Novel Update: January 4, 2026 — Writing the Sentient House

Dear Reader,

I met with my Secret Society today (IYKYK). While talking, I found myself unable to fully explain what I mean when I speak about the sentient house and point of view in my novel. What I am trying to establish begins here:

“The house was built of decaying bones, its rotted wood peeling, sinking into the sand as if digging its own grave.”
— excerpt from an unpublished novel by Susannah Carver

When you read this sentence, how does it make you feel? I hope it makes you feel apprehensive—perhaps even slightly ill. Several things are happening at once. I give the house a physical presence, rendering it humanoid by describing its parts as anatomy. In your mind, wooden beams may become bones, rotted wood may resemble peeling skin—and, most importantly, the house is dying.

This sentence also exists to make the reader feel unsafe, to worry for the character even though she has already proven herself unreliable. It is essential to me that the reader fears this place but, like the character, has no choice but to enter. This is the first threshold. I want the reader to understand that once this boundary is crossed, there is no going back.

At this point, the house has been described in a fairytale manner—its significance made clear—but it has not yet achieved sentience.

The house is not given a voice, but it is allowed a consciousness—one filtered through the character’s perception.

That comes later:

“Rosemary closed her eyes, letting tears slip free. She didn’t know this place—but it knew her.”
— excerpt from an unpublished novel by Susannah Carver

When you read this sentence, how does it make you feel? I hope it unsettles you—perhaps even makes you feel paranoid. It should suggest that the house is harboring some form of memory. We already know the house is dying. This is its last chance to make itself known. I want both the character and the reader to feel its presence.

There are further moments throughout the novel—each increasingly uncanny—but it is my intention to approach them delicately. Some characters are plunged into the unknown, like Alice falling down the rabbit hole. My aim, instead, is to take both character and reader on a sly, fog-laden journey, gently pulling them through the veil before they realize what is happening.

This is not something that arrives from the outside.
It is something that emerges under pressure.

Like something getting too heavy.
Muscles aching.
Joints breaking.

But alive.

Yours, Susannah