#also hello landslide day tmr and it’s a good one hehe :d

[wexhappyxfew]

i literally choked on my pizza when i saw your writing and analyzing questions post, I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS!! first of all, what sort of process do you go through when creating characters? what kind of things do you take into consideration when creating them? i’m fascinated because creating characters is far from easy, especially when you’re creating someone like agent mortem! i’m always interested to know what the writer’s thought process was when creating a new character!

okay, so secondly, i wouldn’t say i’m having trouble with keeping all my planning organised and ‘precise’ in a way, but it’s really not easy 😅 i was wondering what kind of processes you go through when planning, whether you have like a specific structure or a set of steps to follow, or if you just kind of roll with it? at the moment when i plan it’s okay and it makes sense, but it’s literally just 4 or 5 pages of really chunky paragraphs which makes it really difficult to pick out the events again when i come to needing the plan to help me. i don’t really know if you do anything different, but if there is any way you know of that i could keep it more organised and easy to follow, that would be great :)

i’ll keep the last ones a little shorter because this ask is already looking veryyy long — what have you enjoyed writing about natia, what struggles have you faced and what have you learned? and basically the same with agent mortem if that’s possible :) i have asked a LOT of questions in this, so don’t feel like you have to answer them all because it will probably take quite a while 😅 anyway, thank you for putting up with my endless questions, and i hope you have a good day <33

ROSE AH HELLO MY FRIEND!!!! <333 sorry ive just gotten to this omg! it’s been sitting here for a little while but i’ve just had so much going on right now and wanted to make sure when i answered that my *full attention* was put on this! (because i’ve been very excited to answer this ESPECIALLY as i see agent mortem questions poking up on here and that just makes me even more hype!!! :D enjoy! <3

Ooooo this is a cool question! I’ve been asked it before but I feel with different characters and such, it always seems to fluctuate for me at least? In the sense, it’s almost never the same process for me in the developmental stages of a character haha! Sometimes I get characteristics first hand, or sometimes a certain scene pops up that just makes the character click and I can build from there, or sometimes, it’s just a last name or a first name that I work with and suddenly have an idea for!

For example, since we’re on the general topic of Landslide, I’ll talk about some things I did when creating specifically Natia. The “Natia” who is currently portrayed in the fic, was not always really like that. Natia initially was not a SOE Agent/Polish Resistance Fighter and instead a Dutch Resistance Member who would meet with Easy in Episode 4. I always sort of knew Natia, in whatever form she was, would meet Easy in Episode 4, but I wasn’t sure how, so the building in the first 17 chapters was the toughest part to come.

I did heavily feel the Polish were underrepresented in terms of the situation of the war along with everything that happened in the Warsaw Uprising and so I felt it was important to see if I could do something with that and that’s really where Natia came into play!

Natia means “hope” essentially and something I really like doing with her character is to parallel or juxtapose different ideas together, to continue on this sort of theme of her being a quite ominous and ambiguous character — you get the general sense of what her morals are, but in certain points it’s questionable. Morally-ambiguous characters have always been fascinating to me, especially female morally-ambiguous characters and so creating Natia in that respect I felt would be interesting to see what I could do!

Something major that I’ve slowly began to take into consideration with characters more and more, is the sort of general theme I want to be present with them — what’s that goal i that they are moving towards in the end and what’s the them surrounding it? For Natia it’s a multitude of things; family, revenge, being silenced, numb, grief, mentor vs protégé, lone wolf etc….the list could truly go on! And with these basic sort of ideas and themes, I can then move on from there and expand.

Why did she want REVENGE? Because the enemy killed her FAMILY, which is extremely important to her, and she wants to feel some sort of REDEMPTION for them.

Why was she BEING SILENCED? Because of the *past* conflict of the HARMFUL MENTOR VS SILENCED PROTÉGÉ situation that occurred between Agent Mortem and herself, where she allowed herself to be silenced by someone who abused the SUDDEN POWER he never had before in his life, ultimately leading to her continued issues of TRUST that she would meet throughout.

Why is she NUMB? Because at a fairly young age she experienced heavy and intense GRIEF that struck unforgivably at a time where it seemed things were safe. To rip something from a character, especially the main character, like FAMILY which is extremely important, you pull at the heart strings and it makes that character move forward on a quest for that in a way, ultimately by the end of the fic. (Basically you up they are least get a semblance of that lost thing, found again by the end)

Why is she a LONE WOLF? Because of the MENTOR VS PROTÉGÉ situation yet again, where she was taught to rely strictly on herself and no one else and so when TRUST and COMPANIONSHIP and TEAMWORK were introduced to her character, she didn’t know how to cope because she had been so desensitized to the ways of Agent Mortem that working back in the morals of family and friends was a challenge in its own respect.

It’s sort of a like a ripple effect if you think about it and that’s what helps me eventually move forward and develop the character arc I want to take place. She’s this way because of this — sort of like cause and effect. It’s really helped me out with major scenes or plot holes that have risen throughout the fic!

AGREED! Writing in general is not an easy feat and now including mind you ORIGINAL CHARACTERS, you’re literally, essentially, creating human beings from scratch and giving them characteristics, a backstory, trauma if you wish, friends and family, people they love, people they hate, morals, standards EVERYTHING! ITS INSANE! AH AND AGENT MORTEM! I’m so very glad that you brought him up, because his creation definitely stemmed directly from the want to experiment with the relationship of failed mentor vs protégé, entirely. I wanted a foil to Natia that was not directly with her all the time. Mortem plays such a MASSIVE role in her story and yet any interactions between the two are either from her mind or from memories and that’s just such a fun way to play around with their dynamic! (I just finished the creation of his backstory and character arc I want him to take and it’s only made me even more excited for what’s to ultimately come for him as well as Natia!)

A song that HEAVILY represents their dynamic is Ghost by Marvin Brooks (2WEI) and I’ll explain why. Even though Mortem is not always inherently *with* Natia, he still is a huge factor of her life, and still heavily controlling many aspects of her life such as recurring memories, reactions, and how she is also conditioned to react to certain things as well. He is essentially a “ghost” who is “haunting” Natia and I feel that’s an interesting take on their connection because they’re two people who clearly had a power struggle and a difference of opinions of multiple things and that just makes it so incredibly interesting to write!

song:

OOOOOO good question!!! So many people have such different ways of approaching story writing and planning and drafting and writing and editing and it’s honestly amazing!! I will say, I’m not an excessive planner or even a real great planner with writing, I never really have, and even as I’ve developed my writing and learned that “it’s okay to slow down”, or “it’s okay to take time for different portions to provide a deeper focus”, I still have not been someone to plan out every bit of my writing.

Reason being is I enjoy seeing where I can take the story in that time and place. Maybe if I’m doing a quick little writing segment and suddenly this idea just appears and hits me, I work it into the fic and it takes it a whole new direction and I end up not being super upset about it because it just…it works! And of course, this is not how other people operate and I have every respect for people who plan and have every detail laid out and figured out and just….completely and utterly planned to the dot. Lile kudos to people who genuinely get the planning all cleaned up before even writing, truly.

I just finalized Agent Mortem’s backstory and where I want his character arc to go and I’ve had him as a character since August of last year LOL! But ya know sometimes, I sit and I think back and go, maybe I wasn’t ready at that time to develop him completely yet because I, the writer, didn’t understand him enough to and I had to write more of him to be able to get a grasp of who he was and his character (and just about everything else!) and that’s okay!!! :)

Going with this idea I just stated above — the 4 or 5 pages of info — KEEP IT MY FRIEND!!! I swear, half the reason ideas even come to me is simply because I just write a big info dump that has all my little ideas somewhere inside and will ALWAYS be there. I recommend maybe taking a day though - away from focusing on writing or editing - and just picking that apart. (That’s what I did the other day and it helped me out MAJORLY! and it was worth it in the end!) Maybe keep the original 4-5 pages and then copy and paste the same thing in another doc so you always have the original!

And then just go through and split ideas apart! If you start reading and see it moving into another realm of headspace of ideas, just press enter and separate the two — you didn’t delete it, it’s still there and still intact! It’s just easier to look at now because instead of two, jumbled and completely different ideas, you now have two paragraphs and portions of text that relate to their own respective idea. It definitely makes it an easier pill to swallow when trying to get yourself organized!!

This really helped me when I was in my beginning stages of figuring out Landslide ESPECIALLY the first 17ish chapter where Natia was not in contact with Easy yet. I’ve explained it before but those chapters are there because we are seeing her final days with the resistance in Warsaw and how she ultimately ends up with Easy PLUS we see who she is as a character by herself and how she is not merely an extension off of Easy, but her own character, her own person. She has her own story and her own morals and ways of going about her life that don’t even relate to Easy. Their paths just happened to cross!! :)

By getting those first 17ish chapters planned, not extreme planning though I will admit, half the scenes were very much thought up on the spot for example like Natia driving to Munich in disguise or the introduction of Zdzich — two very important scenes that show us something about Natia. (1) She’s willing to go to extreme lengths for the people she loves to ensure that in the end they are safe, even if it means sacrificing herself and (2) she has trouble realizing that there are people out there that genuinely care for her, a connection to her ultimate, unruly and upsetting past. And the best part about it is THESE WEREN’T EVEN PLANNED! So sometimes, just let the story take the reigns and your mind and just guide you through it. Sometimes it is for the best :)

If you have your basic ideas and concepts and themes for how you want your fic to eventually go, the scenes for me most of the time just appear I guess when they should. Sometimes even in the times I'm not writing, I sit theorizing and questioning and thinking and developing ideas in my mind and it's a real good exercise, so when you get back to writing, you already know where you want the fic leading in the end!

MAN I LOVE THIS QUESTION. Anytime I can provide some meta or give some insight to Natia who is just one of the best characters I’ve gotten the pleasure of working with, I’ll gladly answer!

The thing I enjoy writing about Natia the most I feel, and I’ll probably always say this, is her complexity — as a writer, her character orders a healthy challenge for me that I gladly have accepted! You don’t know everything about her as a reader and as you read each chapter, that’s how you slowly uncover and discover what she hid about herself to protect herself. There’s so many different aspects of her that I could discuss truly!! (There has been so many parts that I’ve scrapped because I read through and just think “Man this doesn’t seem like Natia!”. She’s tricky sometimes to stake down exactly how she would react because of her past and her trauma and how long she’s been in war, but I just LOVE it!)

Many different aspects of her character though, come from her past and that’s what makes her interesting. I’ve really enjoyed working with the ideology of “Chekov’s Gun”, a writing device that can be used, with how I will mentioned something and it almost might seem out of the blue, yet later it all just makes sense?! When the flashback is revealed or a small portion of her past is finally allowing *light* in. It's a device I've used with Natia that has just really helped to develop her story at the pace I want it to be revealed! :D

For example, the OCEAN is mentioned many times. I make constant reference to the WAVES, the RECESSION of them from time to time, the comparison of the OCEAN both ABOVE and BELOW surface — all of that sorta stuff! For her character, it seems a bit out of place. She’s COLD. She’s NUMB. She’s BROKEN. What does an open body of water consuming at least 70% of the Earth have to do with an OC based in Warsaw, Poland?

This is where the importance of her PAST will play it’s role, as it has a major INFLUENCE on her and her CHARACTER and her MORALS. One of the main reasons the OCEAN is inherently connected to Natia is because of her PAST and one of those main reasons is AGENT MORTEM and her TRAINING, especially WATER training. I can’t comment further on this though as readers have only touched the tip of the iceberg for the use of the OCEAN and it’s IMPORTANCE so far in this fic! (Ask me again about it once this fic is finished up for the most part, unless….by Part 4 readers understand why!)

Natia just remains a character who constantly is developing and changing inside my head - where I want her path to ultimately end up leading by the end of the fic, where I want both her mental head space vs emotional head space should be and etc. So many portions of this fic are dealt specifically on her internal monologue and how she calculates and problem solves from that portion of her sort of *engagement* within the conflict. There never seems to be a dull moment when writing her!

Another thing I really have enjoyed about writing Natia is her clashing personality traits that make her interesting to write in both different scenarios and reactions. She's stubborn yet humble. She's numb and cold but internally extremely caring and giving and filled with these bottled up emotions. She's mentally strong yet she's been through so much and let the war take so much. She never complains about what she's doing, but she's lost nearly everyone she loves. She's a fighter in this war and refuses to back down from a battle she know she can wage, but the second she is pulled from the aspect of war, things crash and burn around her. Just even these few combating sort of things, really show her character and what, through writing, has slowly developed! They always lay around in the back of my mind and it's one of the main things I remind myself when I write Natia all the tme.

I think one of the most important things I've learned from both writing and creating a character like Natia is that (1) it's okay to ask for help, about anything, literally anything. You don't have to confine everything to yourself and build up this immense pressure to do what you must to continue moving forward. It's okay to have people there to help you and support you. (2) It's okay to be strong alone and even if you seem to be the only one on the current path you're are on, it does not mean you are wrong. it can still lead to the right destination in the end!

Oooo okay! AGENT MORTEM!! I am totally down to chat about some things I've loved to write with him with and some challenges I've discovered, but as far as what I've learned from him, I will be holding off and could answer that when the entire fic is both completed and then updated on platforms....just because ;) don't want to give away any spoilers haha! <3

Something I've enjoyed about writing and crafting Agent Mortem is letting him remain as mysterious and secretive as he is for so long. Initially, I can't even begin to recall what his character would be like even a year ago, but seeing where he has developed now, I'm really happy with where he is. He's mysterious, he's shadowed, he seems like a figure in the background, a past mentor who is half deranged and lost his mind with a background with so substance. It makes for such a fascinating way to begin to reveal his past! (something I've began to insert into part 4 of Landslide and man I'm just so HYPE!)

I feel I'm excited simply because he's finally getting the time and moment he deserves to finally explain and show himself as to what has occurred. There's so many fractured and disconnected parts of what is currently going on with Natia and her connection to both Agent Mortem and then Death is tossed in the mix and it seems this big complicated mess of 'how' Agent Mortem got to be this way, 'why' he does a thing such as this, just different and varying aspects such as that. it makes for those big final reveals to all be even more worth it!

He has been quite the challenge though I will admit. There's so many perspectives he could quite possibly be viewed from and his *character* + morals/values could be pulled in a various amount of ways as well. Making sure he accurately comes across the way I want him to both appear and come across to the reader and to myself has definitely been tricky. He's not as easy as suspected, you know, not just a 'dude who had a bad day and went insane in the end', there's a whole multitude of levels and reasons and a deep, heavy and traumatizing background starting from his birth really (which is a whole other story). Managing and balancing that all in one has definitely been something I've had to keep on top of and monitor but I feel has really been worth the challenge in the end. Because at the end of the day, I'm someone looking to constantly challenge myself.

And a good challenge, whether it be writing or academics or a workout, is healthy and GOOD! That's what Landslide in a whole has really shown me, to challenge yourself daily to see where you can push yourself and your imagination and creativity, just to see where you can even go!! it's exciting and refreshing!

Thank you so much for this wonderful ask Rose! I appreciate it more than ANYTHING as you well know, and I know it's taken me *quite* some time to answer, but I've been working on it for weeks now and finally got it out because it was ready! I really wanted to take my time with it and develop it to its full potential in the end and I feel I have (without giving away any spoilers haha!) As always, please know if you have any further questions regarding Natia Filipska, Agent Mortem, Death (along with other characters of Landslide), writing, the process (my own included), tips for writing/planning, or just anything else in general, I will always be happy to help in anyway I can! You're always welcome, anyone always is!!! <3333 Thank you again, I had so much fun doing this more than anything! :D