It Started with a Basic Idea
The Many Problems of Making Luka Erebi #1
I wanted to base a story off of my Instagram profile (IkesFoodandBugs). The main theme would be “food” and “bug.”
So a character who likes bugs and the other who likes cooking. Simple enough.
But since I take pictures of bugs (particularly mantids), I figure why not make the main character interested in doing that… and what if they’re actually afraid of bugs and are taking pictures to help ease their fear.
That left me with the other character, the cooking side. It should probably be someone who’s not afraid of bugs, and can help the MC with her bug problem.
Then I thought… what if I don’t do that? At least, not directly.
I’ve always enjoyed enemies to lovers type stories. I also enjoy the dynamic of friends to enemies to lovers. When done right, it gives just that tolerable amount of angst and anxiety. A needle that I’ve got to thread carefully.
I don’t want an easy path for my characters, after all.
Character categorization.
Since we were going to go with bug themes, I figured we should base characters off of insects. This really captured my interest, and I’m quite happy I decided to do this.
I jokingly made my cooking-focused character a wasp because she had a WASP mom. Haha. Get it? :l
For the MC, I did everything but give her an actual name and bug type until the very end. I kept putting it off because I had so many other ideas on different characters (some who may not even show up until later on).
Since I was basing this off of insects, it made naming them a little bit easier.
Here’s a portion of the character sheets I have of our two main characters.
Name: Luka Erebi Age: 20 Height: 5’3” or 160 cm Race/Ethnicity: Chinese Bug Type: Asian gypsy moth Bug Trait: Nocturnal. More comfortable at night. Poor judge of danger. Appearance: Shoulder-length black hair. Dark brown eyes. Keeps a clean and minimalistic look. Personality: Timid. Shies away from any sort of aggression. Doesn’t want to get hurt. Brave when the situation calls for it. A bit of a germaphobe due to her fear of bugs. Tends to refer to people as bugs.
Name: Wren Vespula Age: 21 Height: 5’9” or 175 cm Race/Ethnicity: Half-Indian Half-British Bug Type: Wasp Bug Trait: Her intense, cold gaze makes people freeze up or back down without a word being said Appearance: Yellow eyes. Brunette / brown hair that goes down to her chin, but has a fade underneath. Often puts up her hair in a bun/ponytail. Has a piercing on her left eyebrow. Has multiple piercings on her left ear. Light brown skin. Personality: Hotheaded. Aggressive. Honest to a fault, even when it hurts other people’s feelings. Extremely protective of those she loves. Is willing to get into fist fights.
Everything else is a secret because [spoilers].
You may have noticed the fist fights…
Yeah, apparently, I wanted to do fight scenes in this series. So I guess we’re fighting at some point!
I also wanted to do a tournament arc at some point, but I have no idea how to segue into it. You’ll see it when you see it!
This is a living and breathing character sheet, so I’ll be adding more to our characters as the story continues.
I contemplated for the week (of worldbuilding) on whether I wanted a soft magic system or not. After three days, I realized that I’ve actually never done a soft magic system before (I usually do a hard magic system) and that it would take too much time to integrate the magic into problems.
That and I never intended the characters to actually be bugs.
So I compromise with bug traits instead!
It took me 5 hours spread across 5 days to feel like my worldbuilding is good enough to start writing. I can always add more to it as I write, so that’s what I’ve been doing.
Putting myself on a timer really got my brain racking and needing to put something down on paper (or in this case, Scrivener).
I think I spent a lot of time on the title. I went through a lot of variation…
She Stings Like Honey
The Version She Knows
The Danger She Carries
Her Venom That Heals Me
I Love Her Venom
That Daunting Yellow Gaze
The Lies That Binds Us
They all felt cheesy and unappealing to me. And the ones I did like… unfortunately were already taken.
I was close to just letting it go until next week, which is why I’m happy to say that I’ve finally got a title I’m liking so far.
Stay tune for The Many Problems of Luka Erebi, Including One Wren Vespula.
Summary: Twenty-year-old Luka Erebi has two problems: a fear of bugs she’s desperately trying to photograph her way out of, and the sneaking suspicion that someone’s watching her.
The last thing she needs is for her neighbor’s prickly, yellow-eyed cousin to waltz back into her life. Wren Vespula has always been a lot, but they used to be good friends a long time ago.
Luka just never expected her to be this close again.