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Melt - A Novel



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425 Reviews



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Reviews: 425
Thu Jan 05, 2017 5:33 am
Vervain says...



So one of my goals for this year is to finish one draft of a future novel. Long, short, what have you, I want to finish one, single, horrible, badly-written first draft.

Post it on YWS. Get feedback, see what people like, what they hate, what works and what doesn't. Edit it totally opposite to that, post it again, get totally different feedback.

You get the idea.

Or, well, you don't, because I haven't talked about it yet.

The idea: Melt. I'll post plot, character, and general writing whatnot in this thread, as well as updating it each week when I post a new chapter/scene/section of the story. This thread is to hold me accountable.

My first deadline: 1000 words, 7 January.
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Reviews: 425
Thu Jan 05, 2017 5:36 am
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Vervain says...



About the Author: Dude, just read my About page.

About the Story: This is the fun part. I don't have a lot figured out yet, so this post will be edited probably fifty million times while I figure it out.

What I have:
Spoiler! :
After her father is deemed an unfit parent, Lilli is sent to live with her mother in the big city. It's a culture shock coming from Small Town, USA, but that's not all. She's pretty sure it's not normal anywhere for people to fall from skyscrapers and run away unharmed. It's definitely not normal, judging from her mom's complaints, for corpses to go missing from the morgue.

And slowly but surely, the glass in her bedroom windowpane is melting.
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425 Reviews



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Reviews: 425
Fri Jan 06, 2017 7:16 am
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Vervain says...



Deadline 1 Met!

Scene: Melt - 1.1 - Falling Girls
[18+ for Language]

Word Count: 1206 (according to Scrivener)
Most Used Word: "Like"
Approximate Hand Writing Time: 1.5 Hours
Letters "E": ~601

Deadline 2: +1000 words by 14 January, 2017.
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425 Reviews



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Reviews: 425
Wed Jan 11, 2017 7:33 pm
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Vervain says...



Deadline 2 Met!

Scene: Melt - 1.2 - Falling Girls
[18+ for Language]

Word Count: 1169 (according to Scrivener)
Total Word Count: 2375 (according to Scrivener)
Most Used Word: "Back"
Approximate Hand Writing Time: 1.5 Hours
Unique Words: 569

Deadline 3: +1000 words by 21 January, 2017.
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425 Reviews



Gender: Gendervague he/she/they
Points: 50
Reviews: 425
Sat Jan 21, 2017 6:06 am
Vervain says...



Deadline 3 Met!

Scene: Melt - 1.3 - Falling Girls
[No rating this time!]

Word Count: 1163 (according to Scrivener)
Total Word Count: 3538 (according to Scrivener)
Most Used Word: "Down"
Approximate Hand Writing Time: 1.5 Hours
Approximate Number of Pages: 4

Deadline 4: +1000 words by 28 January, 2017.
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Sat Jan 21, 2017 6:32 am
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Vervain says...



Some brainstorming about what I have so far, and exploring characters. Enspoilered in case you want to find this out through painfully-written exposition instead.

Spoiler! :
Part of the reason I'm writing Melt as badly as I am is this: I'm winging it. I have absolutely no idea what's going on in this novel, besides the fact that in the world of Melt, there is normal, there is abnormal, and Lilli falls solidly on the abnormal side of that line.

Are there any normal characters so far?

No, not really. Everyone you've seen and everyone who's been mentioned this far (3000 words in) is strange in some way or another.

One of the characters I haven't had a chance to bring up much yet is Mark Lekseyev. That's Lilli's dad. At the beginning of the novel, he's lost custody of his daughter to his ex-girlfriend (and Lilli's mother) Catharine Moth, who ran away from their young family when Lilli was two. As a result, most of our interaction as an audience with Mark is going to be through Lilli's admittedly-warped view of him. He raised her as a single dad, working full time, homeschooling her for a few years until she was old enough to start middle school, and he's always been the most supportive person in her life.

With that suddenly ripped away from her, of course Lilli is going to be emotionally affected. I'm still trying to figure out how she's reacting to this sudden loss of her pillar of strength and support -- because of course Cate is going to try to replace Mark, but as long as Lilli is staying stone-faced and trying to stay strong, that's not going to work. But she's going to collapse at some point, probably after she finds out that -- spoiler alert! -- there's a lot of weird stuff going on in her family.

The girl who falls from the balcony is her cousin Evanessa. It's supposed to be Eva-Nessa, but she goes by Evan instead. Evan can change the state of matter of things that come in contact with her skin (more or less; that's a loose definition while I work on the fine details).

Catharine Moth has perfected the art of camouflage. She can disappear into her surroundings so smoothly that only the most adept of hunters can spot her -- if she hasn't spotted them first. It's not invisibility; it's adaptation.

Peter Sokol is particularly good at getting people from one place to another, even if the process is a little dizzying and mystifying. Most of the time he uses it to stay in the break room as long as possible before appearing at his desk.

Mark Lekseyev likes to pretend he can't see about five minutes into the future. It makes life easier on him when it's a total coincidence that he avoids deadly accidents and encounters.

Miss Jensen, as she is known so far, is a mystery to me yet. As is Kilroy, but trust me, Kilroy will be sufficiently frightening to make up for his drab existence to this point. There's another Jensen mentioned by name, Lilli's social worker, who may or may not be directly related to Cate's enigmatic boss. There are others -- there will be others, I should say -- but those are all I'm aware of so far.

And there are hunters, too. I'm unsure of what role they play in this society of conflict between abnormal people allied with the government and those allied with anarchic chaos; I'll find it at some point in the future.

For right now, this is just spitballing. For all you know, I could be lying. For all I know, I could change my mind somewhere in the next few thousand words and change everything entirely.

For right now, this is just a loose definition of the truth behind Melt.

Oh, yeah, and Lilli can melt things with her mind.
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Gender: Gendervague he/she/they
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Reviews: 425
Sat Feb 04, 2017 5:02 am
Vervain says...



[Extended] Deadline 4 Met!

Scene: Melt - 1.4 - Falling Girls

Word Count: 1192
Total Word Count: 4730
Lilli's full name: Ljiljana Jeanine Lekseyev.
Other Cool Stats: coming at a time when it's not 11pm and I'm not cleaning.

Deadline 5: +1000 words by 11 February, 2017.
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Reviews: 425
Fri Feb 10, 2017 7:42 pm
Vervain says...



Deadline 5 Met!

Scene: Melt - 2.1 - Followers

Word Count: 1108
Total Word Count: 5838
POV Character: Not Lilli.
Most Used Words: "could" // "couldn't"

Deadline 6: +1000 words by 18 February, 2017.
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Gender: Gendervague he/she/they
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Reviews: 425
Fri Feb 10, 2017 7:53 pm
Vervain says...



Another rambling update! Enspoilered in case none of you care.

Spoiler! :
We've finally met Evan! I mean, technically we met her in 1.3, but I don't count ten seconds of her falling from a window and running away as a real introduction. We pick up here a few minutes after 1.3, with Evan running from her pursuers and right into the loving--or at least strong--arms of her bodyguard, Suz.

Suz was a very last-minute addition to the story, because I went "it makes no sense for the Moths to let one of their children out unsupervised," and thus it happened that Evan managed to evade her bodyguard long enough to get into a very sticky situation with our hobnailed anarchists.

The living shadow guy may or may not become a main character. We'll see.

I'm so excited to be writing this again!
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425 Reviews



Gender: Gendervague he/she/they
Points: 50
Reviews: 425
Sat Feb 18, 2017 9:22 pm
Vervain says...



Deadline 6 Met!

Scene: Melt - 2.2 - Followers

Word Count: 1149.
Total Word Count: 6987.
Moth Family Politics: complicated.
Adults: disappointed.

Deadline 7: +1000 words by 25 February, 2017.
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You can't choose your parentage. But you can choose your legacy.
— Rick Riordan, The Blood of Olympus