When we first set out to write Teratovore, our goal was simply to create a story and a setting where the monsters in our system could express themselves in the same way we had given our girls and dragons in previous books. We decided to let them work on the world building.

We’d also been inspired by an idea for the lead character and her foil, Synthia and Felicity. And in the first few chapters, we thought the story was going to go that way. A way similar to the opening premise of Dragonheart, where the two had a scheme that they would repeatedly and successfully pull off for a while before things turned serious.

But it didn’t happen like that.

While Synthia did her best to lead the story writing, Felicity bounced ideas off the rest of the cast, especially Sewer Teeth, and the players took it all in a direction the GM never planned for.

Then we all saw it was looking more like the structure of a noir, and thought we’d roll with that, because a lot of us kind of love noir.

And then current events hit, and threw us for a big loop, and it all took longer than we’d expected or wanted, and maybe spiralled off of the typical noir plot structure or ending.

We seem to have pulled it together into a story about how someone can learn big things about the world at any age, and that ignorance doesn’t have to be permanent. And also about how power doesn’t necessarily come from raw strength or exquisite skill, but more from the people you know and maybe the luck of your beginnings. (And that power itself isn’t a measure of personal worth.)

And there’s something in there about developing compassion and empathy for smaller, shorter lived beings.

And we’re maybe agreed that we’re pretty happy with that, if that’s what the story wants to be about.

But, uh, whether it makes sense, and whether the flow and continuity of it works, the logic of it, if any of that is good, you’re going to have to tell us. Because we’re still too discombobulated from writing it to have any idea.

It’d be nice if we had an editor we can work with. We simply can’t afford one, and nobody’s volunteered yet. If somebody’s excited enough by Teratovore to help us make it better, we’d probably be up for rewriting it, if that’s necessary.

Until then, we’re so thankful to you for reading it anyway, and for giving us your spelling corrections, your questions, and your enthusiasm. That all kept us going.

We are also daydreaming about all sorts of sequels. We love the world and its mechanics, if it maybe could use some refining. And right about the time Synthia and Felicity were discovering symbiosis, we started having visions of emanants partaking in space travel.

Could be an interesting thing.

If we do write any sequels, we would use them to address many of the threads left hanging, both plot-wise and theme-wise. Of course.

We can’t promise anything, though. We’ve got other long overdue WIPs that really need finishing.

Love,

The Inmara