MAY IS HOSTED BY WRITING TIPS BY WRITERS, Hand in Hand, DONALD MAASS' TWEETS ON CREATING THE PERFECT NOVEL ;) and SECTIONS INSPIRED BY THESE:
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| Ekaterina Sedia So, of course, today's post turned out to be long ;) |
DONALD MAASS WRITE TIP #95
Who in your story has been cast under a
spell? What locks that spell in place,
never to be broken? Break it.
“Don’t
be foolish, my beautiful girl. I am
magic. Magic doesn’t shoot out of the end of my fingers. I can't help myself,"
Tauran said with a shrug. “The more surface I show – the less I have to wonder
if my magic is working. I am my will.”
“So,
that’s your answer? Getting naked is the answer?”
“I am
all power,” he said. He raised an eyebrow as he rolled up his sleeve. “I’m thinking
dull thoughts like road kills and supermarket queues. Can you see the power
shimmer? I’m really trying to slow things down.”
Incredibly,
she could see. Like heat on a road, the rising power charged the air around him
– it played havoc with the light. “Oh!”
“I
can’t help it,” he said with a grin. “Some people have to work at their
talents. But, the goddess surely gifted me.”
Lyna
shook her head, something she wasn’t listening to, or looking at, was
important.
“Lyna?
What is it? Focus. Am I too turned up full for you?”
“No.
You’re not. This is crazy. Evil.”
He
stiffened. “Nothing about magic is evil.”
“How
you use it is,” she said, gasping as she realised how many times she’d witnessed
Tauran going to work. He pushed up his sleeves to get down to business. Her
stomach twisted. He opened a button at the neck of his shirt every time she
entered a room. She’d thought it was because her presence disturbed his
fastidious, buttoned-down nature. How wrong could she have been? He manipulated
her, and he thought nothing of it. Hell, he might not even be aware he was
doing it.
“Come
on,” Tauran said. “It’s no worry. I love you. If I keep loving you, I know
you’ll learn to love me too.”
She
smiled, but it was a sad cold thing. “I won’t. Can’t.”
“Lyna,”
he crooned as he closed the distance between them. “I know you’ll learn to love
me.”
She
shook her head. It was true she’d thought she liked him. Now she realised she’d
liked how he made her feel. But, he was more magic that man so how could she
know what was real and what was manipulation?
As
if he sensed her hesitation – which he probably did - Tauran laughed.
It
could have been magically enhanced, but he sounded so happy. Probably not for
much longer. Her heart ached. It hurt her to think about hurting him. What was that about? A shudder ran through her.
Really, surrendering to this glorious kind of love would be too easy.
“I
can’t trust myself,” she admitted aloud, but she really hoped she could. Hope.
That was a kind of magic too. She had to find a way to resist his formidable
power. After a life-time of neglect, it was time to knock the dust off a little
faith. Somewhere inside, alongside the belief that she had the ability to be
heard, were the words her NannaJan had told her she was going to need, one day.
But
Tauran’s hands were on her neck, running up into her short-cropped hair. He
cradled her head. With only the slightest of pressure he angled her ready for
his kiss.
Lyna
shuddered. The eyes that filled the sky above her were bright. His smile was
triumphant, as he lowered his head towards her.
Teeth
and tongue, his mouth was open. The scent of him made her head swim. Oh, no. If
Tauran opened his mouth on hers, if she tasted him, she knew she would be lost.
Forever.
“Lyna?”
he whispered. “Say, Yes.”
She
pulled her head back, her neck aching, her head full of sound. His voice rang
with a bell-like tone.
“No.”
“No?”
The fingers on the back of her head became a cage. “Don’t say, No. You can’t
mean, No.”
The
words filled her mouth. They echoed back from her aching heart. “Rush like
wind. Flow like water. Burn like fire. Settle like earth. Elemental Being, I
say be gone.” And then, as she blinked, he vanished.
DO YOU HAVE A CHARACTER WHO HAS TROUBLE WITH SPELLING?
CAN IT BE BROKEN?
