truly caused the rift.

Secrets, rage, broken hearts, and betrayal, not everyone is willing to face the truth. But it all began much earlier, with a fire, a disappearance, a game of cards, and an innocent small town.

Told through dual timelines and different perspectives.

Edited version.

I be continuing~

I’ve been rereading the first few chapters to get back into the whole world and the characters, and I found one of my favourite lines in Chapter Two. Perhaps that's so because it explained the next events oh so well, but in such an incredibly vague way.

Rain clings stubbornly to the immaculate glass, orange-blue threads in the dim morning light. Jupiter sits cross-legged on the covers, her chin tilting toward the window. A strand of hair slips free and tickles her cheek. Secrets. The drops on the window remind her of secrets - circling, slipping and always leaving a stain behind.

That is a super well written paragraph. Are your characters named after planets? Excellent!

thank you @Tikaya! As for the planet names, the answer is yes and no XD At the very beginning, I didn’t have names for my characters yet, they were just pieces of the plot. So I used planets as placeholders - and they fit the vibe, so they just stuck.

I had written a couple of scenes and put them all over one document (Google creating tabs in docs is the best thing that ever happened in writing history) and I’ve started putting everything together so I can create an outline of all the chapters I have.

That way, I can see which ones are missing + which plot twists still need to be explained + “mundane scenes” I still have to add just because + everything else. AAHH, this is exciting. And a lot lol

There are two major events crucial to the story: The Fire and The Disappearance of someone (note to self add this in the new elevator pitch). And I’ve been considering merging them. While I have twists for both, they center on different people: first, the fire swallows Mr Red whole, and second, there is the disappearance of Pluto (codename, or else it defeats the whole purpose of the twist xp).

Mr Red is less important than Pluto, and the Circle (the five friends) is responsible for both and the game is involved, other than that the events share little. Nothing significant happens between them, aside from the fact that they instill great fear in the fragile hearts of my poor characters, which makes the plot feel like it’s dragging at that point.

So my ideas are
1) Pluto dies in the fire while Mr Red fades into the background.
2) Pluto dies after the fire, and the Circle covers it up as a disappearance plus Mr Red dies a few years later (red herring)
3) *need to come up with a third one

The circle of friends grew up together in a small town along the coast. After a rift formed between them, some went to the city. Eventually, all of them gathered there once again for the final act. Going through my napo poems, and this particular one fit the spiral of events