Story Notes

Elements of Chaos

1: Of Ice and Snow

2: Of Fire and Smoke

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What to Expect:

This book began as a writing experiment when I joined The Fabulous Spec-Fic Smack Down by @LayethTheSmackDown on Wattpad, which required me to write Speculative Fiction flash fiction, short stories, drabbles, and poetry based on prompts. That was a huge stretch for me, but I enjoyed it so much that I continued following the prompts after I was eliminated. And I’m keeping it going as long as I can by joining other prompt-based contests.

I decided from the beginning to use the same characters and world throughout the book, so while I write each chapter as a standalone short story, there is continuity between chapters, and an underlying storyline is emerging. My goal is to keep that going. It’s an odd balance I’m trying to strike here, especially since I typically write novels, not short stories.

Since this is a prompt-based book, it has quite a few quirks. The first is perspective. Lily, the protagonist in chapter one, is the entire book’s protagonist. However, she is not the central character in each chapter. I write her chapters in the first person and all other chapters in the third person.

The second quirk is chapter length. Many prompts provide word count restrictions; some do not. Currently, the shortest chapter is 100 words long, and the longest is 10,000 words long. I’ve split the longer chapters up into multiple parts of 1,500-2,500 words each.

The third quirk is genre. Speculative Fiction is typically a blend of Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Horror, often with alternate universes and timelines, but really, anything goes. The original contest was a Speculative Fiction contest, and I am a scaredy cat, so this is mostly a blend of Fantasy and Science Fiction thus far. I’m sure that will change, because I go where the prompts take me. But with Speculative Fiction, it’s fine if I take a jaunt into Chicklit land for a chapter or two, so it’s all good.

And that brings us to the fourth quirk: me. I don’t plan this. I can’t plan it. The prompts can change everything. I’ve learned to leave certain details vague on purpose, because that gives me wiggle room to pivot if the next prompt takes things in a different direction. When I get a new prompt, I read it, let it simmer in the back of my mind for a week or so, reread and revisit again when I feel like it, and I get some basic idea of how I at least want to start the next chapter and maybe what I want to happen.

Then I sit down to write. And anything can happen.

I write most of these chapters in one sitting, and I often surprise myself. This has become my writing sandbox. It’s where I go to play and let loose every wild idea that comes into my mind, and I love it. I hope you enjoy it, too.

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Prompt Info:

At the bottom of each chapter, I list the date of creation, word count, prompt information, and a link to the original prompt, if I have it. I sometimes come back to tweak things here or there, and I have a list of editing/feedback suggestions from others that I intend to work through eventually. When that happens, I may leave a note about it, but I’m not changing the date and word count. That’s the original stamp, and I want to keep it there for my records.

Word count varies with the application used. All the word counts here come from Google Docs.

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Content/Trigger Warnings:

None of my stories contain profanity or explicit sexual content, but this book/series contains mature themes and content. I’ve compiled what I hope is a comprehensive list and am happy to answer questions about it. Heavy and potentially triggering content within this book includes depictions and/or mentions of:

- Abuse and Relationships: divorce, psychological abuse

- Animal Death & Cruelty: animal death, animal illness, animal injury, euthanasia

- Blood, Injury & Medical: blood, physical injuries, physical illness, terminal illness, weight gain

- Death and Loss: death, death of a loved one, grief depiction, loss of a pet

- Mental Health and Suicide: anxiety, depression, dissociation, intrusive thoughts, nightmares, panic attacks, post-traumatic stress disorder, suicidal ideation, trauma

- Natural Disasters: blizzard

- Sex and Sexual Violence: non-explicit sexual references

- Violence and Crime: attempted murder, hostage situation, imprisonment, kidnapping, physical assault, plane crash, strangulation, threatening child

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Credits:

@AprilJester on Wattpad, for talking me into joining the original contest. @BookLover3062 on Wattpad, for stealing my title and making me come up with a new one. All graphics except prompt images created by me using Canva Pro unless cited otherwise.

Summary

Lily is a snow witch with powerful magic and a quick temper. Not the best combination. But she keeps to herself, and the few people she lets get close know she has a good heart, and that’s enough for her. She doesn’t need any drama in her life. Except she never knows what to expect from her next-door neighbor, who is a mad scientist. Then there’s her meddling family back at the North Pole. Minor irritations, but they may or may not trigger her blizzard-inducing rage from time to time, resulting in out-of-season snowstorms, snowbound towns, and confused meteorologists worldwide. Good thing she has a fairy godmother. Or is it? When a forbidden paranormal romance brings secret magic and an unspoken curse to light, the weight of the world lands on Lily’s shoulders. Break the curse, save the world. Fail… And she’ll destroy everything.

Genre: Fantasy

Author: katiegoesmew

Status: Complete

Chapters: 35

Rating: 5.0 (1 review)

Age Rating: 18+

Chapter 1: Pet Sitting

“Not again…”

I sighed and shoved my hands in my pockets, shooting a glare at the molten cubes dotting the icy sidewalk. The neighbors were getting out of hand with their experiments. I didn’t mind them giving sentience to glowing orange blocks of heat, as long as they kept them under control, but the darn things kept escaping, and for some reason, they liked to pester me.

Everybody knew I hated fire. It kind of went with being a snow witch.

A loud cracking, grating sound drew my focus to the closest cube. It was struggling against cold tendrils of white snaking up its sides, squirming and twisting to shatter the icy grip.

“This is why you shouldn’t be here,” I grumbled. I sighed again and straightened my back, lifting my chin to give my order more authority. “Let it go.”

The white shrank back to the ground obediently. It traced a quick path across the brickwork to an ordinary shrub - or what remained of it, anyway. The already bare branches snapped and fell to the ground as the ice took its frustration out on the poor plant. My mother probably turned in her grave. She loved plants.

Which also didn’t do well with me. You know, the snow witch thing.

The cube hopped happily toward me, its top jiggling like gelatin. I scowled at it and glanced toward the cobblestone fence dividing my yard from the neighbor’s.

“Your cubes are here again!” I shouted. “I want them out of here! Now!”

Silence. The cube took another hop closer. Was that - no, it couldn’t be. But the shaky line of yellow emerging from the orange looked suspiciously like a smile.

“I mean it!” I shouted again. “Unless you want your new pets obliterated!”

The smile curved down into a frown, and the orange light dimmed. A pang of guilt stabbed my icy heart. It was hot and stupid and I hated it, but…

“Ugh, fine. Fine!”

I stormed off my porch and past the blistering heat of the herd of cubes toward a distant corner of my yard, where there were no bare branches or ice. Just a pile of smooth gray gardening stones from a long-dead garden.

“Come here,” I snapped back at the cubes. They’d all turned to watch me, and the leader, who was now the furthest from me, burned brighter than ever as it hopped after me.

“Stop. That’s close enough.”

Sweat trickled down the back of my neck from the cube’s proximity. Sweat. On a snow witch!

This was ridiculous.

“You can play here, or…whatever,” I said, my voice faltering. What was it that heat cubes did, anyway? Besides bother me, of course.

Not that I cared.

“Until your owner comes home,” I continued, withdrawing one hand from my pocket and pointing a few feet away from the cubes. Ice shot from my finger to dig a line into the brickwork. “Do not cross this line. Do you understand?”

The lead cube tilted forward and back. A nod?

I stuffed my hand in my pocket again and walked away without another word. My morning newspaper was just a crisp on the front porch, thanks to those things. I slammed the door behind me and glanced back out the window.

They were kind of cute, though. The way they stacked on top of each other and hopped around. Did the neighbor not let them play? Was that it?

I made my morning smoothie and sipped it as I watched. Maybe pet sitting wasn’t so bad.

Chapter Notes