Category: villains

The Thing About Urban Fantasy

~ Judi Lynn ~ 2 Comments

Okay, I did it!  I promised to post one chapter a week for a short urban fantasy novel until it was finished.  And I made it.  I posted the last chapter on Friday.  Once it was up, I spent the rest of the day, putting all of the images and chapters together into one book, and I’d written over 48,000 words.  Not bad.

River City Rumble is the last story, so far, in a series of novellas that I’ve been writing for a long time.  When I’m wading deep in middle muddles of other books, I turn to Babet and Prosper to re-energize me, to pull me out of the muck.  And they always come through.  That’s why I decided they deserved a novel of their own instead of a week or two of my attention in short spurts.  They’d earned their own novel.

The thing is, urban fantasy writers–at least, the ones I read–tend to use a big cast of characters, and those characters grow in number with each book they write.  Now, don’t get me wrong.  I loved writing about all of the people I’d introduced in previous novellas, but it’s hard to keep track of them all in one book.  Before, in shorter works, I picked and chose who I wanted to highlight.  In this book, I decided to go bigger and better.  I wanted someone or something that threatened everyone in River City, so that they’d all have to work together to defeat him/it.  The trick was to try to bring each person in and then not forget him when the next person joined the team.

Hatchet and Colleen had to be part of the struggle.  Hatchet is Prosper’s partner on River City’s supernatural detective force, and Colleen’s his vampire/wife.  If Hatchet’s walking into danger, she’d be beside him.  Babet’s mom and Hennie had to help, too, because they’re all part of River City’s coven.  And since the villain/antagonist who instigates all of the trouble is a vampire who controls a huge seethe, every vampire in River City will band together to battle him.  And those characters are just for starters.  By the end of the book, the voodoo community and the shape shifters all joined in, too.  But you know what they say–the more, the merrier.  So we all just teamed together and did our thing.

The second decision I made while posting my weekly chapters was to include an image with each one of them.  I’ve done that with some of the short stories I post on my webpage (all available in its left column, if you’re interested).  But I don’t do it on any regular basis.  This time, I had to come up with an image every single week.  And to my surprise, I found ones that fit my idea of what suited each scene.  One of my readers–and I so appreciate this–complimented me on them.  That meant so much to me, coming from her.  My biggest challenge, though, came when I started to write the last chapter.

Urban fantasies–at least, my favorites–are a string of small battles that lead to a big, final battle, usually to the death.  That meant I had to wrap up every small subplot before I stepped onto the battlefield.  I’d created an antagonist–and I’m proud of this–whom many people loathed.  She wasn’t the main villain, but more than a few readers said they hoped she got what she deserved before the book ended.  I hope I satisfied them.  Then, I was clear to send almost every supernatural in River City out to meet Zanor.  This couldn’t be just any battle, though.  The good guys couldn’t win too easily.  They had to face near death to overcome their enemies.  And everyone had to have a part.  That’s when things got tricky.  And that’s when I had to bring in more evil reinforcements so that Zanor’s forces gave as good as they got.

My protagonists survived, and so did I.  But I really sweated that chapter.  Fingers crossed that it satisfies.  Now, it’s time for me to move on and concentrate on my fourth Mill Pond romance.  A complete change of style.  And that’s a good thing for me.  I’m a Libra.  It helps keep me balanced.   Hope you find balance in your writing this week!  Hit those keys.

My webpage: http://www.judithpostswritingmusings.com/

My author’s Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/JudithPostsurbanfantasy/?ref=bookmarks

Twitter:  @judypost

And FYI:  If you’re a fan of epic fantasy, my friend, M. L. Rigdon’s PROPHECY DENIED is FREE thru March 7: http://www.amazon.com/PROPHECY-DENIED-Seasons-Time-Book-ebook/dp/B004S7EQ92/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1457193638&sr=1-1&keywords=m+l+rigdon

 

 

 

Writing: I’ve had fun!

~ Judi Lynn ~ 8 Comments

I mentioned that I was trying a writing experiment with POV. It’s taken more time than I expected it to, but I met my goals. Each day this week, I’ve put one part of a short story on my webpage, with one more to go up tomorrow. Each part was from a different POV character. What have I learned?

It’s fun writing from the villain/antagonist’s POV. I don’t do that very often. As a matter of fact, I use third person, single POV in every series I write except Fallen Angels. Those are the only books I write with multiple POV, and I still rarely write from the villain’s veiwpoint. I think it might be hard to do without giving too much away, but it worked for a short piece. And letting myself live inside Merlot’s head helped me understand her more. I read once that villains don’t think of themselves as bad or wrong. Instead, they focus on what they want, what they’re striving to do, and they justify their actions. They often feel they’ve been wronged, and they’re putting things right. Merlot has that tendency. Hezra, on the other hand, (in part 4), decided to turn to the dark arts and makes no bones about the fact that she wants power. It was fun writing from her perspective, too, but I still wanted to make her an individual–not just the “evil” who battles my protagonist.

I’m putting up the last part of the story tomorrow–the big showdown–but this experiment has made me think more about villains/antagonists. For me, Ilona Andrews’s Kate Daniels series really got interesting when she had Hugh D’Ambray walk onto the pages to play mind games with Kate and to battle her and Curran. For me, she created two of the most intriguing “bad guys” I’ve read for a long time when Hugh and Kate’s father, Roland, became active in the series. Not that she hasn’t had a strong, almost invincible enemy in every book. That’s part of urban fantasy, but Hugh and Roland are unpredictable and do the unexpected, and that’s made them really interesting. She’s made them such a blend of good and bad that the reader has mixed feelings about them. It’s sort of like reading The Silence of the Lambs. I hated Dr. Chilton more than Hannibal Lecter. Odd, right? But a really well-done villain can pull a reader’s emotions in strange directions. For that reason, I’ve decided to spend just as much time on my villains and antagonists as I do on my protagonists from now on. They can really make a story zing.

http://www.judithpostswritingmusings.com/

Writing: What motivates your character? Does it work?

~ Judi Lynn ~ 4 Comments

First off, I have a summer cold, so if ideas don’t always blend together in this blog, my head’s a little fuzzy. But here goes:

I just finished reading a book that I loved, but sometimes, I had to MAKE myself keep turning the pages. Sounds contradictory, doesn’t it? It was, and I had mixed feelings about it. I loved every scene, every character. The villains were deliciously complicated, and sometimes, I actually felt sympathetic to them–the sign of a good writer. But sometimes, the decisions the main character made felt forced. They worked for the plot and led to tension and battles, but I kept thinking there might have been a better way to handle the situation, and that the character was smart enough to think about something less dangerous. True, the bad guy is forcing her hand, but the story felt like she was reacting to one threat after another without ever saying, “Hey, what if…..?” But then that might be just me. I usually think first, act later. My daughter read the same book and said it was her favorite in the entire series. But then my daughter has no fear. Just goes to show you. But my reaction to the story made me think.

A character’s motivations have to feel REAL. He has to want something enough that he’ll take risks to get it or achieve it. But the risks have to make sense. It’s hard for me to follow a hero who doesn’t care, who’s so blase’, he just goes through the motions to see what happens. I have just as much trouble following a hero who takes risks he doesn’t need to, someone who puts himself and his friends in trouble when there’s a better way to solve the problem. Conflicted motivations are really hard to pull off, and that’s where I ran into trouble in the book I read. People are complicated, and I like that. But when a character is so complicated that I can’t decide what he’s trying to achieve, I waffle.

The other thing that slowed me down in this book was the nonstop action. After three fight scenes back to back, I just got tired. I had to put the book down to take a break. Don’t get me wrong. These were some of the best fight scenes I’ve ever read. But there were a LOT of them. Books need tension, and that tension has to build and build and build. But sometimes, I need to catch my breath.

Did I love this book? Yes, but not as much as the last one. Will I read the next book in the series? A big yes. Did this book make me think about writing and what works for me and what doesn’t? A resounding yes, because I kept asking myself, How can each scene be so good, and I need to put the book down for a minute?

Reading other writers, really good writers, are such great learning experiences. Hope you find authors who push you to be a better writer.

Writing: being a hero isn’t all it’s cracked up to be

~ Judi Lynn ~ 13 Comments

I just finished the final polish for my new Babet & Prosper novella. This story features Babet’s father, Gazaar. He was a warrior angel before Lucifer and his band of rebels were thrown into the pit. Then, someone needed to keep guard over them, and he volunteered. In time, more angels dropped from the heavenly ranks, some turning to evil, and the pits filled with more demons. Gazaar got promoted to gatekeeper to make sure everyone stayed where they were supposed to be. Now, I ask you. Who’d want that job? But when Babet asks her father why he took it, he shrugs and says, “Someone has to do it.”

That’s the way most urban fantasy heroes are. They take on a conflict out of a sense of duty or responsibility. When I’d run, they stay and face the foe. They have the strength or knowledge or skills to, hopefully, survive and defeat the bad guys. Most of the protagonists take on a challenge to protect other people. They aren’t looking for power, but it’s often a by-product of the struggles they undergo.

Defeating villains makes a hero dig deep and changes him. A long, long time ago, I attended a mystery conference where Mary Higgins Clark was the keynote speaker. She explained the elements needed to write a woman in jeopardy story. It’s been too long ago to remember subtle points, but the main ingredients were: a good woman is living an ordinary life; a bad guy is bent on a journey of destruction; the two collide; the woman has to struggle to survive; and she’s forever changed by coming into contact with evil. Even though she didn’t choose her journey, she chose to do everything in her power to survive it.

Stakes have to be high, and body count isn’t enough. The reader has to care about the victims, or a body sprinkled here, and another one there, just feels like a plot ploy. I’ve read books and watched movies where every time the pace slows a bit, I know another person’s going to bite the dust. Sometimes, it works–if I learn something from the death or there’s a ticking clock or the victim was sympathetic. Sometimes, it doesn’t–when I feel like the writer didn’t know what else to do so killed someone. The deaths have to provide some kind of emotional impact.

Not all heroes face fierce enemies. When I wrote the short, romance novellas for The Emerald Hills collection, the heroes’ goals often involved chasing dreams. The hero in the romance I wrote for my agent was chasing a dream, too. I can relate to that. But achieving a story’s goal can never be an easy undertaking. Things go wrong. Nothing’s as simple as it could be. The goal has to be earned. The stakes have to be high, or the book’s tension is low.

In Demon Heart, a demon escapes one of Gazaar’s pits when he’s off-duty. Babet hopes the demon stays far, far away from River City, but Prosper and his fellow detective, Hatchet, hope it comes to them. As Prosper says, “Who else can deal with him like we can?” Babet is every bit as much of a hero as Prosper. She’s just a reluctant one, and when the demon comes, she doesn’t back down from the fight.

May your heroes have plenty of conflicts and survive them all. (I like happy endings). And happy writing!

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Writing: How bad can bad boys be?

~ Judi Lynn ~ 4 Comments

I recently read the first books in Ilona Andrews’ and Jeaniene Frost’s new urban fantasy series, and I loved both BURN FOR ME and ONCE BURNED. Both have spunky female protagonists–a must for urban fantasy. And both have love interests who are, of course, stronger and badder than anyone around–another must. On top of that, it seemed to me that both authors ramped up the “heat” index until the chemistry between heroines and heroes sizzled. I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough. Both Vlad and Mad Rogan are sexy as sin. And both break rules to follow their own codes of honor. Which brings me to the question: how bad can bad boys be?

I signed up to read BURN FOR ME as part of Goodreads, but I’m so slow and got so far behind, I ended up reading the comments other readers made and didn’t add any of my own, because by then…what was the point? But it interested me that a few readers agreed with the book’s heroine, that Mad Rogan is a sociopath–a tempting, I’d throw myself at him, gorgeous, smart, intriguing sociopath–but still….
Since I’d read the two books close together, it made me wonder why Vlad didn’t get the same comments, but then, he’s a vampire. And everyone knows that vampires do whatever they please, so being called a sociopath is the least of their worries. Mad Rogan is a mortal with massive amounts of magic, so I’m guessing readers expect him to show more restraint. It got me thinking, and I was surprised by the heroes who have been my favorites lately. Jorg, from Prince of Thorns, is no nice guy. Mad Rogan would gladly eliminate you if you got in his way. And Vlad–well, his magic is fire. You’d probably be a crispy critter. The thing is, to me, they’re NOT sociopaths, because in their worlds, they’re probably better than anyone else who has the same powers they do. It’s all relative. They have a reason–to find and protect usually–for the things they do; whereas, the bad guys only strive to promote self-serving interests.

A true sociopath lacks empathy, but Vlad and Mad Rogan have that. They don’t follow normal social rules because they don’t live in a normal, social world. Their friends and enemies possess lots of power. The bad guys use power to do evil. The good guys use power to battle them. They risk their lives to fight villains. The conflict in the stories is usually good vs. evil. Jorg, he’s a little more ruthless than the norm, but so is his world. In Prince of Thorns, it’s hard to feel sympathy for even the ordinary citizens. They’re not very nice either. And the rulers? They tend to be violent and power-hungry. Jorg just does it better.

I’m shaking my head at myself. It’s hard to believe I went from doting over Mr. Darcy, Deerslayer, and Harry Potter to cheering for Vlad, Mad Rogan, and Jorg. But they’re all heroes, in their own ways, who defy the norm of their social worlds to see beyond it. The one rule a bad boy might get in trouble for breaking? Cheating on the heroine. I’m a fan of Faith Hunter’s, too, and when Rick cheated on Jane Yellowrock–even though, technically, he was a bit coerced–readers weren’t happy with him.

Who are your favorite heroes? And why? Are you hooked on any bad boys?

http://www.judithpostswritingmusings.com/

Writing–ready to go

~ Judi Lynn ~ 4 Comments

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My third Fallen Angels novel, BLOOD LUST, will be online soon. Michael Prete at http://vertex10.com/ is designing another cover for me, but I used this image to help me create Feral. Interesting villains make for interesting books, and I found Feral particularly intriguing. She was just devious and crazy enough to push a lot of Enoch’s buttons. In this book, Feral comes to Enoch’s home city–Three Rivers–to open a vampire nightclub, but she follows all of the rules “good” vampires abide by. Enoch, a fallen angel, respects rules, but discovers those rules leave plenty of holes for serious problems. Feral listens to classical music, and Enoch decides “She must fancy herself as cultured, as if listening to Mozart lifted her to a higher rank. That would be like sprinkling diamond dust across a cesspool. It didn’t change the disgusting mess underneath.” I enjoyed creating Feral.

In this book, I wanted to focus some attention on Voronika. Enoch has chosen a vampire as his mate. Voronika hates what she is. She sometimes comes off as cold and self-centered, but when her mortal friend, Maggie, tells her she’s pregnant, Voronika struggles to be happy for her. Vampires can’t procreate. She’ll never have a child, and she tries not to feel jealous.

My last goal, in this book, was to write an urban fantasy that didn’t involve one battle leading to the next. I like battles, but I wanted this book to have different conflicts and tension. I got mixed reviews from my critique partners on that, so I bumped the stakes higher and was happy with my characters and story line.

For my next urban fantasy–the third book in the Wolf’s Bane series–I’ve typed out 28 plot points, and the story calls for enough battles to make up for my cat-and-mouse games in BLOOD LUST.

I’m making this blog post shorter than most. My grandson’s staying with us over Thanksgiving holiday before he heads back to college, so I’ve been cooking and playing more than usual. I wish you a wonderful Thanksgiving. And happy writing!

P.S. I found a new blog post about plotting that I thought was especially good. Thought I’d share:
http://storyfix.com/story-structure-dummies

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https://www.facebook.com/JudithPostsurbanfantasy

The 10 Commandments of Writing

~ Judi Lynn ~ Leave a comment

A friend of mine–a while ago–asked me for writing advice.  She’d fiddled with writing, but had never done anything serious.  She wasn’t quite in the mood for full writer throttle, so I wanted to do something fun for her.  This is what I came up with–and we all know it’s scratching the surface.

I.  Thou shalt not start “At the Beginning.”  Okay, a little play on words, but it’s true.  A novel starts with a hook.  Not with back story.  Back story is for flashbacks, here and there, later in the plot.  The hook is what pulls readers into the story–the event that plunges the character into the event that turns his life upside down, topsy turvy.  It introduces the book’s big question and why the protagonist has to take it on.  If he doesn’t, he’ll never restore order to his life.  If he does, he’ll be a changed person.  His choice.  And usually, he avoids dealing with it as long as he can—or until the first fourth of the book is written.  The hook pulls the reader in and the first fourth of the book provides the set-up for the story.  (Les Edgerton has a great book on the topic:  http://www.judithpostswritingmusings.com/index.html)

II.  Thou shalt plot Thy book with no holes or soggy middles.  Okay, this admittedly, takes some skill and balance.  You don’t want your plot to move too fast or too slow.  It’s all about conflict.  Plot is the result of cause and effect.  The protagonist wants this…. needs that….and decides this idea will solve his problem….   Except it doesn’t.  No, whatever he tries, makes it worse.   For a novel, I’ve never been able to come up with enough to fill the vast, yawning middle of a book without subplots.  Every plot is character driven.  So are subplots.  If you come up with strong, main characters whose goals/problems mirror the protagonist’s, you can weave in and out of the different scenes like a juggler who keeps all of his balls in the air.  Victory Crayne says, “Conflict is ‘The mental or moral struggle caused by incompatible desires and aims.’  It is the unsolved problems that form the chain of promises that keeps the reader interested.’–Ben Bova.  Les Edgerton, by the way, has a great blog post on plotting, too:  http://lesedgertononwriting.blogspot.com/2010/12/normal-0-false-false-false-en-us-x-none.html    And:  http://lesedgertononwriting.blogspot.com/2010/04/outlining.html.  Actually, his entire blog is worth reading.

III.  Thy pacing shall keep readers turning the pages.  Every scene in every novel has to have tension and purpose.  If a scene doesn’t advance the story in some way, it shouldn’t be there.  Something has to be at stake in EVERY scene.  And repetition–of any kind–KILLS tension.

IV.  Thy writing shall have emotional impact.  If the protagonist doesn’t react–reel with horror, laugh with joy, worry and pace with frustration–neither will the reader.  The reader lives these events through the characters.  He wants to EXPERIENCE these events through the characters.  The writer can use internal dialogue or visceral responses to react, but the reader wants to feel what the character feels.  And actions sometimes speak louder than words.  No one wants to read about a protagonist who only reacts.  We want the protagonist to dig into the problem, make plans, suffer when they fail, and pick himself up and try again.  The reader wants a happy ending to be earned, not given to the protagonist.  Or, if the protagonist tries and fails, we want to suffer the pain of defeat along with him.

V.  Thou shalt create interesting, memorable characters.  Readers want their characters to feel real–like living, breathing people.  They want to know what the character wants and why.  What will he do to get it?  He has to have a name that fits his age and personality.  He has to have Goal, Motivation, Conflict.  If different characters have different goals and motivations, that creates conflict.  Every novel needs different type of characters: the protagonist, maybe a mentor, a romantic interest, a friend or reflector, a villain and hopefully an antagonist–different from a villain, but someone who keeps getting in the protagonist’s way, and maybe an opponent, someone who’s competing with the protagonist.  Dialogue, dress, and actions have to be consistent with who the character is.  The characters drive the story.  I’m plot oriented, but no writer can make a character walk through a story and do what he’s supposed to for the plot without making the character a cardboard stick figure who’s not interesting.

VI.  Thou shalt use dialogue to advance the plot, not to fill space.  Dialogue can reveal character, create tension, and foreshadow coming events.  Be careful of tags.  “He said,” “she said,” are fine, but action tags work even better.  Fancy tags are rarely needed–“he proclaimed,” “he insisted.”  Dialogue should fit each character, and it should “feel” real.  It’s not real–not even close–but it can FEEL real if the writer avoids flowery dialogue.  People sometimes use broken sentences.  They usually don’t go on and on.  When they do, that says something about a character.  Les Edgerton has a blog post on dialogue, too, that’s pretty dang good: http://lesedgertononwriting.blogspot.com/2013/04/guest-post-at-kristen-lambs-blog-on.html

VII.  Thou shalt choose Thy setting well.  Settings are the backdrops for stories.  Some stories work better in big cities and some work better in small towns or in seclusion.  The setting needs to fit the tone of the story.  If a small town is hiding a serial killer, the town may appear innocent and inviting, but the writer gives clues that evil lurks under its surface.  Settings need to fleshed out.  They’re the foundation that helps hold the story together.   It’s the world the reader’s going to live in from page one to the the last word of the novel.  The reader needs to see the setting, to smell its scents, to know its people.

VIII.  Choose Thy POV carefully.  The character whom the reader follows should be the one who has the most at stake in the scene or story.  First person POV is more immediate.  Everything’s filtered through that character’s eyes and mind.  Third person limited creates more distance, but with internal dialogue can share insights, too, and the writer doesn’t have to try to avoid the word “I.” Multiple POV can create more tension, because the protagonist doesn’t always know what other characters are doing.

IX.  Thy voice and tone shalt suit Thy story.  Voice is a nebulous thing that’s individual to each author.  It reflects our attitudes and our take on the world.  But tone should be individual to each story.  Tone sets the mood.  If the story is humorous, every single word the author chooses should be light or lend itself to funny.  If the story’s dark, every word choice should be forbidding or brooding.   For a scary setting, the author wouldn’t describe a forest with birds chirping and squirrels scampering.  Instead, the trees’ branches should look like gnarled fingers, twisting to ensnare someone or to snag them.  It’s all about word choice.

X.  Thou shalt dedicate Thyself to good, strong writing.  A writer has to master the basics.  Sentence lengths should vary.  Word choice should be specific, not generic.  He should use active verbs, not passive.  Adjectives and adverbs should be used sparingly, opting for strong verbs and nouns instead.  Spelling and grammar should be right.  Wording should be original and unique.

We all know that keeping every commandment is hard.  So is good writing.  And I’ve probably left out a point or two, but this is a start.  The fun’s in the striving.  Enjoy!

http://www.judithpostswritingmusings.com/

Do you ever feel like Eeyore?

~ Judi Lynn ~ 8 Comments

When I was young and naive, I always thought that doing your best and aiming for what’s right guaranteed success.  Not so.  It wasn’t until I started teaching that I discovered that sometimes your best isn’t enough.  You can’t stuff a funnel into a kid’s head and pour information into his little brain–even if he doesn’t want it.  I learned that if a kid doesn’t want to learn or want to succeed, you can’t make him.  And like my protagonist Enoch, in Fallen Angels, I learned that things aren’t always black and white, and that there are many shades of gray.  (Sorry, no play on the new bestseller.  There are probably a lot more shades than fifty).

Anyway, Enoch’s biggest problem is that he’s friends with Caleb.  And in essence, Caleb should be the novel’s villain.  He’s what’s blocking Enoch from achieving his goal.  But talk about opposites attracting.  Enoch loves the Light, and he loves Home.  Caleb finds it restrictive and boring, so when Caleb joins up with Lucifer to overthrow the One, Enoch tackles him and pins him down until Lucifer and his band of angels are thrown into the pit.  Enoch thinks he’s won a serious moral victory and saved his friend.  Caleb doesn’t agree…and says so…and gets himself thrown to Earth, banned from the Light.

That’s when Enoch’s problems really begin, because Caleb loves living on Earth.  He loves his freedom.  He doesn’t have the Light, but he discovers that human blood works just as well–gives him the energy he needs and craves.  Of course, his bite infects mortals with his immortality, so that they become vampires, but what of it?

I don’t know about other people, but I have friends who don’t hold the same opinions I do, friends who look at the world and life from a completely different filter than I see, but that’s part of why I love them.   Enoch and Caleb are like that.  So Enoch is sent to Earth to clean up after Caleb, and he can’t return Home until he brings a willing Caleb with him….

You know the old saying, “Until hell freezes over?”  Caleb never wants to leave Earth.  That means that no matter what Enoch does, no matter how many bad vampires he hunts and slays, he’s still stuck here.  And like Eeyore, he’s not happy about it.  But no matter how much he resents Caleb, he still doesn’t want him to be eternally punished.  So the gray areas just multiply.  When he finds GOOD vampires, the gray gets even grayer.  He likes them.  He starts to work with them.  Nothing is as simple as he hoped  it would be.  Until he meets a female vampire that he’d do anything to protect, and then gray looks crystal clear because all of his moral boundaries begin to blur.  He’ll never purposely do something wrong, but there are lots more options that look acceptable to him day by day.

Enoch, like Eeyore, resonates with me because–for me–even when I try, it’s hard to be happy with myself, it’s hard to find the right path.  It’s easy to feel guilty about the good I can’t get around to.  It’s easy to see my shortcomings.  Enoch never feels like he does enough.  A few critics have said that readers don’t have to worry about him in a battle, that he’ll always survive.  But I’m not worried about his safety.  I’m more drawn to his inner struggle.