The Journey

Typically, I plot out my books meticulously because I hate rewrites, and my general goal is to avoid them as much as possible. But as I mentioned in my 2020 recap post, this year I listened to Brandon Sanderson’s class via youtube, and I decided to really drill down and focus on shaping my characters by the principals he presents. Unfortunately, that meant I had a couple off scenes and one long false start that I ended up having to redo. I asked the Champions in our Facebook Group if they’d be interested in seeing these deleted scenes and edited snippets, and the overwhelming answer was yes! So let’s take a walk down memory lane and see how I re-shaped parts of CoMaD through out the writing process!

1) The Original beginning: As part of the refining process I ended up having to redo the first 20 pages of Crown of Shadows. The events all stayed the same–even most of the dialog is there, though there is an additional fae character I cut for the sake of keeping things shorter. But in the original ending, Leila’s hatred for the fae came on a little too strong to the point where she was bitter and was pretty much impossible to work with once I got her to the mansion. I ended up having to go back and significantly soften her disdain for fae, which made her about 50% less paranoid (which is saying something) and also made her a lot more likable. (As a character, she wasn’t meshing well with Skye, Indigo, or even the Paragon because of her dislike of fae. That made her extremely unlikable since the Paragon is a pretty popular character.) If you want to see this original, more hate-filled version of Leila, click here for the PDF!

2) An incredibly lazy fight scene: The fight scene you see in Magiford Mid Summer Derby where Leila and the night mares are attacked is actually the second version of the fight. I had an original fight scene that was much shorter….honestly because I was feeling lazy at the time and really needed to just FINISH the book. When I did my first read-through of the book I ended up doing a rehaul of the scene because it was just so…bad. It was too short, the use of magic didn’t make sense, and it felt amateurish. Worse yet, it was supposed to be the climax moment in the book! Yeah, a lot of work had to be done to save it. Click here for the PDF if you’d like to witness this original fight.

3) Leila asks Rigel to be King: In Queen’s Crown, Leila asks Rigel to be King of the Night Court. In the version that got published it’s a close moment between the pair, that shows a bit of Leila’s desperation. In the original version of the scene I hadn’t correctly underlined that Leila lacked a connection with her Court–and when I wrote this scene I already knew that and I knew I’d have to go back and fix it. During my first tread-through I did a better job of underlining the lack of connection–which I actually set up in Crown of Moonlight–but then I knew the somewhat slap-dash/not-at-all-serious way Leila asks Rigel to be King in the first version of this scene wasn’t going to work. Rigel becoming King was a way bigger deal than I originally made it, and it was an important turning point in their relationship.  Click here for the PDF if you’d like to read that part of the original scene!

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There were a few more scenes that got some rehauls. In the wedding, I originally had a golem attack Rigel and Leila before I discussed the book with Britta–my beta reader–and she pointed out if I brought the spiders back in it would better draw in the initial attack, something I badly needed since I had to show the original offender hadn’t given up. I also did some rework with Leila in the mansion, and reworked a scene with her fae nobles, but the majority of those changes were minor or slight enough that you probably wouldn’t notice them very much.

But there you have it, Champions: a glimpse of how rough my books can be in the first drafts. Typically what I write in my first draft is very, very close to what you end up getting, it’s just finessed and I typically have to pull out a little more of the romance and underline more of the subplots.

I hope you enjoyed that behind-the-scenes peek! Thanks for reading, Champions, and have a wonderful day!

Character Profiles: Rigel & Leila

This is our last batch of deep dives into characters, and we’re hitting up our main protagonists: Rigel and Leila!

When I first designed this series, I knew Rigel was going to be a challenge. I mean, the guy tries to kill Leila the first times he sees her. Ingratiating him to other characters, much less you Champions, was going to be a difficult task.

Moreover, I needed Rigel to be believably competent to the point where he was almost scary, but then I needed him to believably switch to helping Leila. The tension of the story would be terrible if he easily switched sides, and if he started the series by siding with her that was going to make the whole thing of him trying to kill her totally fake. And Rigel needed to be the one to try to kill Leila because it would make for interesting romance–which is a real fight for me–and he was my best source of clues for hinting at who was ultimately responsible, which I badly needed!

To make it worse, Rigel wasn’t a talkative character! Killian is charismatic and totally willing to carry on a conversation, which makes it easier to show out the different facets of his personality. Rigel–silent with a penchant for looming–was the exact opposite. This meant I had to show more scenes from his point of view so readers knew what he was thinking and, more importantly, I had to make every sentence he spoke and every physical action he took count on about five different levels.

It’s a huge deal when–during their wedding–Rigel steps up to protect Leila. But it took pretty much the entire book to set up for that moment so you’d be able to understand how crucial that change was.

I wanted Rigel to fall in love in a way that was different from my previous male protagonists–particularly Killian and his love story with Hazel. That was partially what inspired me to make him an assassin–the idea of taking this silent assassin and mashing him with loveable Leila and watching the sparks fly made me actually excited–instead of petrified–to write their romance.

Hilariously, the hardships with Rigel became the very thing that made him fun to write: his subtleties.  The way he can tell the glooms and shades apart and will pet them, the fact that he listens and hears Leila when she’s up late at night and fighting an emotional battle–he shows his character and his love in a hundred tiny ways. And while that was daunting at the start of the series, by the end I was having an utter blast dreaming up all of his minute actions.

Plus, I love a good villains-to-lovers romance, so I was destined to like our taciturn hero!

Fierce, blunt, and hilarious Leila is undoubtedly one of my favorite heroines I’ve ever gotten to write. Her sarcasm combined with the general obliviousness of the fae–and their horror at her playfulness–made her a dream to write.

She tumbled onto the scene because I wanted to write a modern day heroine who didn’t want to be queen and was so different from her people she was practically alien to them. I knew it would make for some great laughs, and I also knew that in order for the fae to be “saved” just as Hazel and Killian have begun whipping the vampires and wizards into shape, that the fae needed someone who wouldn’t back down but was also kind enough to listen.

And that is Leila’s true power. Yes, she won’t take death threats sitting down, or let her nobles push her around, but she’s willing to forgive, and she can be kind. That’s why she accepts Chrysanthe’s friendship–and Chrys pays her back tenfold. It’s why she loves the night mares even though they look like something that stepped out of a horror story–and again, they pay back her love tenfold.

While Leila’s sarcasm is the flashiest part of her personality, it’s her kindness that makes reclaiming the Night Realm possible. The Night Court would never have shown up for a queen who only belittled fae and did whatever she wanted. But they would die for Leila because she’s strong enough to stop the infighting, and soft enough to forgive them.

For example, even though she hates socials and does everything she can to decrease spending, she knows those events are important to the fae, so she makes sure they happen. (On a much more reasonable budget, but it’s the thought that counts!) And while she resists tea for almost the entirety of the series, her loyalty to her people is what makes her break and try tea–and she’s rewarded because it turns out her people decided to try coffee because of their loyalty to her.

Leila is all about opposites coming together. She’s human and fae; sarcastic and soft; strong in magic but weak in her own realm; intelligent but ignorant in a lot of fae ways.

There won’t ever be another heroine quite like Leila, but I loved her story, and I can’t wait to watch her keep growing as the Magiford stories continue.

That’s all for today, Champions! I hope you enjoyed our character studies. We still have a few more themed posts to go through–I hope you’re having as much fun as I am! Until next time, have a beautiful day!

Series Experiment: Fae Emperor

Warning: Today’s post has big spoilers for Court of Midnight and Deception! Do not proceed if you haven’t read it yet!

When I wrote the Hall of Blood and Mercy series, I mentioned I pulled a few experiments. I had repeating scenes that you see in every book–in HoBaM it was dinner with the vampires, in CoMaD it’s the cafe scenes–that I played around with, and I experimented with plotting systems, characters, and more. (If you want to read more, click here!)

In Court of Midnight and Deception I carried out another mini experiment–or perhaps we could even call it a mini quest–and that was combatting power creep.

Power creep is what you see in long book series/TV series/movies as the heroes acquire new skills that make them increasingly more powerful and are then pitted against increasingly powerful villains. (It’s also commonly called Power Escalation.)

You may start a series where the villain is threatening the city and in order to save the city our hero has to learn the most ultimate of all magic skills: Power XYZ. At the end of the book, the hero learns XYZ and is able to defeat the villain. But what can the writer do for the next book? They have to up the tension, of course, which means the baddie will now threaten the entire country, and power XYZ isn’t strong enough to overcome it! The hero has to learn a new ultimate skill!

You’ll see this most often in fantasy shows/books/movies, but it’s pretty prevalent in entertainment in general.

The danger of power creep is that it can make things feel boring. By the third time it happens, you know the Hero is going to get the new ultimate skill to conquer the villain–who is now the 5th generation of badness our hero is facing and frankly not frightening given that you’ve seen this happen again and again and again.

Power creep tends to especially be a problem with magically inclined heroines/heroes. Their magical powers keep increasing so they can face the problems they come across–because they have to since the hero needs to face everything all by themselves, right?

Leila, as an inexperienced queen with a broke Court and ungrateful citizens was in serious danger of experiencing power creep. Sure, I could make her charisma what wins her people over, and give her a hefty amount of magic so she can do cool things like wake up a hydra, and there would be little danger there, particularly since Queen Rime is around and she can kick Leila’s butt any day.

The real danger would be if Leila was the one to save the night realm all by herself–talk about over powered!–and if she also became the sole figure the fae rallied behind.

The problem was…Leila needed to become the monarch the fae look to. Given what I have planned for future series that follow the Paragon’s search (more on this coming in future posts!) I needed the fae to get it together and collectively wake up and stop all the infighting.

Leila is best suited for that for all the reasons laid out in the books…but the power creep!!

So I tempered her powers by requiring her Court to stand with her to save the Night Realm and even to get her wings. She still doesn’t have wings unless her people are there and standing in the gap between Leila and the Night Realm for her. But that still wasn’t quite enough to steer her into the clear.

Leila saves her Court–which was bankrupt, on the brink of destruction, and the biggest dumpster fire ever–in the span of a year. If I added into it that she needed to become the fae empress–which requires the blessing/support of Courts from multiple regions, not just the Midwest?? I’d never be able to pull it off in three books–there would be too many Courts to introduce–and it would make Leila ridiculously powerful in the span of a few months. No thanks.

So, I decided to slowly have Leila gather additional support in the background of future trilogies. She’s got the Midwest behind her, but as we know there are lots of fae Courts out there in other regions–including all of Rime’s siblings that rule the Winter Courts.

And giving Leila the opportunity to keep growing is something unique I can pull off because we’ll keep seeing her. Hazel is similar. She’s the Elite’s trainee, not the Elite herself–it’s kind of like she’s got training wheels on, so it shows how important she is without making her the most-important-wizard-in-the-whole-universe.

Hazel and/or Leila working by themselves won’t be able to fix magic and save supernaturals. Even if the two of them work together they still couldn’t pull it off. It’s going to require help from a lot of groups/people, including supernaturals who are older, stronger, and more experienced than them.

And THAT is how I figured out how to combat power creep in this series, muwahahah!

I hope you enjoyed this peek behind the curtains of my mind. I typically do have some sort of writing issue/axe to grind with every series I write. For Leila’s series, it was power creep!

Thanks for reading, Champions, I hope you have a fun-filled week!