Lou Paduano | Urban Fantasy Novels | Sci-Fi Crime Series

Resurrectionists Commentary Part 3

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We’ve made it to the last author commentary for the Tales from Portents collection at last! My hope with these author commentaries is to offer insight into the decisions made in putting the project together and the challenges therein. It’s also fun to point out the little Easter eggs throughout.

So, the final SPOILER WARNING is in effect!

The Founder

In the original version of Resurrectionists there was a clear villain in the form of the Founder.  He had dubiousFounder intentions and the mystery behind his identity was very much in play.

Then I thought better.

Is there a villain in Resurrectionists? Not really. Using this crucial component of the Greystone series as more a morality tale for Loren and Soriya than a battle between good and evil strengthened the emotional core of the story.

The face of the Founder

The first and second draft held the same premise: at the climax of the story, the Founder was arrested and unmasked for the city to see.

The aftermath chapters centered on his story before diving into Loren’s suspension and subsequent leave of absence. In essence, all character growth, the heart of the story being told was blocked by the need to explain who and what the Founder truly was.

It didn’t work.

It was awkward and it raised more questions than it answered. And it sure as hell took some of the juice away from the pain Loren was going through after the debacle.

Pulling away from Loren in this moment as well as from Soriya as she watches him leave at the end of the story, would have undercut the strength of these scenes, and the reason the story existed in the first place.

The unmasking also put more emphasis on explaining how the resurrections occurred as well. That was something I wanted ambiguous. The less said the better. Spelling out the mystical, defining every aspect of a supernatural or faith-based element in the narrative is never for the benefit of the story or the reader.

Leaving those questions, allowing the reader to make their own judgement engages the audience more. Or it frustrates the hell out of them. (Definitely not my intention…)

The other benefit of leaving the Founder in the wind with his mask and motivations intact?

Founder’s Day

FounderIt leaves things open for a kick-ass sequel.

That’s right. Coming December 5, 2017, Founder’s Day will be coming your way.

FOR FREE.

On the eve of the Founder’s Day Celebration in the heart of Portents, someone is murdering city officials and dressing them up in a signature black robe and cloak.

What does it have to do with the Church of the Second Coming? And will Loren be able to find the killer or will the entire city of Portents be at risk?

The seeds are planted for the end of the first cycle of the Greystone series in this tale!

The End.

That brings us to the end of the commentary for Tales from Portents. I hoped you enjoyed this insight into the insanity I bring to all my work. The constant battles. The thoughts behind even the most miniscule of details. Everything is important and it is all to make the reading experience the best possible.

I hope you agree.

Thanks for reading!

Resurrectionists Commentary Part 2

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We’ve almost made it to the last author commentary for the Tales from Portents collection! One more after this, promise! My hope with these author commentaries is to offer insight into the decisions made in putting the project together and the challenges therein. It’s also fun to point out the little Easter eggs throughout. (I love that crap.)

Spoiler Warning is in effect!

Pulling threads together…

This is one of the most difficult tasks of a writer. I am constantly tweaking, pulling, and praying that at the end of the day the threads connect and make sense.

As well as satisfy both the casual fan and the avid reader.

For Resurrectionists, the task before me was to take the small nuggets left throughout Signs of Portents and build a compelling narrative to explain some of them.

Not all of them.

A good friend continues to complain about the lack of answers. Don’t worry. They are coming. Soon.

So I had goals set before sitting down to plot.

Roadmaps help.

They do. Sometimes I wonder where the hell I would be without my OneNote app. I have so many little tidbits and thoughts stretched across dozens of pages.

Having goals is only a start though. There has to be a narrative behind the events or there is no reason, no drive for the characters. Who wants to read that?

Coming up with a story that allowed the threads of Robert Standish, Loren’s suspension and his fallout from Soriya was where the challenge came in for Resurrectionists.

Knowing Loren was as helpful as the map.

Beth remains central to the character’s motivations and offered me a starting point. What would make Loren stop using his brain and follow his heart, act out emotionally instead of rationally?

The chance to bring Beth back.

Bringing faith into it.

I’m a huge fan of Supernatural. I won’t deny it. Those damn Winchesters have stolen twelve years from me and I still tune in as often as possible to watch their misadventures.

Especially the seasons centered on the conflict between angels and demons.

I’ve always been fascinated by religious lore. In fact, you’ll be seeing much more of it in a few years (yes, years…) and it is going to ROCK.

But for the purposes of this tale, I wanted to play with Loren’s faith. His beliefs. And how it relates to the characters in Portents.

Using resurrection as a tool, an instrument behind the narrative, spoke to where the character was at this point in the series. I needed Loren to fall. I needed his mistake to be grave, at least in his own eyes.

Would Soriya have easily forgiven his actions? Would Ruiz?

Of course.

But Loren wouldn’t. And that was the important part. Loren needed this break. He needed to walk away.

Until Signs of Portents brings him back.

Tying it together.

Goals are great. Plot devices or threads offer a writer an entrance into the story. But it isn’t enough.

Using Resurrectionists to answer questions would have fallen flat without tying it to Loren’s arc as a character. Taking those threads, that constant guilt at his mistakes, and then showing what he’s been trying to deal with after the events of this story offers that much more impact.

Every story since this one has given me that opportunity and it is something I’ve been grateful to learn while constructing this series.

Character trumps all. Defining moments only work when they sprout from the character. All the threads, all the maps, all the goals in the world don’t mean anything without a tie to principal players in the narrative.

Coming July 10th:

The last commentary on this collection!!

The face of the Founder… AND A SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT!

Thanks for reading.

Resurrectionists Commentary Part 1

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We’ve made it to the last story in the collection at last! My hope with these author commentaries is to offer insight into the decisions made in putting the project together and the challenges therein. It’s also fun to point out the little Easter eggs throughout. (I love that crap.) So, SPOILER WARNING is in effect for the duration.

Resurrectionists

resurrectionistsIt took awhile to get here but we have finally arrived at the largest story in Tales from Portents.

The idea behind the collection of short stories was always to put one out ahead of the release and offer it to readers for free. Generating interest and gauging the audience with no strings attached is, in my opinion, the best way to see what clicks with readers.

There are challenges with such a release. Some readers want more. The full story. The answer to every question asked. Or, because of the narrative structure, they are put off by the short story.

I am always conscious of this last fact. Every worry I carry for my work is that there isn’t enough meat to the story. Telling a rollicking tale with blockbuster-esque explosions and battles is nice, but the emotional core has to be there as well.

Resurrectionists was my attempt to do both. Offer a shorter work, a more straightforward plot, but really dig into the characters. Without scenes like Soriya in the Bypass Chamber with Mentor or Loren talking things out with Ruiz I think all the heart in the telling would have been lost.

But it would have been a helluva zombie story, wouldn’t it?

Why did it come first?

This is something I continually come back to, especially with the recent release of The Greystone Saga Volume One box set.

Every other story in the collection is in chronological order. Why the hell would I screw that up and put resurrectionistsResurrectionists first?

In typical fashion, I argued the point with the only other person involved in the process. Myself. (Very awkward…)

I wanted to keep things simple. Do things that made sense from a story perspective and have Resurrectionists take its rightful place after View from Above.

That would leave The Great Divide as the frontrunner for the collection and as the preview readers could download for free on Amazon and other retailer sites.

A Ruiz/Mentor story.

Now there is a time and place to showcase supporting cast members. Having them take the lead on the book and possibly be the first experience for new readers to discover the series is not one of them though.

Greystone centers around Loren and Soriya. Always has and always will. (maybe…) For a true experience, to really showcase the series for new potential readers I wanted to put my leads in the forefront.

Spoilers…

This might seem like a cheat to some but I also didn’t want an entire story spoiled by the Look Inside feature on Amazon and other sites. If The Great Divide led the pack then the entire story could be read (and hopefully enjoyed) for free in the preview of the collection.

Not the worst thing ever, but coupled with the idea that neither lead character was present in the tale, I felt the shift of Resurrectionists made the most sense in the long run.

Another benefit.

My other thought (SO MANY THOUGHTS) was that if a reader took advantage of the freebie version of Resurrectionists and then bought Tales, they could then skip right over the first story and dive right into the other five.

Convenient, right?

I could be wrong though. What do you think? Did I botch the experience by putting Resurrectionists first? Was it upsetting to see Resurrectionists in the collection when it is available separately for free?

Talking to myself about it over and over again only goes so far, so you tell me.

Next time:

More on Resurrectionists including pulling threads from Signs and the face of the Founder.

Thanks for reading.

Tales from Portents Connecting Factors 3

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Connecting Factor

Stories grow in the telling. They also grow in the editing phase and that tends to happen quite often with my own work. Ruiz and his relationship with his wife, Michelle, for example is one such instance of this. At the start Ruiz was little more than an ear for Loren. A minor character that assisted when he could but basically served to give Loren someone to talk to other than Soriya.

That sure as hell changed quickly.

Editing Signs of Portents, I realized how much I enjoyed Ruiz. His personality. His depth. And his relationships, both with Loren and with his wife.

When plotting The Medusa Coin, I knew Ruiz’s role was expanding with each pass. He was a vital component of the series, as much as Soriya and Loren.

Michelle started out much the same. A potential element of conflict for Ruiz but little else in terms of a character. When I explored her further, when I pulled apart their relationship and examined their family closely, I realized the potential to really build a strong background character.

Someone that helps drive Ruiz to be a better person, but also causes him to stumble because he wants to do so much for her.

The Great Divide

connecting factorWith Tales published between Signs of Portents and The Medusa Coin, I had the opportunity to put this marriage on display. I also had the chance to show the strengths and weaknesses of it from the beginning and compare it to the present day.

The Great Divide offered a glimpse at the happiness of the Ruiz family to be. How they shared all and Ruiz avoided the traps his parents fell into during his childhood. Of course, it crashes down on him.

But how to show the difference compared to the present?

Enter: The Consultant.

In the original outline, Soriya heads to the Central Precinct for information on Russell Kerr and hides at the approach of Ruiz. The focus here was more on how Loren’s absence had affected Soriya’s ability to do her work, the same as the previous chapters but that didn’t feel right to me for this moment.

And it would have been a missed opportunity.

By changing it and having Michelle call him, the reader easily recognizes the shift in their relationship from The Great Divide. It serves as a bridge, not only through the whole collection but also to The Medusa Coin where the divide comes to a head.

Resolutions are coming your way in September so get ready…

The final connection

Endings are tough. Just ask Stephen King. But they always come, some to more satisfying conclusions than others but they always have to arrive at some point.

And some are just so perfect you couldn’t ask for anything else.

Tales from Portents served as a prelude to Signs, so why not dovetail right into the first book in a natural way?

The final chapter of The Consultant does this perfectly. The text from Vlad about the missing women and the possible God involved. Soriya’s leap into the morning light of the city, ready for more fun connected the final moments of the collection to the first novel.

I tend to be overly critical with my work. (I know. Big surprise…) Not so much here.

Tales from Portents, to me was the easiest project to put together. Every piece, every connection, flowed from one story to the other naturally. Nothing was ever forced on the reader or the characters. Everything happened for a reason, every connection layered from the story itself, not shoved into the mix by my own hand.

If only every book came together so nicely…

Next time:

The BIG ONE. Resurrectionists! The whys and wherefores!

Thanks for reading.

 

Tales from Portents Connecting Factors 2

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The next several months will bring author commentaries on all six stories contained within the Tales from Portents collection. My hope is to offer insight into the decisions made in putting the project together and the challenges therein. It’s also fun to point out the little Easter eggs throughout. (I love that crap.) So, SPOILER WARNING is in effect for the duration.

Connecting Factors

It was important for me to filter little threads that tied events in the collection together. I mentioned this previous when discussing the use of Robert Standish as a connecting factor. For me, short story collections tend to fall flat in that they have no impact compared to the full length installments.

I wanted to break that trend by connecting seemingly disparate events. Some are simple, a character that shows up consistently.

Others were more subtle.

Chaac and the Storm

When I was developing the collection the original idea was to offer a free story to fit prior to Signs of Portents. (What eventually became Resurrectionists… sort of…) This seemingly simple plan turned into two stories told concurrently.

One for Loren. One for Soriya.

Eyes in the Storm and The Consultant.

If I wrote about one it was important to write about the other. Two equal partners to the story. Balance.

I decided to take it further and make the connection between the two clear, to tie them in a way to show they occur at the exact same moment in time for these two characters.

Hence the storm.

Building that bridge through subtle references in The Consultant, including the end of the storm in the final chapter of Soriya’s story, kept the two main players in the series connected in a way during their separation.

Both need each other, something they need to be constantly reminded of, during the series. This was a nice way to keep them part of the same world, even if all Loren wants to do is escape it.

Evolution of the references

This connecting factor didn’t exist in the original drafts. Chaac was very much a part of Eyes from the start. He was the device used to pull Loren back into the insanity that tends to follow anything Portents related. But The Consultant had no reference to the storm.

Except for one line.

When Soriya is hanging outside the apartment of the first victim it mentions the spitting rain. An annoyance and nothing more.

From that little nugget I went through the entire story to filter more references to the rain and its unsuspected nature. When it ends Soriya is elated, the same smile she wears whenever Loren returns to her world. That was my way to keep them tied together.

Their partnership has become the cornerstone of the series and something that should be explored with each story. I was surprised by the sudden connection and completely overjoyed it was able to come together in the way it did.

I hope you felt the same.

Next time:

One last connecting factor and then the mother of all tales; Resurrectionists!

Thanks for reading.

The Consultant Commentary Part 2

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The next several months will bring author commentaries on all six stories contained within the Tales from Portents collection. My hope is to offer insight into the decisions made in putting the project together and the challenges therein. It’s also fun to point out the little Easter eggs throughout. (I love that crap.) So, SPOILER WARNING is in effect for the duration.

Final messages.

When I write I don’t try to put personal philosophies over the story itself. I think that is the downfall of a strong narrative. The author has his own role but it should remain the invisible hand, not the idiot jamming rhetoric down your throat at the expense of the narrative.

Which made The Consultant stand out for me.

In the tale, there were three victims of the Cerberus. All were tied to the villain and the reason for his vengeance. They either played a direct role in tricking the guard dog of Hell or were rescued because of the trick.

There was the baker, the singer and the hero.

Two were young and vital. The baker and the singer appeared to have their whole lives ahead of them and a successful career on the way.

The hero (Heracles), however, was old and at the end of his life.

Why?

It wasn’t intentional. Believe me. I didn’t even consider what I was trying to say until I was in the editing phase. While putting the finishing touches on the narrative I realized it was a viable question to ask.

There are many answers I could offer for Heracles’ age and infirmity when the singer and baker remained at the peak of their lives.

I could brush it off as a simple fact as to how things turned out for the characters. (A cheat, for sure.)

I could speak to the irrelevance of heroes in the world today. Or their stance in the modern world. Heroes, the good people that strive to make an actual difference in the world are berated and prodded from all sides. If their morals don’t match 100% of the population they are mired in scandal, pulled apart and torn down for the all to see.

Heroes aren’t allowed in the modern world. A sad state of affairs and one I truly hope we move away from as quickly as possible.

A reflection of Soriya.

Putting aside all personal preference, the truth behind the infirmity of Heracles, is that he offered a mirror for Soriya. To see how her journey might end.

He dies alone, something she has always assumed would be the case.

It also offered a thematic tie to The Medusa Coin and its inclusion of a physical manifestation of Death. It is the ultimate test for Soriya and her encounter with the fallen Heracles plays a role in it.

Then again, maybe it means nothing at all and I’m just trying to find relevance in a simple artistic choice. That’s the fun of it all.

Thanks for reading.

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