It’s finally completed. But what is it?

So recently, I’ve been on about how close I am to completing the first draft of Dark One’s Mistress.
Well here’s the final post on that. Because … it’s done! ^_^

Sure I didn’t do the full 50k over a month like some of you NaNoWriMo participants, but I did write the final 20k in the last three weeks. That’s quite a feat for me.
And staying up so late that it became early to write certainly threatened to be the death of me, but when you’re staring at the plotline (even if it’s just the vague one in your head) and seeing only a small jump to the end, you gotta keep going.
And, man, does it feel good to type THE END. Well, really, I typed THE END months ago, then moved the ending by some 800 or so words. Because that’s how I roll. ^_^

But let me break down what that means for Dark One’s Mistress.
It’s 70,000 words long. For now, anyway. If it’s anything like my other works, it’ll get bigger in the edits.
There’s 23 Chapters. Each scene is one chapter, so that’s twenty-three scenes. One (the turnaround scene I needed) coming completely out of nowhere while I was writing. That’s about three thousand words per chapter, give or take some.
Overall, the story takes 16 days. The original plot called for a month, but as I went on, I saw it wouldn’t be necessary to stretch the timeline so far. Anyway, the last nine chapters covered three days. Three! No wonder I sped through them. Jammed full it is. ^_^
And finally, it’s all done in one PoV! This is my biggest achievement yet. Even Golden Dawn, which is half the size of Dark One’s Mistress, has a prologue and epilogue in two different points of view. And while my muse would toy with giving Lucias’ side of the story through his eyes, I think it would’ve detracted more than what it gained. So yay me!

Now I’m that much closer to getting the story on the submission track (just gotta do some editing – which I’m already halfway through on the first round – and get some CP eye-balling going on), I’m finding a greater need to know where it “fits” in the shelving world insofar as the age market goes.
I’ve no problem with this when it came to my previous stories …
The Rogue King, despite starting when he’s twelve, is most certainly Adult.
Golden Dawn, though tamer in the sex department, is definitely Adult.
Even Dragon, which is tamer again, is nevertheless still Adult.

But Dark One’s Mistress? *shrug* Ever since I first started writing it, I’ve been a little fuzzy on where it stands. Some days, I’m convinced it’s Adult. Other days … I wonder if it is, perhaps, New Adult.
I’ve already eliminated Young Adult from my choices (I was never a young adult, I’ve accepted this). I could give my Main Character an older age and nothing would change beyond me needing to touch on the point of why she wasn’t married. So really, in my mind, if I can do that, it doesn’t fit in the YA section.
But let me set down a few facts … Clara – the Main Character – has just turned seventeen. Despite the main point of her kidnapping being Lucias creating an heir, there is no sex. There is mentions of past encounters (his not hers), but nothing more than you’d hear in the average discussion/gossip. There are, however, some darker moments that I hope will be heart-in-the-mouth reading.

Snatched right off the streets of Everdark, seventeen-year-old Clara seeks her freedom from the moment she is given over to the kingdom’s newly-made Lord, Lucias. When she is picked from a group of similarly-stolen women, she discovers that her worse fear is true: their Lord is in need of an heir, its conception to be before the new moon.

Despite Lucias’ charm and good-looks, Clara is determined not to become his mistress. Never mind his ultimatum of coming to him willingly or be forced, there’s the small matter of him stealing souls. To complicate things further, Lenora of Ne’ermore, an old enemy and ex-prisoner of the kingdom, is sending her pet barbarian to slaughter Lucias and, to ensure there is no chance of an heir, Clara must die as well.

Clara’s need to escape, whether through force or persuasion, grows stronger with each passing day. But then she learns that if Lucias does die without an heir, then the soulless criminals enslaved in his army will be free to terrorise the land. Now Clara is caught in a choice between regaining her freedom or losing it completely for the good of the kingdom. She doesn’t have long to decide before death comes to take away everything and escape is no longer an option.