Behind-the-Scenes: Portrait of a Kirin · 12:05am Nov 9th, 2020
I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m what’s called a discovery writer (or a pantster); as such a lot of my writing at least starts off with characters and/or a situation and I just start writing to see what happens.
Sometimes along the way I find that I’m on the wrong route--for example, one of my Berry Punch fics was written in the wrong person, and I couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t working like I thought it should until I figured that out (and that’s not the only one that’s changed before publication).
Which brings us to Portrait of a Kirin.
The version you’re seeing is the third version. I had the general idea down, and the idea that I’d open with her rearranging the pillows. The language barrier was important, as were the facts that she was good at miming and liked talking, singing, and hearing conversation, due to her time silenced.
Since it’s short, I figured y’all might want to see the previous two incarnations. Warning--they’re not proofread at all, and I’ll only do a limited spellcheck (if it underlines them in the blog post). Also, there might be inline notes, and [SOFT BREAK] is my way of notating bullet point breaks (or emojis, depending on the story) versus the hard rule.
Pillows
Admiral Biscuit
She always arranged her pillows before getting into bed.
She’d lift them up with her aura, her field, her TK, examine them, sometimes poke them with a hoof, then stack them. Two high, one on the side as a reserve, and the rest tucked in the corner as spares.
Then she’d get into bed, and once she’d established herself it was my turn. I’d pick up the cue from how she was positioned on her pillow stack, how she was facing, how she was curled.
She talked a lot, but I couldn’t understand what she said. It went both ways; she didn’t know my words, either. There was a barrier that spoken language couldn’t quite cross, but which body language easily transcended.
That she was better at charades and expressive motion bothered me when I thought about it. I had hands; she had to make due with clumsy hooves, and yet, every motion spoke clearly. A hoof tapped against the bed or a foreleg traced in an arc--as vocal as she was, it felt like she had developed mute, even though that was contradictory.
Tonight was a body-pillow night. My body. Her two carefully selected pillows were only a temporary resting spot for her head. As soon as I’d picked one of her spare pillows--compelling [W/C] it to the same scrutiny she used--and laid my head down, she reached a foreleg across my stomach and rested her head on my chest.
I reached across her back. When I first met her, the scales there were an oddity, almost off-putting, and even as we got closer I hesitated to touch them. Scaly things were things to fear, not to embrace.
And yet, they fit with her dual nature.
She let out a happy sigh and nestled against me.
Some nights she was a very active sleeper, kicking the covers off or shoving pillows off the bed. Occasionally she’d kick in her sleep; I had a few fading bruises from that. Didn’t matter; I’d take a hoof to the thigh any day.
Her pillows v2
Admiral Biscuit
She always rearranges the pillows.
Each one is lifted in her field, poked with a hoof, and stacked or rejected until she has a perfect pile.
[SOFT BREAK]
I can’t understand her language, nor can she understand mine. She knows this, but that doesn’t stop her from talking or singing--she likes to hear her voice. Or mine; when I speak, her ears are always attentive. It’s as if she fears that if we let the language barrier persist, we’ll forget how to talk.
It doesn’t matter, at least when it comes to understanding her, understanding what she wants. She’s good at pantomime, expressive enough that I can get a clear meaning every time. Sometimes she’ll say a word to get my attention, and then tap a hoof on the couch, a clear invitation to sit down.
And when I do, she’ll curl up on my lap, tuck into herself, and let me pet her mane, let me run my hand down the weird scales on her back, scales that don’t belong on an equine but which suit her perfectly. They can be rubbed in reverse, but it’s not comfortable for either of us. She growled and shook her head, and I got poked for my experiment.
[SOFT BREAK]
She has a beautiful singing voice. I don’t know the words she’s singing and I wish that I did. It brings to mind a sylvan grove, an elvish village, and sometimes I think that I can almost understand her words, maybe not with my mind, but with my soul.
Besides her magic, her cloven hooves are more dexterous than I could have ever imagined. Sometimes she struggles with something new, and then it clicks and she knows how to hold it, how to manipulate it. When she ordered Chinese food the first time and got chopsticks, she fought them, finally giving up and sticking her nose in the food box, not unlike a feedbag. The necessity of hunger. But she didn’t give up; the next day she was practicing with them and the next time she’d figured out how they worked, better than I ever had.
[SOFT BREAK]
She turns once on the couch and then taps a cushion, and I sit down. She climbs up on my lap and folds in, briefly touching her leonine mane, not that I need her to tell me. I run my hands through it, kneading and massaging, touching all the right spots as she closes her eyes and untenses.
As do I. Something inane is on the TV and neither of us could care less. Voices talking into the void, and sometimes I wonder if we’re doing the same but that can’t be true because we’re bonding, because we’re bonded.
Sometimes she talks without purpose; I think she just likes hearing her voice. She knows I don’t understand. At best she gets my attention and then she pantomimes what she wants.
And sometimes she just listens to me talk, and it’s therapeutic. I can rant about a bad day and she just listens, ears perked, and then she bumps against my leg and my hand goes down to her mane and everything else is forgotten.
[SOFT BREAK]
When I become aware of my surroundings again, there’s a Shark Vac infomercial on the TV and she’s sound asleep on my lap.
I’m not in a comfortable position--not for the duration--and I can’t wake her. I could, and she wouldn’t be mad, but I won’t. Slowly, carefully, I transition to where I can at least rest my head on the armrest of the couch, and I’m still folded in a position which shouldn’t be comfortable, but the dozing kirin on my lap makes all the difference.
[SOFT BREAK]
Morning comes as mornings do. I shouldn’t feel as rested and relaxed as I do. She’s a hot weight on my chest; we’d both moved around as we slept or half-slept, and now I’m looking right at her as she cracks her big amber eyes open.
She chatters out words I don’t understand and yawns, then nestles against my chest. I take the opportunity to stretch out myself, as much as I can. The gist of her untranslatable conversation was surely that it was to early to get up, too early to face the day, and I’m in complete agreement.
You may have also noticed that both of them have different titles, and neither is the one I eventually used. Sometimes I’ve got a title in mind right in the beginning, other times I write it and then look back and think of what title might fit it. Hey, I’m a discovery writer; a lot of times I have no idea going in what it’s going to be when it’s done.
I see. And you did a great job!
I write in the same manner, but I rarely re-do things so much. I like these just as much as I like the final version. Thanks for showing us the process.
Thank you for sharing. :)
lovely, thanks a lot for ....thinking like this.
That reminds me of this PMV that I found some time ago:
That video really made me realise how well Kirin fit as Fae/Elves.
...
*Sigh* There really aren't enough stories with Equestrian Fae in them. I only remember six, and only two of them are independent of the others.
5394884
Thank you!
5395526
You're welcome!
5395007
Like, until a couple of years ago, I didn’t even know that it was an official writing technique. I’d look at how other authors do character sheets and outlines and all that jazz and wonder if I was doing it wrong, but since it worked for me, I didn’t really see any reason to change my style.
The first one, I didn’t like because it felt like it was tilting too far towards romance, and that wasn’t my aim. The second felt complete, but didn’t hit the word count, and I couldn’t think of an easy place to toss another section or two to hit 1k words. You’ll notice that the snapshot technique which was in the final piece did carry through, though.
I’m generally a fast writer, so it’s not that big a deal to toss a thousand words or so if they don’t seem to be working for me. If I agonized over every single sentence in the piece, that might change the calculus.
Admittedly, three attempts is more than I usually do, but I’ve got multiple shorts where there were two versions, and I picked the one that felt more right to do editing and final polish on.
5395041
You’re welcome!
5395190
5395386
Ooh, that’s awesome!
They do, and I’d never considered that until just now.
Two fun facts; “Tir na nog” means ‘land of the young,’ and Tir Na Nog is where the writers would gather for dinner every year at Bronycon.
5395532
Yeah, I discovered that after watching the video. It's quite the fascinating topic.
Wait, what!?
5395796
Yeah, there was a restaurant called that in the buildings by the inner harbor. That was a good annual tradition.