What Does the Fox Say?

[Vera Silvertooth]

Since voting has now closed, Airan said the survivors could all make reveal threads. So I've set out the tea and cookies and you may ask this vixen what you will.

[Matra Hammer]

1- Tea and cookies: suggest a pairing fit for each of the top three survivors.

2- How different was week-eight Vera from your initial vision?

3- What is Vera's favorite meal? Least favorite meal?

4- Perhaps I missed this tidbit, but why did Vera join a pirate crew in the first place? Hylan search 2010? If so, then how can you best describe Hylan and Vera's future? All the moxes? ...fartens? Or just high fives and tavern crawls?

[Robert Rosequill]

From the reviews for the applications, it was clear that Vera wasn't a favorite. But now you've made it, and WELL deservedly, to the top 3. How did it feel then vs. how you feel now? Is there any backstory to your application?

Also, do you regret not making Hylan a fox?  :D

[Vera Silvertooth]

1- Tea and cookies: suggest a pairing fit for each of the top three survivors.

Oh, tough one... Hmm, Plink would get snickerdoodles and chai-type tea. For Chak, a dried mango and nut cookie with some type of rooibos. As for myself, I'm partial to white tea with dried coconut and pineapple (an actual tea in my cupboard) and shortbread cookies.

2- How different was week-eight Vera from your initial vision?

Hah haha... Um, a lot different. I didn't have much of a vision at all for Vera at the beginning. I kinda threw her together last minute with a writing exercise known as "The Shadow Room". I only built a backstory for her after I found out I made it in the contest. I did originally intend her to be more evil and crazy, but after I actually developed the character, it didn't work out that way.

3- What is Vera's favorite meal? Least favorite meal?

Favorite meal: Hotroot soup with lots of watershrimp and a good hearty bread to nibble on between bites of soup.
Least favorite: Slaves' Gruel.  ;D

4- Perhaps I missed this tidbit, but why did Vera join a pirate crew in the first place? Hylan search 2010? If so, then how can you best describe Hylan and Vera's future? All the moxes? ...fartens? Or just high fives and tavern crawls?

In my very first post, I do mention how Vera ended up on the Silver Maiden. She heard there was a rat looking for her and fearful that it was Captain Rigal, she decided to skip town on the first ship available, which happened to be the Silver Maiden. She didn't figure out it was a pirate ship until afterwards.

And just because I can answer the 2nd part of the question, Vera would not have ever thought of searching for Hylan via ship, because she didn't know he'd taken one. I don't think I ever had a chance to explain in story what happened with Hylan, but he was supposed to be taking a shipment of goods overland to a southern town. Last minute he found a ship that would cut days out of his trip, so he took it. Because it was so last minute, he never sent a letter home to tell anyone what he'd done. Storm blew the ship off course and they put in for water at Blade's island and were captured.

And no moxes or fartens. Vera and Hylan are just really good friends. Nothing more.

[Vera Silvertooth]

From the reviews for the applications, it was clear that Vera wasn't a favorite. But now you've made it, and WELL deservedly, to the top 3. How did it feel then vs. how you feel now?

I have to admit, I was completely shocked that I was not voted out in the first round. I felt like I had turned out such a poor application and because I'd been on vacation at the very start of the contest, I came into the planning stages of Week One very late. I was pretty sure I was screwed. To have actually made it to the end and survived is beyond anything I could have hoped for back in the beginning. I really felt like Vasily and Fildering were much more deserving to have gone on in those early rounds. After a bit, I began to feel a lot more confident in my abilities as a writer and in my character.

Is there any backstory to your application?

I'm not 100% sure what you mean by backstory, if you mean how I developed the application, or how Vera got where she was at the time of the application.  I guess I'll answer both...

I decided early on I would use "The Shadow Room" technique, which I believe was created by author Holly Lisle in her Create a Character Clinic. In a nutshell, you basically focus on slow breathing and imagine yourself in a room with a screen in front of you. You imagine someone comes in and sits down and starts talking to you. You write down what you hear, smell, what this person says, and describe their voice. From that exercise, I got the idea that the character was dog-like, smelled strongly of woodsmoke, and had potentially just murdered a bunch of people. I took that information and whipped out the application.

For the character backstory, Vera found out about Captain Rigal having the amulet because he used to frequent the inn where she worked. Enough conversation came around to help her pinpoint that Rigal's father was the one who had stolen it when Vera was young. Hylan originally discouraged her going after the amulet, but after she presumed Hylan was dead, she accepted a job offer to work at the fort. She actually planned for about a year how to get the amulet and get away without being caught.

Also, do you regret not making Hylan a fox?  :D

Eh, yeah, a little bit. I really hemmed and hawed over that choice for a long time. I nearly changed him to a fox before publishing the post he first appeared in, but I really wanted him to be just a friend to her. I was afraid that if I made Hylan a fox, Vera would come off as more of a jilted lover and that wasn't the angle I wanted to work.

[Matra Hammer]

All of those pairings sound delicious. Your posts always made me hungry. Even the gross ones in Dead Rock!

Now that we know a great deal more about Vera and how she came along, what about you?

First contest? Last contest? Secret underground wrestling star? I wish I'd real identity probing questions but I really don't know anyone here outside of the board...

[Vera Silvertooth]

First contest? Last contest? Secret underground wrestling star? I wish I'd real identity probing questions but I really don't know anyone here outside of the board...

Like Crue, I was also recruited by Vizon, though unlike Crue, I've been a fan of the books since I was 11 or 12, I believe. This was my first contest (though I dearly hope it won't be my last), but I've been around the Redwall Online Community for a good number of years... since 1998. Heh...

Actually, back in the "glory days" of the early 2000s, I was very active in the ROC. I spent most of my time role playing on various boards (which is how I initially met Vizon) and ran a moderately successful Redwall club.

As my RPing peers and I grew up, I drifted away from Redwall, especially when Geocities shut down in 2009, which officially killed my club. Had I known that this particular community existed, you would have seen me much sooner.

[Tooley Bostay]

Our favorite somewhat-pyromaniac fox! Hooray!

- What did you, as an author, learn from writing Vera?

- Any cast relationships in particular you really wish could have been developed further?

- Is Vera done with all and any adventuring?

- You think her exposure to the black powder might inspire her to try her hand at chemistry?

- Favorite scene with Vera? Most difficult-to-write?

[Airan]

You think her exposure to the black powder might inspire her to try her hand at chemistry?

I'm sorry, but this for some reason made me imagine a Breaking Bad crossover featuring Vera.

Hylan, we have to cook!

[Vera Silvertooth]

Our favorite somewhat-pyromaniac fox! Hooray!

- What did you, as an author, learn from writing Vera?

Hmm, where do I start... The number of things I learned through this was mind blowing, but I think one of the biggest ones was that I have a tendency to come up with ideas that aren't very realistic. Fun, yes, but not necessarily as believable as they could be. I'm now more aware of that weakness in my writing, though I need to find better ways to catch myself at that.

Also, I've been writing for a long time and I'm close to self-publishing a collection of short stories and a novel, but one of the things I've always struggled with is revision. I can get out a rough draft in no time flat, but I have less practice at actually polishing it up to something of quality. Writing for Vera gave me a chance to hammer out a rough draft, and then work out all the kinks before 'publishing' it.

- Any cast relationships in particular you really wish could have been developed further?

I really wanted to do more with Fildering and Vera. I'd had it in my head during the writing of "Searching for Supper?" that Vera had been on her own for a while with no friends and I thought it would be interesting for her to make friends with the hare. I had quite a few plans that I was getting ready to discuss with Filds when the vote came in and he was gone. Unfortunately, thanks to what we began calling the Vixen's Curse, I didn't get many good chances to build any relationships, since everyone Vera interacted with kept dying. Good thing the curse bounced off Chak.... :P

- Is Vera done with all and any adventuring?

Hard to say. That's something I'm looking at in the epilogue. I don't think she'll be hopping on any more ships in the near future, but she may travel around a bit more.

- You think her exposure to the black powder might inspire her to try her hand at chemistry?

Oh, a little bit. I can imagine she'll play around with black powder for fun. Entertain folks in the places she works and all that. Maybe she'll be the one to invent matches in the Redwall world.

- Favorite scene with Vera? Most difficult-to-write?

My favorite was probably he spoon story with Hylan and Vera from "Come To Tea." It was something I randomly wrote somewhere in the middle of the competition, right about the time I was introducing Hylan. I had this random idea for a funny instance that happened with them and wrote it out at the bottom of one of my drafts. I wasn't even sure if I'd get to use the scene at all, but I'm glad I found a spot to slip it in. It opened up my eyes to a happier time in Vera's life and really gave me a good idea of the relationship her and Hylan had.

The most difficult was probably Vera's torture from "The Art of Interrogation". Torin completely creeped me out and trying to get in his head well enough to write that scene was hard. It was hard trying to figure out just how much to hurt Vera, as well as just how much pain her character would handle (to say nothing of what her author could handle). I know I had a lot of help from the cast with that particular scene.