The Sheep In Wolf's Clothing

Insight On SWC

If you're reading this, that means I've finished The Sheep In Wolf's Clothing. In all honesty I didn't plan SWC. I originally wrote this back in the summer of 2018 because I had a dream and I thought it would be thrilling to test my writing abilities and turn this dream into a writing piece. During that 2018 summer I only finished the first three chapters, then picked it back up this May of 2019, after a friend Isabella Azevedo (ikcakimura) encouraged me to keep going. I didn't think it would become a 40 short chaptered book because there wasn't a clear outline. I had a few main scenes from my dream, but that was all. I wrote the main idea and then made everything else flow. The whole reason I decided to make this Original Concept "chapter" was to give insight about the process, explain parts of the book (timeline, length, title, etc), some ideas (original concepts, scenes, changes, blue lights, etc), visuals, and the reason why I made this book in the first place (inspiration and problems) If you don't think this is important you can skip this "chapter". If you're interesting keep reading!

First of all, I would like to talk about the important parts of the book. This whole book is taken in the period of a whole year. Typically between 2020-2021, which is told through the letters Zain gives to Sapphire and the family for updates. Next is the topic of the title. It's not that deep and I know the original saying is "The Wolf In Sheeps Clothing" yes, I'm well aware of it. I wanted to clear the meaning up to avoid confusion as I did while showing some friends. The idiom is a dangerous person pretending to be harmless. This only goes for Ziron though as he acts nice to Sapphire at first then totally tries to throw her out of the bus. However The Sheep in Wolfs Clothing which is the title I used for my book is the total opposite of the original idiom. It's a harmless person pretending to be dangerous. Which can also explain the family's appearance when they first meet Sapphire. These are people with wolf ears that growl, who are intimidating. But actually these are the same people who're just trying to live a normal life that are scared to trust others, so they hide themselves away in fear of getting hurt. Which, a lot of people do this to protect themselves as a defense mechanism. Lastly, is the length of each chapter. I would say each chapter is relatively short compared to others but in my opinion I didn't mind. Altogether I would say The Sheep In Wolfs Clothing took a whole year to write, including all the hiatus' I've put it through. Without the hiatus SWC would've been made in about 1-2 months including the editing, and I blame my laziness for it.

Secondly, I would like to give note on the original concepts. Since SWC was based on my dream I had to change many things for the story to make sense. For example, in my dream, the family didn't have ears. Instead they had claws and they would only appear in times of combat. They also had the behaviour of being a werewolf (Eg. Growling and howling). I had this feature in SWC as well but they weren't as prominent as they were in my dream. The features I mentioned were only Milo and the family growling and having their ears twitch while in my dream they would howl, have claws, prominent teeth etc. But Milo and the family didn't have ears in my dreams which was something I decided to add on my own. The dream was told in my eyes so I had to make a character and I decided to name her "Sapphire Moralas". The other characters in my book such as Milo, didn't have a name in my dream, I had to make names for some characters for the story to make sense. I also made drastic changes in the story line itself. For instance, Evette, Ziron and Dylan were never in my dream and I added them for the story. Another example is instead of Sapphire leaving the forest, she stays in the forest and lives there for the rest of her life with Milo. I was going to add this in SWC but I didn't like that idea, so I scrapped it and made Sapphire leave to go to the city (which is something I added) and then go to the forest, only to leave again. Now I want to talk about the "intended climax". The intended climax in my dream compared to SWC are a far cry from each other. You guys already know the climax in SWC, but in my dream Milo and Sapphire hide from the others in the family's basement with another set of people (that I didn't add in SWC). Unfortunately they some noise and Milo has a battle with one of the others. While the two are fighting others walk in and get their hands on Sapphire eventually kidnapping her (I'm going to be writing an extra on this so keep an eye out!). Then, there's the blue lights. I actually got the blue lights from the folklore "will-o'-the-wisp." The folklore represents the unattainable goal Sapphire and the family have. In my story, the lights lead you in and out of the forest if you're a good person. If you're a bad person the colour turns them red and they lead you deeper into the forest never leading you out.