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

The Apartment Commentary – Walter Schriff

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The Apartment author commentary concludes! SPOILER WARNING ahead. Big time for this one!

Figuring out the threat…

When it came time to figure out who these ghosts were hassling people in Portents, the first two or three drafts never named them.

Yes – them.

Three were present in the first drafts. I made their appearances vague, their motivations even more nebulous. I had no idea how they connected to the story or how to raise the stakes. At one point I was researching things like Blackbeard and Napoleon in an effort to connect with some legendary aspect.

They didn’t fit. None of it fit with the narrative.

Enter the Kindly Killer

It was during the self-editing phase when I stumbled on this notion of the Kindly Killer. He is the first connection between Loren and Soriya, a vital part of their so-called origin story and when I remembered him he fit so perfectly I couldn’t stop writing until the story was completed.

Having that personal connection with Soriya at the climax of the tale raised the stakes. She knows how dangerous Walter can be and can’t risk his return to the mortal plane. Making it personal, looking for that deeper meaning in terms of the overall narrative of Greystone, builds a better story in my mind.

I hope you agree.

Why care so much about the Kindly Killer?

Walter Schriff has been around since Signs of Portents. Always a background mention, never anything more. I did that purposely. (I try to do everything purposely…)

Some people believe his inclusion in the first novel is a distraction. I look at it differently.

His presence is a seed for something to come.

The Kindly Killer serves as a point of origin for Loren and Soriya’s relationship. His suddenly viciousness in slaughtering people, his arrest and the subsequent events that locked Loren and Soriya into this incredible journey lies at the heart of the story that will serve as Book Six of the series.

Say what?

Yeah. I’m a couple years away from putting it together. Having A Circle of Shadows back on my desk has sparked a few notions about what’s to come for the back half of the series.

But Walter Schriff plays a huge role in Book Six.

Get ready.

Red eyes…

Did you notice another old friend within the Bypass at the end of our story? Talking about raising stakes, having Soriya peer into the Bypass at the climax of the story served two purposes.

The first was to seed an event to come in A Circle of Shadows. (Shhh, it’s a secret…)

The second was to bring back old red eyes, Nathaniel Evans, for a cool cameo. I missed our old villain from Signs of Portents and once I realized Schriff played a role in the story I thought it would be cool to bring back more past threats as a nod for where we’ve been in the series.

And where we’re heading…

Did you enjoy the story? Did you like the nods to the past? Shoot me an email at lou@loupaduano.com to let me know.

Thanks for reading.

The Apartment Commentary – Bypass Thread

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The Apartment author commentary continues and your mandatory SPOILER WARNING is still in effect! Strap in kiddos cause here we go!!

Logic rules all

Logic, especially story logic, is and always will be my number one rule when it comes to writing. Things need to happen for a reason. If there is a way to make a story element fit within the massive structure already being built over the first three novels of the series then it needs to happen.

As long as it makes complete and total sense.

I’ve spoke about this before. Certain elements of the series have to carry over, character traits that would never disappear (unless mind control is in the mix, which DOES happen…), and other rules that each writer creates for their world.

So how do ghosts fit into the Greystone mythos?

I wanted a ghost story. I knew I had the perfect trappings of one. An abandoned apartment, kids trapped inside and Soriya playing the hero.

But where do ghosts come from when dealing with a city like Portents? With mythical creatures and legends becoming real, how do these specters play into it?

I wracked my brain on this one. It took WAY too long to figure it out, if I’m being honest, and I always am with you, dear reader.

The truth was I had no clue until I was going through the proofreading phase of The Medusa Coin.

The Bypass.

I wrote my answer months earlier. The Greystone was freaking out and, by extension, the Bypass was changing. Evolving. Fluctuating.

The Bypass stands as the center of existence, the crossroads of reality, as we know it. It holds every past, present and all futures within its orbit. So what happens to the dead? Are they floating inside?

And what happens when the Bypass shudders, when it shifts, and a flick of light escapes the chamber tucked under the city?

Taking the thread left by The Medusa Coin and being able to use it here, dove-tailed perfectly with where things were heading in the series. The threat of something happening to the Bypass needed to be explored and with its presence in the apartment as a means of transportation for the ghosts haunting our heroine, it created the story logic I needed to explain their presence.

Our friendly neighborhood ghosts…

I’m saving this one for next time. I’ll be talking about our friend, the Kindly Killer, who seems to continually pop into these pages and why that might be, as well as another friend tucked in the background of the tale.

But I’m sure you know who I’m talking about already, don’t you?

Thanks for reading!

Collateral Commentary – The Phoenix

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Your friendly neighborhood SPOILER WARNING here! I will be discussing the plot of Collateral in detail including the threat behind the story so you have been sufficiently WARNED…

Finding the threat

I stumbled out of the gate on this one. Usually I’m quick to know the threat of a story. I like to have it worked out before I start putting plot to paper.

To start, I focused on what I knew.

This was Loren and Soriya’s show. Their dynamic, more than anything else in the series, has been the driving force of each and every book. So I needed their case, their shared menace, to be solely about where they were at this moment in time.

Loren was reeling from the gut punch of learning Soriya was present the day his wife died. Another secret, one too many kept from him.

Soriya, during The Medusa Coin, learned that trust is necessary to make their relationship work. Oops…

I wanted to play with those crossed wires and really charge each scene with Loren’s anger and Soriya’s constant joy at just being near him again after his close call with the Charon.

The second piece I had was the background of the threat’s arrival. Henry Erikson. His actions in The Medusa Coin set off this tale. His research into saving his own skin brought something to Portents that should never have been there.

Thus my search began. What was it? What could it mean for this specific story? For these two particular characters?

Finding the Phoenix

Yes, I am a fan of the X-Men. No, this had nothing to do with that.

In my search through a database of mythical creatures I tried to dissuade myself from using a phoenix. Because of the X-Men, because of its constant use through media.

Yet, it was because of this use that the phoenix ended up working perfectly.

The Phoenix as this life-giving force, this creature of light, twisted by her arrival into Portents was meant to prove counter to Soriya’s journey. Throughout The Medusa Coin and even before that, Soriya viewed herself as a force of destruction; offering little more than death.

Here, she tried to save the day, tried to save the city and this creature who was meant to do the same stood in her way. Soriya is forced to play her dark role for the betterment of Portents.

At a cost.

The innocence of the Phoenix, her reasoning behind her actions really drove it home. She is trying to help people live to their fullest in spite of causing their deaths. The fact that she can’t understand the pain being caused by her actions and that Soriya has to intervene in the harshest way possible made it that much brutal.

Maybe there is no real light, no real victory to be had in this fight.

The toughest one to pull off…

I struggled with this tale. More than any other in the collection. For me, the joy of writing the series is the interplay with the characters. To see Soriya and Loren at odds, to feel the tension in the background the entire time, was difficult to manage and more difficult to conceive.

I think it worked though. And I definitely think it was necessary to push these two further apart, which is where they are when A Circle of Shadows opens.

What are your thoughts? Shoot me an email at lou@loupaduano.com. I look forward to hearing from you.

Collateral Commentary – Starting Points

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Let the commentary BEGIN! As a warning, there will be SPOILERS and in this case they also relate not only to the opening story in Pathways in the Dark but also to The Medusa Coin. BEWARE… BEWARE… (Sorry, my 3 year old says that to me all the time.)

Starting Points for Collateral…

Even though it has the prominence of the first story in the collection, the truth of the matter is I wrote this one dead last.

There were two reasons.

  1. I knew it was a longer story to tell and I had four shorter tales in the works that demanded less commitment to put together.
  2. I only knew 2 out of the 3 critical elements for this story and couldn’t make it work without the third piece to the puzzle.

Setting Up Those Critical Elements

Coming from The Medusa Coin, I had two things going for me. I had a tension building photo that was causing a rift between Loren and Soriya. It gave me a lot of play on how these two would interact, one aware of this secret and the other completely oblivious.

So, Collateral for me was my chance to delve into a new wrinkle in the Soriya/Loren dynamic. In order to see how Loren would handle it as well as see where Soriya was having made many incorrect choices of late.

I knew where I wanted this story to end and how it would be the only one in the collection to showcase the old team. This was another reason why Collateral HAD to be first in Pathways. To not bring Soriya and Loren right to the forefront of the collection would have been a huge blow to the reader, in my opinion, so I’m glad the timeline and the subject matter worked out in order to keep them front and center for everyone.

The second critical piece for this story centered around Henry Erikson. In The Medusa Coin it is stated he looked into a cure for his illness for 3 years without success. But just because he hadn’t been cured didn’t mean he hadn’t stumbled upon something worthwhile during his search.

That was what clicked for me. This idea that this one man’s actions could have ramifications for so many others. That because of his desperation he unleashed not only the Charon during The Medusa Coin, but something else we had no clue about until now.

But what was the threat?

That’s where I was stuck. Without that critical element I wasn’t ready to put the story together. I’ll tell you all about it next time.

Talk to you then!

Pathways in the Dark Author Commentary Introduction

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This is absolutely my favorite time of the year. If you’re anything like me, you love to listen or read the author commentary on a book, film, DVD collection… anything that brings insight into something you loved. To me, the process behind putting a final product together adds to the enjoyment of the product itself.

Pathways in the Dark Author Commentary Begins!

If you’ve enjoyed the book already feel free to dive in right from the start. If you haven’t, be aware that I will be going in-depth into each and every short story contained within. I won’t deliberately go out of my way to ruin a plot point, especially if it doesn’t pertain to what I am talking about during the blog.

Remember, if there is something you desperately have to know about the making of Pathways in the Dark, be sure to email me at lou@loupaduano.com. I have my general list of items I want to hit for the next few months (yeah, it’s a little long…) so be sure if there is something you really found interesting in the book and want to know how it ended up in the draft LET ME KNOW!! Can’t wait to hear from you.

Why this project?

This is a question I will answer for each and every short story in the collection. However, looking at the book as a whole I think this is important as well. I’m not a fan of short stories. I don’t typically read them, anthologies, or the like. I’ve never felt they carried the same weight or meant as much to a series as a full-length installment.

I was wrong.

Or, at least, I set out to prove that conceit was incorrect.

Pathways in the Dark, like Tales from Portents before it, is vital to the Greystone series and deliberately so. There are so many little tidbits layered into the collection. Pieces of a puzzle yet to even be formed in some cases, that I can’t see the series without this book. The overall narrative fails without the arcs contained in Pathways.

Ruiz’s lesson in Trustfall. Soriya’s new apartment. The backstory of Samantha Myers. Each one was designed to showcase a character and propel them forward, to push them toward A Circle of Shadows while also putting them to the test to explain why they are important to the story, to understand who they are and where they’ve been when the next novel opens.

It is a much different collection than Tales from Portents. One that owes much to that first collection, but one that when all is said and done very much stands on its own as a moment in time for these characters and the choices they have made. The impact of those choices and how they came about.

The price they’ve paid or will pay because of them.

Collateral starts next time!

Feel free to drop me a line and let me know your thoughts and if you would like to hear more about a part of the book or the series at lou@loupaduano.com.

Always happy to hear from you.

Thanks for reading.

The Medusa Coin Commentary – Final Thoughts

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We made it! My final thoughts on The Medusa Coin! FINAL SPOILERS AHEAD!

Two items.

I’ve broken down the novel for you pretty explicitly. I hope you’ve enjoyed this journey as much as I have. I love sharing the details and evolution of the creative process – the insane arguments and the sudden inspiration that comes with months of working on a single project.

If there is anything else you’d like to hear about The Medusa Coin be sure to email me at lou@loupaduano.com. I’m always excited to ramble about how things came together in extreme detail!

For this final blog on the subject I wanted to focus on two areas of the book:

The number seven

The Medusa Coin centers around the number seven quite a bit. There are seven sons, seven victims and seven levels in the Library of the Luminaries.

When Myers calls her mysterious benefactor she presses the number 7 on her saved contacts list.

There are seven major players in the narrative – Soriya, Loren, Ruiz, Hady Ronne, Henry Erikson, Gilgamesh and Jeremy Bennett.

Henry Erikson and Jeremy Bennett both have seven letters in their last names!

Why the number seven? It fit with the story I was trying to tell but it also pays tribute to one of my absolute favorite Justice League stories from the 90’s. Written by Mark Waid it speaks to synchronicity – chances of probability – and how it can impact our world when manipulated. I cannot rave about this tale enough and highly recommend picking it up.

The other reason behind the number? My original release date for the book was 7.7.17. I so wanted to hit that date for the book just for the effect even though I would be the only one that knew about it!!

Unfortunately, I needed the two months in the summer for extra cushioning on future releases and pushed The Medusa Coin to September. Synchronicity be damned!

The small ending.

Stories by trade are built around the climax. As we’ve matured in our ability to tell stories on the small and big screens we have never forgotten the need to go big or go home. It is one of the reasons why Signs of Portents ends at the top of the tallest structure in the city.

We crave the big finale, we demand the ultimate in action and adventure and refuse to settle for less.

Which is why I absolutely love the climax of The Medusa Coin.

When I finished Signs I realized I would never be able to have as great a set piece as Evans Tower. It was this huge moment that anyone looking up in the sky could see, with the lights swirling around the big confrontation.

For The Medusa Coin, I wanted to prove a point. That the biggest moments in history can happen in the smallest setting. That fate can be determined in a small ranch home in the suburbs just as easily as the spire in the center of a teeming metropolis.

For that reason alone, I love the way The Medusa Coin came together in the end. To show the reader that any moment can be the one that changes everything. And all of us can impact that change.

Jeremy Bennett is absolutely my favorite character in the book because of that feeling and I will stand by that for all time.

Thank you for reading.

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