Behind the Scenes: The Clockwork Promise •

Here’s a little look behind the scenes at the creation of The Clockwork Promise, episode 3 of the Imperfect Expressions Podcast.

Have you seen the anime Violet Evergarden? It’s a heart-tugging story, and I can see inspiration from it in the main character of The Clockwork Promise.

In 2019 I joined in on the Penprints Flash Fiction dash. I was given a writing prompt, a genre, and a few days to come up with a story. I can’t put the prompt image here for copyright reasons, but imagine this:

Someone holds a newspaper up over their face. The front page headline reads “MAYHEM CAUSED. Monsters Certainly Not Involved, Officials Say”

I was stumped. My first idea was too expected and I didn’t want to write it. Just having monsters tearing up a town that didn’t know monsters existed? I mean, I was totally down to write a Jackaby style flash, but that was making the prompt too easy on myself. ;)

I racked my brain for about a day. I got frustrated at my lack of imagination. Then I combined 4 things together, and magic happened. What if you had…

That dang newspaper.

A clockwork girl.

A letter that has to be delivered (à la Violet Evergarden)

And a WWII veteran. (Memorial Day was coming up)

Poof.

I had a story. And the best part? The newspaper would never be fully described. It would be the Chekhov’s gun. The story would focus on something else, but all along the beginning and the end would center on that newspaper and its contents.

For the original story, I didn’t have to worry about the readers not knowing what was on the paper, because the readers would look at the prompt before diving in. They would already know. And anyone who read it without the prompt? There was enough information for them to get the idea of what was going on.

I still like this story. As you can tell – I’m rambling now. So enough of that. Here’s a little look at how, a while later, the artwork developed for the podcast version of The Clockwork Promise. :)

*This was the first sketch the artist sent me. Not going to lie, it’s my favorite. Even more so than the final version. Haha!*

The original title for this story was simply “War.” I couldn’t come up with anything better. But it never “fit” right.

Then he sent over this image. Looking great! There were A few too many giant gears on the floor though. Haha

The story became nameless during its audio production. But I had to call it SOMETHING to save the files by.

So we cleaned up the mess a little bit and played with the colors. This is the final!

And so, to this day, the original files are saved under… Ticky Tock Clock. Ha! It’s still my favorite name for it. Sometimes I like the ridiculous. ;)

To check out the other images created for The Clockwork Promise, check out the Artwork page!

You can find the story podcast with animated images here.

Just B. Jordan

Just B. Jordan is an award-winning author of fantasy and sci-fi. She graduated high school a year early and received her first publishing contract at the age of 18. To Ashes We Run is her most recent novel. Find it here.