Welcome to the author commentary on Hammer and Anvil. This is where I go in-depth into the book to tell you all the spicy in-fighting I had with myself to make this the best book possible. Here is your official SPOILER WARNING!
Starting Points
I had been away from Portents for a bit at this point. A Circle of Shadows had been in the rearview for almost a year and I was working through DSA Season One.
When it came to starting Hammer and Anvil, I wasn’t sure of a great many things. I had two main seeds planted in the first five Greystone novels:
- Soriya’s fight with the Minotaur.
- Soriya had a prior relationship with Beth before she ever met Loren.
That was all I had.
So how could I build a story from those two pieces of information.
Setting the core
Soriya and Beth were to be my core. That was obvious. There was one rule in my mind when setting up their relationship:
Make it different from Soriya and Loren’s partnership.
There is an ebb and flow to dialogue, to patterns of people, and it is difficult to break out of that mold when trying to start a new dynamic. Soriya, obviously, had to be the same stubborn badass: always pushing for a fight even when the odds were stacked against her.
Beth, however, wasn’t a cop. She wasn’t an investigator in the traditional sense. She was a local historian, writing about the history of her city. That brought with it a level of curiosity, of knowledge, unseen by someone in her position.
I loved the dynamic. Have Beth be able to go tit-for-tat when it came to local lore or historical significance put them on equal footing. Soriya was able to relate more to Beth and find a connection she had been missing most of her life.
A friend.
That became the heart of the piece: building this friendship through the obstacles set against them.
Widening the scope
Having the core set, I knew I needed to introduce Soriya’s world to the reader. This had been done in Signs of Portents, but when you put Book One on the cover there is a level of expectation that people can pick it up and understand the world you’ve built.
Where characters like Ruiz and Pratchett made sense for Loren’s world in Signs, they didn’t fit here in the opening chapter of a prequel trilogy.
So who else fit the bill?
Mentor.
It was when I realized Mentor’s expanded role in the book and the series, that the Training aspect crystallized. Mentor got the shaft in the main series. I regretted not giving him more screen time before his death. The prequels opened the door for more exploration into him and his relationship with Soriya.
Having her teacher become a major force for the story was a godsend. Mentor’s presence created the necessary tension and the pressure to put on Soriya to keep her on edge – to keep pushing her to be a better Greystone.
With these two relationships at the heart of the book, I had my starting points. And a place to take my characters.
Next time: The story of Eddie Domingo.
I put it off as long as I could. It wasn’t until I was about halfway through the draft that I hit upon the heavy exposition chapters of the book. That’s pretty standard for me. Always taking the easier path to feel my way into a story. Action pieces. Dialogue chapters. Easy stuff.
