#sundaysnippet - from Gryphon of Glass

[ellenmillion]

Gryphon of Glass is at 9k, but I'm rearranging my schedule to give my first readers a little more breathing room on DPL, so I'm going to aim for 14k this month instead of the 10k I was originally going for. PLUS finishing the opening chapter of The Dragon Prince's Bride, which is about half finished.





“We’re having a girl’s night,” Daniella scolded.

“It’s like a bachelorette party,” Heather explained. “Gwen’s last night as a single woman.”

Gwen felt the words hit her stomach with more chill than the ice cream and she stared at the melting bowl with dismay. Tomorrow, she’d be...what? A key? It was clear that everyone expected her to be firmly attached to Henrik from the moment they met.

It was worse than her mother’s not-so-veiled suggestions that an arranged marriage with a nice Korean man was better than a lifetime of being single.

What if they didn’t like each other? What if they hated each other? What if she simply couldn’t bring herself to care about him? What if her inability to love him torpedoed their chances to stop the darkness that was going to invade their world in a few short months when the boundary thinned?

It was an insane amount of pressure.

Comments

[kelkyag]

<twitch>

[ellenmillion]

Love at first sight is part of the Zoe formula, but I like to stop and question it once in a while. If I'd been writing this series as Elva, I'd already decided that the two would end up with a nice, close, completely platonic relationship and Gwen would have ended up romantically with someone else entirely and the last book would have had a queer relationship. But formula! So I'm just pushing the destiny doubts. I am at least giving them a good long chance to become friends in this book before PRESSURE OF FATE sets in.

[kelkyag]

They haven't even seen each other yet! At least some of the snippets that have gone by have suggested that who one's fated love is is not so predictable? Or are there multiple series with different mechanics?

[ellenmillion]

Ah, yes! This particular series has a very different setup than most of the others - it's a mirror-universe sort of portal fantasy, and these two people just happen to be sort of in lock-step and our heroes cannot access the magic of this world without their key. The first two books, they didn't know that about each other, they just felt Super Special Instant Attraction. But Gwen knows all this in advance, which is sort of fun to work with.

In Shifting Sands and Green Valley, they usually (but not always) knew what a mate was, or their animal would tell them.

In Royal Dragons, the bond is a magical spell that sort of sees into the future and sets up specific matches that work out the best. It makes them know each other and feel what the other is feeling/possibly future feelings.

It's a fun trope to play with. I feel like there's still a lot to do with it, even if it does have certain limitations.

[kelkyag]

Ah! Clarification appreciated, thank you. Somehow I thought all the Zoe series were set in the same universe. :)

And yes, genre-aware characters can be quite fascinating.