Thank you for joining me for Wyrd Tales - Bad Moon Rising. I hope you enjoyed reading it at least as much as I've enjoyed writing it.
When I finished Wyrd Girls - College Years, I knew I wasn't done with writing SimLit or with the universe I'd established. I had the idea of writing some short stories to fill in some of the odd corners, like I had done earlier, so I cast around for ideas.
Bad Moon Rising actually started as a throwaway line in College Years, Chapter 49... I needed a reasonable narrative excuse for Gwen and Cassie not to come riding to the rescue. The easiest was that they were off dealing with some big crisis of their own. So, "the Wildfang troubles" were born. It seemed like a plot line worthy of exploring. :)
It didn't take me long to remember that Claudette Faust (now Etta Blackwood), the fan-hated villain from Unguarded Heart (who I had unconsciously modeled on an ex-girlfriend), was living in Moonwood Mill. The Wildfang Troubles seemed like a great opportunity to visit her again and give her a shot at redemption.
An early draft of Chapter 17, with Claudette confronting and repudiating her father, was actually the very first thing I wrote for this story.
That Jake, Beth and Kristopher would play roles in the story was a given. I also knew that Kristopher's ennui was going to be significant to events. How exactly that would be resolved was one of those things that I debated heavily but I'm actually very pleased with the outcome.
Lux Demarco was actually a late addition to the story. I realized I needed a fresh set of eyes on the story. Demarco was a character from the Sims 4 Werewolves trailer, where she plays the same role of being the audience's eyes into the new world of Moonwood Mill... but she wasn't built into the official Sims canon. She isn't in the expansion but was available as an extra character for download.
I decided to recreate her story from the trailer, as a way of introducing her. I'm proud of that and I really want more applause for it. :) Still, I'm glad I did, because that brought in Kiril and Bianca, two other downloadable trailer characters. Unlike the other Wildfangs, Kiril is actually Evil (he has the trait). Connecting Faust to the Wildfangs through Kiril meant I could keep Rory "clean" even during her pack's fall.
The roughest part was the pacing, as you could probably tell. Chapters 1-16 (Lux's intro) cover about eight months, while chapters 17-29 (the Wildfang troubles) are less than two days and had to connect back to the College Years finale. I actually thought a lot about how long it would take Bluebell to get from Britechester to Glimmerbrook and back... a calculation that included looking up the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow.
The one thing I'm sorry I didn't do was include a little more about Etta's mom. She's a major motivator for Etta, but apart from the one flashback, I kind of left her out. If I could go back and "fix" anything it would be include more mentions and hints about her throughout Etta's parts of the story, just to keep her more in mind. I think it would have given the ending the punch it deserved. Oh well, can't get everything right.
Still, despite a few stumbles along the way, I really enjoyed writing what turned out to be a not-so-short story.
There will be more stories coming, but I'm going to take a little break... maybe I'll just play the Sims for a bit.
Thanks again for reading.
-Leo
