The leader of the gang is very stubborn, has been on the streets most of his life, and has had bad experiences with authority before, and the pregnant girl didn't want to risk being sent back to her family (she ran off before they could find out and kick her out). Big bad's never seen the MC, might see some resemblance to her dad but it's been years since he saw him face to face and he might be racist enough to dismiss it as her people looking similar, plus one of the family resemblance points is their hair, which MC keeps covered and by the time he meets her she no longer has it. She probably would recognise stuff her dad made; there might be some innocuous things around the place, the big bad having commissioned those to sweeten the pot and keep him feeling secure for when he started buying the illegal stuff. Good idea.
nods, nods what exactly is the big bads plan? youve been talking about him doing experiments and stuff, but are there any details? what's he been doing that's illegal enough that he can't pass it off as something Totes Legal? will any of the kids from the street gang disappear?
Okay, bit of explanation here. The MC and her family are of a Fantasy Counterpart Culture Abrahamic religion in a country which is primarily pseudo-Celtic paganism as run by the Victorian Church of England. Their faith includes stories of golems, as Judaism does here, though obviously not a direct copy, but nobody's successfully made one in centuries. The big bad is trying to make functioning golems by binding the children's souls, and has got Dad building some of the bodies for them. Dad knows making golems without their god's help is considered blasphemous, which is why he's no longer living among his own people (pre-emptive exile for fear of being caught), but doesn't know about the killing children bit, needs the money, owed the big bad a favour (perhaps he spent time in the orphanage himself? But he's a smart guy, he might have noticed the disappearances...) and is pretty sure big bad is not going to be able to get it to work. Needs to be a reason making them would be illegal/taboo for the majority as well... their mythology includes similar things as dangerous monsters? The street gang only has four members and I wasn't planning for them to disappear/die, but how about the pregnant girl's baby disappears?
ooooh okay, that makes it even more interesting! maybe you could tie the rival's death into them finding something that would point undeniably to golem-making in the big bad's worker's home or something similar? it would give a reason for them to be killed that ties into the big main plot. ?
I have a reason for the rival to be in or around MC's home; MC just got an anthology of the adventures of the lying thieves, which are favourites among the village kids. Rival could be trying to steal it and run into something weird.
Penny dreadful publishers, broadsheet singers, and cheap newspapers will take submissions cash-in-hand if they're exciting enough. They have quite a fandom. Anyway, they're boyfriends and one's a werewolf and one's a half-elf. Elves in my 'verse have wings, and this guy had his cut off in an incident with a gang when he was younger; he tells people the wounds were cursed to never heal, so everyone thinks that's what his binder's for if they happen to see it, and part of the reason they're so prolific is to gather cash for permanent magical transformation to fix both those things. They're also susceptible to iron in such a way (it screws with their magic) that he can get drunk from iron-rich foods. The werewolf used to be a medical student and encountered elf dude as a patient; he's the one who does the writing. I haven't really fleshed him out as much, but he's the sensible one. As for what they look like, picture Jay and Silent Bob.
okay well now i just want an entire novel of Just Them and some Antics im always a sucker for dubiously moral boyfriends
I don't know enough about judaism to give a proper answer, but I've seen arguments for both sides before I think it comes down to, are golems and your constructs different enough that it would warrant a different name? you have mentioned that the main character and her family are in an abrahamic-esq religion, and that might make it a bit more kosher to use golems? im definitely no expert by any means though, whoops
The ones in their folklore are close enough, the ones the non-member of their faith is making aren't quite the same thing but that's obviously what he was inspired by. Okay, needs to be something that's easily recognisable as golem-making which would be easy for the rival to run into, and there needs to be a reason the messenger and/or the dad would find her finding it.
well, I know that as a kid I was told a lot about how golems were created, not in any way that was actually accurate to Judaism, mind, but enough so that I could probably have pointed out attempts from a lineup maybe there's something similar that would have been told to children, that the rival may have known? maybe their knowledge would be just accurate enough that they could pick out what was happening? ...plus, i mean, if they find a giant made of clay or other earth, that's kind of telling right there
I think they're being made piece by piece to avoid suspicion. If she finds, say, blueprints with the magical inscriptions on them, that would work. Okay, where would they be hidden that the kids who work with their dad in the workshop wouldn't find them but a snooper would, and why'd whoever it is who commits the murder find her? Hm...
this is only half of a joke but like if your protag is shorter than average her dad could have just put the plans up somewhere higher. most people dont tend to look above thier heads on an average day. but the rival, who would be looking for books, might.
She's not shorter than average for her age and gender, but she's thirteen and female, so she's certainly shorter than him.
I'm also trying to make sure the autistic street kid isn't annoying. He's meant to be an orphan, a survivor of abuse, and autistic in a world where it isn't known what that is, so I think he has a right to be jittery and cry a lot, as I've written him so far, but I think I'm not managing to make him appealing along with that.
i mean, does he have a personality besides that? ...which came out harsher than intended but i cant think of the words to make it sound softer???
I know what you mean, yeah. Struggling to find a good way for such a withdrawn character to express it. MC brings him out of his shell a bit, he can talk to her about things... I know he was a clockmaker's son and would have been going into that trade himself, so he knows about and likes mechanical things. (He could recognise some of the evidence relating to crafting stuff.)
