Young Writers Society

I feel like I've made a thread for this novel in the past, but the only ones I've found that were related to it were nicknaming polls. So here I am once again, this time with a newly revised plot and set of characters!



Asmira Sapienti's life has been defined by three things: her abnormal upbringing, the loss of a childhood friendship in the summer before seventh grade, and the discovery of magic in that very same summer. All of this likely can be attributed to the lack of a parental figure in her life, as her older somewhat-sister (a distinction her sister frequently makes) Rosa taught her to love her independence and to stand up for herself. While Rosa certainly had good intentions with this teaching, it's cultivated in Mira stubbornly believing that it's wrong to want to be alone - which is why she hates Kentaro Hinamori with a passion.

Kentaro Hinamori, up until seventh grade, had a relatively normal life. He lived with his mother and only occasionally heard stories of his father, but he was content with just his mom. But then a kidnapping by an organization said father was involved in led to him getting the type of secret that should have been fiction instead of fact: when Kentaro is sixteen years old, his body is going to be taken over by the demon prince of a faraway world. So he did what any panicking teenager did best - he distanced himself from everyone he knew (except his mother, because she would never let him get away with that). Though it was a desperate, foolish hope, he believed that being away from others would limit the effect the demon would have when he inevitably took over.

Though their stories are seemingly unconnected, a shared tattoo of a crystal in front of an empty hourglass makes them realize they are more alike than they ever realized. Together, they'll have to discover the secrets behind their perspective pasts - even if it means pushing past three years of resentment and guilt.

But the demon's arrival is drawing closer, and a darkness has begun to creep into Mira's magic...

Speaking of old nickname threads, the one for the demon prince can use a little more love. Please let me know which nickname you like the best, or if you have any other suggestions.

As the tag on the thread suggests, the main cast are all queer in some way. Mira identifies as bisexual and/or biromantic (still deciding), Kentaro was accidentally written as ace (thanks to me being ace myself) and the demon prince is probably the walking dictionary definition of disaster gay, as he's a disaster and he's gay.



I've always thought that Kentaro's mom is queer in some way, and I think Mira's somewhat-sister Rosa is also queer. I'm just not entirely sure what they identify as.

I'm not sure how to describe my usual writing style, but I think I want to try adding the quirky touch some of my favorite novels have. I can't quite describe what that touch is, but it's something I've always loved and want to partially replicate.

Ultimately, I want this story to have a lighthearted tone, but not shy away from danger/angst throughout the story itself. Each of the main and some of the supporting characters have been through some kind of struggle that they're in the process of overcoming, and I want to show that there's hope for people like them by the end of the novel.

I was going to make a post detailing the magic system I was thinking of for this novel, but this post in my old LMS thread does a great job of explaining how it currently works. You might even recognize a name or two from this story in there~

I try to keep the magic system constant throughout all of my stories, but there a few extra details in each one and/or don't work exactly the same because I haven't figured out ways to get around those problems without drastically altering the plot.

But the magic system mentioned in that LMS thread was devised after I started really focusing on this novel, so it should all be constant to how magic works in this story.

This novel isn't for LMS but shhh I'm posting in the thread because of the novel hype beginning to emerge in this section of the site.

I haven't really made much progress with this novel so far, but I did come up with an idea I mentioned on my wall - it's set in my home state right now, and I wanted to incorporate some of my state's more beautiful and unique features. It's admittedly just a handful of state parks right now, thanks to those being where I've spent most of my childhood.

I won't refer to them by name because of privacy issues, but I might bring them up from time to time when talking about how my novel is coming along.

The current start to the novel is a camping trip in a state park - two of the three key characters are going to bond over some camping escapades that were partially inspired by what I observed during my last camping trip to that state park just a few days ago.

I'm really excited about highlighting what I love about a state no one else seems to really enjoy like I do.

Mira's a very bold character. She's not really good at fitting into a crowd; I don't think there was ever a point in her life where she was. Besides her personality - which is heavily focused on her finding strength/joy in her independence - her appearance always tends to draw attention to her. She's one of the few kids in her school with dyed hair, and her outfits never fit the latest fashion trends. Her current favorite style of clothing is her denim jacket, a skirt, t-shirt and sneakers. She has been known to wear a denim skirt with the jacket, but it's becoming a rarer and rarer occasion lately.

Magic-wise, she's a general magic user. Another term for that is spellcaster; as long as she knows the words and the ending result, she can cast a spell. But spells aren't always the easiest to find. She also finds a challenge in a recent side effect of casting magic - her spells always have a little bit of darkness in them now, and she has absolutely no idea why.

Mira lives with her somewhat-sister Rosa Rayne, who's technically her legal guardian. Her parents died before she was born - Rosa says that they were both scientists, and that her mother took Rosa underneath her wing when Rosa was very little.

She might be considered a bit of a tsundere, given how abrasive she can be, but she's not really one - she just really doesn't like Kentaro.

Speaking of which...




Kentaro is good at fitting in with a crowd - or, rather, good at being invisible in one. He's managed to avoid any close connections with his peers for years. Mira's the only one who's put any effort into a potential friendship. Even if he didn't intentionally do that, he'd still be ignored - Kentaro's a shy character who doesn't easily open up to people unless he sees some kind of similarity. Once you get to know him, however, he's a pretty nice and funny guy. Not enough to be a comedian, but enough to make you happy that you're friends.

He uses specific/elemental magic - his element is fire. He's good at avoiding it, but the room does get a little hotter when he starts getting emotional.

(Most of the time, it's just when he gets embarrassed or is feeling uncomfortable.)

Kentaro lives with his mom, Shiori Hinamori - Hinamori is her maiden name.




It's hard for Asteri to put his life before into context, given that his soul has resided within Kentaro's body for the past four years. He never really caused trouble before then, but his current fate has made him more than a little salty. Asteri's known for being the most emotional of the group. Mira's good at masking her emotions and Kentaro's good at hiding them, but Asteri frequently gets overwhelmed. He's the impulsive hot-head, and the most frequently offended - it's not hard to get on his bad side, but it's also not too hard to get back on his good side.

Like Kentaro, he's a specific/elemental magic user. His element is ice. Also like Kentaro, the temperature of the room changes depending on his mood - if he gets too emotional, it usually gets cold enough to see your breath in the air.

As of right now, he's currently taking a backseat to everything that Kentaro does, but, if all goes according to what's been foretold, it won't be long before he's the driver.




Rosa's the one connection that Mira has to her heritage, and probably the reason why Mira's turned out so differently than most people. Her "parenting" has been bizarre at times and great at others, but overall she's done her best at raising Mira. She doesn't talk about her past a lot, but she has mentioned that she used to do lab work. She's also mentioned that she spent her early years in France, which is where she met Mira's mother. Mira's always been intrigued by that.

If she has magic, she hasn't shown it to Mira.

But that's not to say that Mira hasn't caught glimpses of it before.

Besides that, she also has a habit of talking to herself, and she drinks copious amounts of coffee.




In previous drafts where Kentaro was taken right to the kingdom Asteri's from, Shiori was known for being a terrifying, powerful woman in the magical world - she defeated all of the demon kingdom's guards on her own, rescued her son, and then did such a good job intimidating the entire group that no one ever came after her.

That's not true anymore, but it still holds true to her personality: she's a fierce protector and an awesome mom. Kentaro definitely bragged about how cool she was growing up. She and her ex-husband split up right around the time that Kentaro was born due to him spending too much time at work.

(He passed away shortly after that.)

Since then, Shiori's worked numerous jobs to support herself and her son. Her biggest dream, however, has always been to open some kind of cafe, and she finally managed to do that when she and Kentaro moved to Wildegate. It's wildly successful, and the hours are good enough for her to have more time with him.

She's the one who gave Kentaro his fire magic. She's a lot better at controlling it than he is, but there have been instances where the room has gotten really hot when she's more emotional than usual.

I finally found some inspiration! I almost always find at least one work by someone else that inspires me to write my story, but I hadn't been able to find one for this novel.

Then I read Hooky by Míriam Bonastre Tur over on Webtoon. It doesn't match all of the elements of my story - especially the parts with Kentaro - but I don't really need inspiration for all of them. What Hooky works really well for is Mira's story. She wants to learn everything that she can about magic while also making friends, but there's a dark side to her magic that she can't control yet. Hooky definitely diverges from the story that I want to tell with her, but it's cool comparing her story to Dorian and Dani Wytte's stories in the web comic.

This isn't exactly an update on my writing progress, but I just started writing as Kentaro in a chat-based roleplay server over on Discord, and I'm really enjoying the struggle of capturing his newest iteration.

I already posted these on my wall, but here's some hairstyles I've been tossing around for Mira - I just know I want it to be colorful and short.

Important update!

The title for this novel is tentatively Undying. There's another novel out there with the same name, but it's the second part in a sci-fi duology. Undying should work perfectly for now, and I can always change it later.

Important update! 2.0

I'm now calling this book Just a Little Optimism. The title came up when I was trying to come up with a name for a completely unrelated thread, but it just works really well for this novel and doesn't share its name with any other story.