On writing my first short story.

I have been writing for many years now, but only recently the thought of writing a short story came to me. I explained part of the reason in my about page already, but it is an excuse for me to write something in a short time, and then stop messing with it. I’m a perfectionist at heart and if given the chance I will spend my entire life trying to improve something. Regardless of this, I managed to write, edit and proofread an entire story in the span of a month, and I am quite proud of this. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Martyna for taking the time to proof-read this story and subsequently fix my atrocious use of commas. Without her it would have looked a lot less well written. (Kind of like this post)

I had several sources of inspiration for Firedancer Elena. The mysterious dancer I took from a game I played called Octopath Traveler. One of the playable characters there is a dancer and I love her character design. I also took obvious inspiration from Avatar The Last Airbender. The final bit of inspiration I took from an anime that I’ve been watching called Fire Force. It’s a show about people with fire related abilities, and one of the characters can trace signs in the air and then ignite the path her finger travelled. I loved that ability and wanted to somehow incorporate it into this story. So I took those bits of inspiration and integrated them into a story I wanted to tell about a monk that was unable to really fit in with the style of martial art that she was being taught. I love the idea of people struggling with one thing, only to find out that they are a lot more competent at something else. I think everyone has something they’re good at, it just takes a little while to find out what this is sometimes.

For October I am planning to try something different. Since it is spooktober after all, I figured I’d try my hand at writing something spooky. I have no prior experience writing something like this so it will certainly be a challenge. I have some ideas though. And I hope it turns out as well as Elena did, because I was quite proud of that one.

Someone did ask me if I planned to write more about Elena, since this looked like it was more of a prologue to a bigger story. I definitely have plans for Elena, but probably not anytime soon. I quite like the character and I think there’s a story there to explore, but with other projects on hand I don’t think there’s a lot of time for Elena. Elena does live in the realm I’m mostly writing about in my other stories, so perhaps we get a glimpse into her life that way. Either way, I hope you’re looking forward to it as much as I am.