Writing Process: "Werewolf"

The novella “Werewolf” was written in the “Pantser" method, one of the 3 ways to develop an idea into a story. That is: writing "from the seat of my pants", discovering the story, letting it grow organically in the telling.

Of course, there are spoilers, so if you haven’t read the story yet, do that first, using the link in the first sentence of this post.

CHALLENGE

Writing Prompt: Since this was a serialized story, I used multiple prompts:

Part 1:

• Write from the 2nd person ("You") and present tense ("You see...", "You say...", "You run..."  etc) point of view
• An outdoor nature setting
• A dangerous animal (or monstrous creature of some kind)

Part 2:

• One character tells another character a story
• A great loss
• Bittersweet memories

Part 3:

• A dead body (who is it?)
• The killer is among us (or not?)
• A dream gives insight (maybe)

Part 4:

• Temptation leads to betrayal
• Setting a trap
• Resurrection (a character thought to be dead is alive) and liberation

CONCEPT

The concept started with the song "Werewolf" on Fiona Apple's album "The Idler Wheel ...

I picked the title plus two lines from the song lyrics that I wanted to work into the story somewhere:

The lava of a volcano shot up hot from under the sea.

Nothing wrong when a song ends in a minor key.

I thought of "Werewolf" as introducing characters who will be revisited in two future stories, also inspired by Fiona Apple songs ("Periphery" and "Regret"). As an experiment, I wanted the narrator point of view to be 2nd person ("you") in this story ("Werewolf"), then 3rd person plural ("we") in the second story ("Periphery") , and first person ("I") in the third story ("Regret").

The characters will age across the three stories. In this first of the triptych of stories, we see the characters as youthful forces of nature, heroic revolutionaries in an unnamed country's war for liberation. 

The war of liberation theme made me want to (lightly) emulate the style of Hemingway writing on the Spanish Civil War in "For Whom The Bell Tolls" and his short fiction, including:

• The Denunciation
• The Butterfly and the Tank
• Night Before Battle
• Under The Ridge
• Nobody Ever Dies!

GENRE

• Crime (mystery, thriller) 
• Literary Fiction

CHARACTERS

I used a combination of free association and name meaning research to come up with the names for the characters and from that the character descriptions 

• Rollo Frank - a young, free-spirited, firebrand idealist. His first name name is part Rollo Tomasi (from LA Confidential), part Rollo May, the existentialist philosopher, who worked with Victor Frankl, which free associates to the last name name Frank connoting the meaning of "straightforward, direct, unreserved, without inhibition or subterfuge". The first name Frank means "free man".
  
  
• Bice Bardi (her first name pronounced "bee-che", not "baize") - a beautiful young woman with copper-red hair, pale flawless skin, pale coral lips, emerald eyes, loved by the unnamed narrator and Rollo Frank (and, in his own way, the painter Gratia). Her name, Bice Bardi, is the married name/nickname of Beatrice di Folco Portinari , aka Dante's Beatrice, the incarnation of beatific love in his "Paradiso", the object of courtly love in his "Vita Nuevo". 
  
  
• Unnamed Narrator - a true believer, follower of the cause, and 'Disciple' of Rollo Frank, part of his inner circle. What is kept hidden until the end (so it's a slightly unreliable narrator ) is that the narrator is a woman, in love with Bice.
  
  
• Gratia - the painter. Gratia is his artistic nom-de-plume (nom-de-brush?) and means (in Latin) either "grace" or "thankfulness" or "sake" as in Ars Gratia Artis (art for art's sake). His real name is Otto Tellich, which is a wordplay on Autotelic (Greek: having a purpose in and not apart from itself) and in reference to Paul Tillich, theologian author of "The Courage to Be" (a Christian answer to existentialism) which inspired Rollo May, psychologist author of "The Courage to Create". Gratia is the hidden center of the broader imagined story (across all three: "Werewolf", "Periphery", and "Regret"), so more to come on him. 
  
  
• The other characters grew in the telling of he story, since I was writing in the "Pantser" mode. 

OPENING LINES

Next, I did some freewriting of the opening lines that came to mind, to get a sense of the narrative voice, the characters, and to begin to shape the story.

Here is the original freewriting, which is not too far from the final version in the story (it was originally done just to get a sense of writing in 2nd person, present tense):

"You wake to the singing. The soft voices have infiltrated your dream, become part of it, carries you with them into the waking world. You, who normally sleep heavy and wake from a deep, black, unremembered. This time, because of the singing, the dream is still with you, all of it clear, remembered whole, like a giant mural in your mind. Then the shot rings out, and the vast mural of your dream vanishes from memory in an instant. You sit up straight, wide awake now."

WRITING THE STORY

I used my favorite all-purpose note-taking and composing app, Obsidian.

Since this was the Pantser method, I only had the character notes, the setting in the unnamed country's war of liberation, my notes on where I felt this story may go across "Werewolf", "Periphery", and "Regret",  the lines from the song lyrics that I wanted to work in, and a vague idea of the way a werewolf might be part of the story without it actually being a supernatural horror story. With that I started writing, and the story took shape in the true Pantser way, growing organically, discovering the story as I wrote it.

Resources

Here are some other resources that will be helpful as you write your stories.

MY FAVORITE ALL-PURPOSE RESOURCE

The Writer's Treasure Chest - everything in one place, curated, organized, this is a great reference for all things writing craft, with tons of prompts, plot/character generators and other tools to inspire you to write great stories.

RELATED ARTICLES

Here are some articles that will be helpful as you work on all the aspects of the writing craft and your writing process: 

• Write Fiction Faster! — How to Speed Up Your Story Writing 
  
  
• Need a Great Idea for Your Next Story? Try the Story IDEA Formula
  
  
• From Idea to Story: 3 Methods to Develop Your Story Idea 
  
  
• How to Write Characters Who Stick in the Reader's Mind 
  
  
• What Makes a Good Story? — Great Scenes! Here's How to Write Them
  
  
• Make Your Story Sing — Write Great Dialogue!
  
  
• Flash Fiction: How To Use It To Supercharge Your Writing 
  
  
• Blast Through Writer's Block: How to Get Unstuck 
  
  
• Find Your Stagecoach — How to Master the Art of Writing Fiction

FREE COURSE, GUIDE AND WORKBOOK

Do you want to write fiction faster, while practicing your craft and your writing process to consistently get better? Check out this link to the "Write Fiction Faster ... and better" guide and workbook, which comes with a companion course with 23 bite-sized video lessons and 4 worksheets.