Sayblood's Children: A Not-So-Brief Debrief
Telling A Story Through Time
Welcome, Talebones Readers!
This is a slight detour from our usual programming here at Talebones…
Over the Winter Season, from December to February, I wrote and published a serial novella here on Substack called Sayblood’s Children, a mix of dark fantasy, folk horror, and a dash of romance set in the shadowy history of Ferris Island’s past.
At the end of that serial, I promised I would share a debrief of behind-the-scenes content about it. And then…life happened and a month passed. Oops!
But at long last, here it is!
Because of that delay in getting this sent out, the entirety of Sayblood’s Children is out from behind the paywall for a limited time so that those who missed it can catch up. But you gotta read it quick!
If you missed it and you want to read it BEFORE reading this debrief—which will include some spoilers—go ahead and get started with the first chapter HERE.
It will remain free to read until APRIL 22nd!
For the rest of you who already read it and want to know more about how it all began, join me as we ramble.
It’s a long one, so grab a cup of something cozy and a snack and let’s get to it!
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And now, back to the debrief!
The Origins
It all started with a play.
It was 2006. I was eighteen years old, and I had just gone away to university to pursue a degree in Theater. What would I do with this degree? Unclear. (And I didn’t stay at four-year university long enough to find out, but that’s a different story…)
The head of the university’s theater program was very focused on hands-on learning, and that meant taking us to see as many plays as possible. In that first freshman quarter we attended a handful of local productions, an invaluable experience.
One small production was a drama set against the backdrop of conflict in Central America. In all honesty? I don’t recall the play itself being very memorable. At the very least I felt that the material deserved a tighter script and more motivated acting. But whatever else its merits or problems, this play will live on forever in my memory as the catalyst for inciting my interest in the Popol Vuh, a sacred text of Mayan mythology. For that, I can only be grateful.
Part of the play used this Mayan mythology as a thread weaving through the story. I was completely enchanted by little bits of folklore included, and as soon as I got back to my dorm I logged onto my laptop and did as much digging as 2006’s version of Google would allow.
Mayan mythology is a rich and varied vein of fascinating stories. One major myth, the one that moved me most, centers around two sets of twins.
Here’s the quick version:
The first set of twin boys are playful, mischievous characters who are talented players of a ball game called pok-ta-pok. However, their playing is loud and annoying to the Lords of Xibalbá, the Mayan underworld. So the Lords invite the brothers to come down to play ball on their court in the underworld. But it’s a trap. The Lords trick and kill the young men, and the head of one of the twins is placed in a tree.
This is where Ixquic (Blood Woman), the daughter of one of the Lords of Xibalbá, finds him.
His severed head spits in her hand and performs a spell and impregnates her, and—afraid of her pregnancy being discovered—she escapes to the world above to give birth to the second set of twins, who eventually avenge their father and uncle’s deaths by traveling back into the underworld to challenge the Lords.
(Forgive my simplistic synopsis, here. I tried to capture the general spirit of the story, but if it interests you, I highly recommend learning more. It’s a really cool tale.)
My eighteen-year-old self was deeply fascinated. I immediately started to imagine what a fantasy retelling of such a story could look like. Fairytales and myths are reimagined all the time, but this one felt very unique to me. My fascination all centered around Blood Woman, this underworld princess, and her journey above to save her unborn children, these sacred twins. The original myth kind of ignores her after the birth of her sons, but I couldn’t get her out of my mind.
Back in 2006, Ferris Island didn’t exist yet, not even as a glimmer in my head. So my initial ideas for a retelling took place in a fantasy world that I had been poking at for a while. The fantasy world wasn’t very developed, but it was an island nation in an alternate version of Europe.
Fun Fact: This fantasy/alternate history setting became the locus for the bulk of my fiction throughout my twenties, and a lot of bits and pieces from it have found their way into my fiction today, like the town name Seavend on Ferris Island, or the reference to Pexdarelle in The Sleeper, The Singer.
I gave my underworld princess a name, Sayblood, and named her evil father One Prince as a nod to the original mythology’s interesting naming conventions (the Lords of Xibalbá are called things like One Death, Seven Death, etc.) They lived in a dark, desolate cavern-city populated with eerie lights and dangerous people. The tunnels beyond their city—and One Prince’s garden of thorns—were largely unknown. And Sayblood thought that her world was the only world…until she meets Shrike, a man who claims to be from “above”.
From here, you know how it goes: she and Shrike fall in love, she becomes pregnant with his children, he dies, and she travels up to save her babies from her father’s wrath.
What happens after that? I wasn’t sure. So unsure that I never finished it. Spent over a decade thinking about it, poking at it, dreaming about it, reimagining it, trying to find new angles for telling it. A lot of characters were added and discarded. A lot of details overcomplicated the basic story. Many other story ideas popped up and dropped away over the years, but Sayblood kept haunting me. I just couldn’t find a way through it, for some reason, even though parts of it were very vivid in my head.
Then, in 2022, Substack happened to me.
And in 2023, I started sharing my Ferris Island tales with a gracious audience.
Suddenly, I found my way in.
An Aside About Ferris Island
Ferris Island saw its first real inception around 2018 to 2019. In a way, it was me bringing my scattered ideas “home”—taking what had been a completely made-up fantasy location in an alternate-history European nation and bringing it all the way down to earth as an island in my beloved home region of Washington State.
Obviously, some stuff had to change. Ferris Island is much smaller geographically than the original place I had made up, so I had to consolidate, make some cuts. A lot of the more fantastical place names had to be scrapped, along with the magical fantasy stuff that was a little too abstract or surreal. But once I had decided that Ferris Island would and could exist, so many of the blanks filled in on their own as if it had always been that way. It became a real place populated by a lot of the very real personalities and landscapes I had known over the years. I could see them in my mind’s eye in a way I never could before Ferris Island existed.
Part of the fun of writing about a place like Ferris Island—set in the real world—is that the history of your made-up place has guardrails around it. Whether I like it or not, the context is already set. There are certain things that happened at certain points in Pacific Northwest history, and I can only bend those rules so far before the regional history nerds in my audience get antsy.
(It’s me. I’m the antsy regional history nerd.)
That said, when I picture the shadowy history of Ferris Island starting in the late 1700s to modern day, there’s a lot of room to play. And I figured that Sayblood could fit, if I was careful about how I handled it.
The idea of bringing Sayblood and her story into this grounded location was exciting, but it definitely had its challenges.
Adaptation for Substack
If you were to look at a lot of my old notes and ideas for Sayblood from 2006 onward, it would be familiar to anyone who read Sayblood’s Children here on Substack. The basic bones of the story didn’t change much at all. Sayblood, Shrike, and One Prince all kept their original names. Othniel did, too, although he played a different role in the 2006 original (he was not Sayblood’s love interest; hard to explain). And the twins—a boy and girl, originally—kept names that were nods to their origins: Roserike became Rose, Wenwire became Wren. The twins did eventually have the capability to transform into animals in the original, too.
Fun Fact: the oldest elements in this story are actually three names - Kysiel and Vaziel (Sayblood’s daggers), and Sumble. All three are from a much older unfinished fantasy novel that I started writing earlier in high school. Kysiel and Vaziel were weapons in that old novel, and Sumble was a god…though a much more benevolent one.
The 2006 conceit of the story centered more around Sayblood’s actual step-by-step journey above, which was a literal gigantic “staircase” with levels that she had to travel through. Think Dante’s Inferno. It was populated by strange creatures and frightening dangers. Looking back, I think I got a lot of the grotesque/surreal inspiration for this journey from Clive Barker’s Abarat, which is still a longtime favorite. The only real remnants of this in the finished serial are the mentions of Rooster and Mouse, who played a much larger role in the original.
The things that happened to Sayblood after that were a bit of a blur that I couldn’t land on. But when I decided to make this a part of Ferris Island history, the stuff that happens after she emerges became the point of the story: her love story with Othniel, her interactions with Bill, and the birth of her children who would go on to create the first stirrings of The Brack as we know it today.
That said, I wanted to make sure I didn’t completely lose her past underground, as so much of it informs who she is as a person. For the serialized version on Substack, I curtailed a lot of her journey Above and turned it into her diary-entry recollections at the start of each chapter, recorded for her daughters.
It might surprise you to know that because I decided to do things this way, most of the story you read was fully invented for Substack, week to week the way I usually do my serials. This was incredibly cathartic after eighteen years of hemming and hawing about this story. The historic guardrails and the desire to include characters like Bill brought the story to life for me, along with needing to make sure the ending hooked onto the origins of The Brack in a satisfying way.
Turns out that limits are good for creativity. They give us something to push against.
Suddenly, with deadlines, a firm grasp of the setting, and a fresh perspective on the tale, I was off to the races.
Pathos and Pain
Something I didn’t expect in the writing of this story was an ongoing conversation with the eighteen year old who still lives in my mind.
As a relatively sheltered Christian kid, I wasn’t a particularly angsty teen on the outside, but a lot of my angstiest moments happened in my fiction. In my high school-era stories and beyond I played with death and murder, emotional and traumatic situations, use of substances and sexual encounters that I had no actual reference for…these were exercises I played out in my stories so that I didn’t have to engage in them for real and take dangerous risks.
Honestly, none of them were what anyone would call “hardcore” by today’s standards, but in going back over my old ideas for Sayblood’s story, I did bump up against some of the darker things my teenage mind could conjure up. For example, Sayblood’s beloved ballroom in the Underside was more like a seedy nightclub in the original story. There was much more reference to substance abuse and sexual experiences in this setting. Also, Shrike’s original “role” in the Underside was an assassin, and that came with extra violence. I was kind of morbidly obsessed with assassins back then. I think I had just seen Leon: The Professional or something…
In trying to bring the story to life for Substack, I found myself interrogating my teenage self quite a bit on some of this stuff. Like, Why did that matter to you? What were you trying to accomplish or understand by writing about this?
The exploration was a little bit cringy, actually. A little bit raw, trying to look back and figure out what my younger brain was thinking. But I realize now that I was just experimenting, trying out emotional shorthand, attempting to create pathos without fully understanding what this kind of pain means for actual people. It was all catharsis with no context.
One example is the birth scene of the twins. It’s one of the few scenes that has been in the story from the very beginning with weird, hyper-specific clarity.
From the start, I pictured Shrike’s ghost screaming from the other side of the door in tune with Sayblood’s labor pains. My teen self thought this was really good, emotional stuff, being completely divorced from any level of grief myself.
At thirty-six, writing that scene hit me hard. Because I’ve lived more life than my teen self has, and I recognize real pain when I see it and when it happens to people I care about. I’m not the kind of writer who feels I always have to cry when my characters cry—I think this well-meaning advice is a little overblown, honestly—but this chapter did it to me. The machinations of a sheltered teenager who didn’t understand grief finally came to fruition in a scene that needed time to make it real.
Most of the edgier, pathos-laden things from the 2006 original were scrapped not because I’ve gotten more prudish as I’ve gotten older, but because I’m simply a more seasoned storyteller these days. I know better now what a story needs and what it doesn’t. And I felt that Sayblood’s story didn’t need most of those things to work. Edgy and bloody and violent and boundary-pushing are tools to be used when they are most effective, not simply as a shortcut to drama.
In all this, I learned a valuable lesson: even the stories we think we’re not “ready” to tell—not brave enough or mature enough or intelligent enough to tell—are important to hold onto, not to throw away.
Because someday we might be ready in a way we never expected.
Q&A
A few readers left questions in the comment section of the final episode of Sayblood’s Children. And while some of the questions were answered by the content above, I believe, here are two I would like to elaborate on further…
asked: How much of the Brack’s history/folklore did you know when you started writing Ferris Island tales?
It’s a little tough to answer this question in a clear way. So many of my story ideas have been composted and recycled over time that in some ways The Brack has always been on my mind, but in some ways it’s still brand new.
A cultish community of orchardists with some weird, shadowy beliefs and practices was part of my original pre-Ferris Island fantasy setting, but not as evolved as The Brack is now. The ability to transform into hounds wasn’t really a solid idea back then either; that grew alongside the beginning of Ferris Island itself.
When I created Ferris Island I wanted to figure out a way to bring The Brack into a grounded reality, so a lot of the choices I’ve made have been in service of trying to make something like that realistic, instead of too “fantasy-coded”.
When I wrote Ivy & Ixos, I knew that The Brack existed but not exactly what direction I was taking it. By the time Goldgreen launched, I knew that Sayblood and Othniel were going to be the catalyst for that weird part of island history, even if I didn’t have all the details hammered out yet. (Goldgreen is the first story posted to Substack in which the “woman on the beach” story is mentioned.)
asked: Do you have a storyline or storylines in mind to fill in the gap between this open and friendly community, and the later closed, reclusive and sometimes hostile Brack community of changelings that has been portrayed in more current timeframes?
Such a good question! I don’t want to give too much away, but all I would say is that The Brack is, in essence, following the rules of real life and real history. Which is to say that things that start off good and pure don’t always stay that way, especially closed, insular communities with lots of superstitions.
After all, there’s a chunk of about 170 years of history between Sayblood’s Children and today. A lot can happen in 170 years!
I don’t have any specific stories planned for this change, as a lot of it was gradual. But the moment I get a good hook for a story about this, you bet I’ll be adding it to the roster. :)
Future Plans
I’ve been asked whether Sayblood’s Children will receive the publication treatment, and the answer is certainly yes!…but please have patience.
A lot of my Substack serials are thumbnail versions of larger stories, and Sayblood’s Children is one such example. If I were to revise it for publication, there’s a lot that I would like to add back in from past iterations, expand, and soften from the effects of serialization. So it would be a pretty big project. More like renovation than revision!
But worth it, for sure. Unless something changes it’s not on the docket for this year’s publication schedule, but that doesn’t mean I won’t tackle it soon. :)
For now, after April 11th it will join past serials in the archive, available to the Talebones Council, to make room for a new serial in the Summer!
That said, just because it’s not an impending publication doesn’t mean I can’t play around with mock covers, right?
Here’s one I made just for fun:
Fact or Folktale: A Conclusion
The original subtitle for Sayblood’s Children was “A Ferris Island folktale”, and while I want people to read and enjoy the story at face value, I’m also just as happy for it to be a little unclear just how much of it is “real” in the context of Ferris Island history and how much of it is Sayblood’s own recollections, and maybe a little squirrelly. There is great power in the tales we tell ourselves and the people we love, the details and memories we find most important to share versus the ones that fall away as time progresses.
In so many ways, this was a tale being told through and in spite of the passage of time: Sayblood writing for her children, and me telling and retelling this tale back and forth through the years, from eighteen to thirty-six and back again.
Sayblood’s Children is less of a Ferris Island history textbook and more of a dark myth, a nod to its sacred Mayan origins. Something passed along down the line over and over, a game of Telephone, until the actual facts are a little bit fuzzy and that’s okay…as long as it makes a good story.
Regardless, it’s hard to describe just how grateful I am to those who read, commented on, shared, and enjoyed this novella. The ability to bring such a personal and beloved story to a wider audience is something I never ever take for granted.
Thank you for trusting me with your generous attention.
If you have any other questions about this series or my debrief, please feel free to share them below!
Otherwise, I remain your grateful storyteller, and until next time,
This is making me want to go back and explore my own high school and college scribblings (which were undoubtedly very angsty)!
I LOVE that you implemented ideas from high school! And Myan folklore was an inspiration for your story!!
So Amazing! I am looking forward to more Ferris Island tales. 🤍
(also if you ever need an illustrator down the road…. I volunteer as tribute.)