Stream of Consciousness is an excellent narrative style to draft this one in, lol. Finna make this informal, like hitting me up over Discord. I wanted this to be a snazzy welcome post. Instead, my system fired back that it was time to talk about this pretentious title: The Rapture of Secrets. No, that’s not a Christian fic title.

Back in 2016, I published The Kingdom of Ecstasy. The Rapture of Secrets was the book to follow, and it began as an epic with a strong romantic arc between two pivotal characters. It was the beginning of the ending sequence. A 4th and final title, hopefully, was to come after TRoS. I was dissatisfied, following Lucein and Gnyovante, with Ashenzsi being OP, and Mokallai being like Tolkien’s Sauron: A force of evil you never see, but was threatening and present somehow. That reached 53k words, fat and ready for editing, when I scrapped it.

Version 2, the Dark Descent…

‘m glad I scrapped the initial draft. The story of TRos was intended top be apocalyptic. The romance was supposed to end in tragedy, a juicy end to revisit at a later date. So, I drafted a second version focusing on Laylen as Yathedqa, Mokallai as “the god of Destiny,” and the characters Amonthe, Schiirin, and So’yi. I made it to 36k,  a stout novella. Then, I scrapped that.

The 2nd version of TRoS dove into some dark and delicate themes. Particularly in Laylen’s past. She grew up in what has become a full blown Destiny cult. There are things she’s been as witness to, or victim of, that had influenced her character. The cult was not a good  thing to be a member of. These were the fanatical backers of the deified Mokallai. Those of the cult who defected or something like that got mutilated and transformed into Feyrcaai, grotesque, mountable human-beast things. Mostly men.

Naturally, to get into her character and access her motives, etc, it meant hinting at dark and disturbing things that to her may have been normalized because she grew up in a cult. The inspiration was based off of real life examples, such as Jonestown and Wayne Bent. It was intended to reflect on how we, as humans, endure nonsensical and absurd, traumatic and unfortunate events and behaviors, but accept these as normal on the basis of fanaticism.

Bit of a mouthful, ye? That’s what I wrote about, that’s what emerged. I’m a discovery writer; I never planned that.

Flipping the Narrative.

I clawed back on those heavy religious themes. This time was different, because while I maintained the Destiny Cult angle, I decided to dive into the backend of the story. Instead of focusing on the Meatbag cast (Laylen, Marqisian, etc), I moved forward with Dyiij, Einarriel, and Mokallai. There are new characters to introduce, Eyuwre being one of them.

I’ve been excited, peering ahead at some plot threads, to write arcs for these characters as they’ve been less explored than the others that I’m more familiar with. It’s wonderful to have something fresh to work with!

Speaking of “Fresh:” There are stories that happened between TKoE and TRoS. A lot of Bog Fodder was drafted and written. Lore from Marqisian’s adventures in the swamp appeared in TRoS. Especially noteworthy was the appearance of the Slaggan dialect, Knetann. That’s why they talk funny. I was eager to carry it over from Bog Fodder as an excellent garnish to confuse new readers with. I love the challenge of writing it. It deserves a good clunky drop!