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

The Consultant Commentary Part 1

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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.

The Consultant – Evolution of a tale

story researchEvery story comes from character. That is the lesson I take from everything I put together. I might start with a scene in my head, a discussion, an event, a premise, but until it connects to a main character and an arc is present it means little to me.

A story doesn’t have legs until someone can carry the load.

When putting together The Consultant, I knew it was a Soriya tale. In the absence of Loren I wanted to explore how she operated in the city. The early drafts focused on the lack of trust between her and the police and how it hampered her work.

But it wasn’t enough.

The introduction of Russell Kerr started the ball rolling in the right direction. Kerr as a surrogate to Loren offered insight into her process and her need to have someone at her side.

It also showcased her weakness, something explored further in The Medusa Coin in September. (plug, plug…)

Adding depth through story research.

Story research is great. It can add certain layers to stories you never considered. Or it can completely suck the life out a story and read more like a college paper instead of a thriller.

I enjoy the research aspect and dread it at the same time. Mostly because you can never know every angle. If I read four hundred pages on Cerberus there are still four thousand more out there that I will never get to because I have to eventually write the story.

What if I read the wrong four hundred pages? What if I take away the wrong conclusion?

A fear for sure when putting your work out into the world but there is also this:

Research builds a compelling narrative.

Having Russell Kerr, Cerberus, in the story gave me a starting point.

Until I had Cerberus in place I didn’t have a connection to the deaths involved. And they had no connection to the killer. BORING.

Research gave me my victims. What would Cerberus hunt? Who would piss off the guard dog of Hell so much that they would reach into the mortal world for revenge?

Delving into the lore of Cerberus offered me insight into its history, into its failures, and those failures gave me my victims.

The Consultant is one of my favorite stories because of the extra mile I went to include these small details. They never derailed the story, they never had to be explained by Soriya or other characters. They simply exist and add that touch, that flair, that if a reader was interested in knowing more of what was going on in the background they could do the research as well and find the answers.

I absolutely love that about the story.

Each element pulled from the research added details throughout The Consultant, and it all stemmed from character.

Easter eggs –

Russell Kerr’s name – Kerr or “cur” = dog. (Aren’t I a stinker?)

Barking at Hady Ronne – What the hell was that all about? All I can say is wait until you read The Medusa Coin! It will all make sense, I promise.

Thanks for reading.

View from Above Commentary Part 3

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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.

Kitsune time.

Figuring out the threats for a Greystone tale one of the most challenging and rewarding parts of the writing process for me. I spoke about this more in depth a few weeks back.

When it came time for View From Above, most of the pieces were in place. It was a Vlad story to examine his relationship with Soriya in an attempt to build on what was seen previously in Signs of Portents.

It was also a Soriya story, dealing with her anger and the burden of her task ahead. This was early in her career so the challenges therein were nice to play with.

But what about the big threat, the big baddie for the narrative?

My number one edict.

KitsuneI had a rule when plotting this story. No murders allowed. As I started coming up with the slate of tales from this collection this was one of the main challenges I faced. Signs was essentially a giant murder mystery. The Great Divide, while eventually riffing on the drug angle of the crime started with a death. The same with Eyes in the Storm and The Consultant, both of which are coming up in a few weeks.

I didn’t want to fall into a routine with the same formulaic devices used to drive the stories along.

So no murder allowed.

How about some petty crime?

Revealing the Kitsune as the ringleader for a petty crime brigade of thugs and hooligans felt like a great change of pace for the series. No life altering battles, no great stakes with the city of Portents hanging in the balance. Just a bunch of punks that needed a beatdown… with a shape-shifting fox as their boss. Simple and straightforward.

It also played into the role of the Kitsune in the narrative and as counter to Soriya’s arc. It always comes back to character for me so having a trickster as the threat, having the Kitsune not really care one way or the other about what she is in charge of or the effect it has on anyone or anything really struck home the difference between her and Soriya.

Dangling threads…

I wrestled with this one as well. A definitive end meant no more threat or a neutralized threat. Something else we had seen previously in the Greystone series. By having the Kitsune escape, a point that seemed spot on for where the narrative was headed, it opened the door for her return. Leaving threads for later is the hallmark of a great series, in my humble opinion.

And I wasn’t quite ready to say goodbye to our foxy fiend just yet.

When will she return? Ah, that would spoil the surprise. You’ll have to wait to find out.

Next time:

The fight scene never seen from View from Above.

Thanks for reading.

Researching Threats

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This is a question that comes up regularly, mostly from my old man in the form of “What the hell is wrong with you?” Researching threats faced within the world of Greystone can be painstaking in some cases, but on the whole it is a blast.

Finding out the perfect villain for the piece, the single voice that opposes Loren and Soriya, is almost always a tough nut to crack. I go about it in a few different ways:

Researching threats

The Process

For me the antagonist of the story, be it short tale or full-length novel, comes after figuring out the main dilemma of the leads. Who is telling this story and where are they coming from? What emotional hook is there in the background before the first sentence?

Knowing the personal stakes gives the reader something to invest in. Friends find this funny about me, but as a comic book reader I could care less about the villain of the story. I read for the drama, the personal conflict behind the fisticuffs. I care if Peter Parker can get home in time to give poor Aunt May her meds and less about if Doc Ock ends up behind bars yet again.

researching threats
This should always be more important…

That’s my methodology with developing my outlines for Greystone. Internal strife and personal conflict for a satisfying character arc come first and the punchy kicky stuff gets added in for effect.

The importance of a great threat

That isn’t to say the threat should be throwaway or shallow in depth. The reader needs to feel the main character’s are in constant danger. Who knows when one might meet their end or by what monster roaming the streets of Portents?

When it comes to researching threats I try to look at two ways:

  1. Do they directly impact the internal conflict? For example, if Soriya is in turmoil over the loss of a dear friend does the threat come from someone connected to that loss? Mentor’s long lost brother comes for a visit and turns out to a Chupacabra. (Meh. It could happen…)
  2. Is the threat more symbolic? Going back to the loss angle. Reeling from the death of someone close to Soriya, our hero struggles to save the life of a young woman (surrogate for dear friend) caught in a situation that is similar yet completely unique to the one that caused her internal conflict in the first place.

The obvious threats

The easy gets, as I say. When, during the outline phase, there is only one threat that could possibly be used to tell this story.

  1. The antithesis of the protagonist in every way. (Standish in Tales from Portents. He is everything Loren is not.)
  2. Plays off the setting/situation the main character finds themselves in. (View from Above – Soriya is mired by responsibility and tries to find a lighter side with Vlad. Enter the Kitsune, a trickster getting kicks from stealing from little old ladies. No responsibility and all lighter side.)

The less than obvious threats

Like pulling teeth, it takes three or four days of heavy thought to find the perfect face for villainy in the story.

This happened recently with the upcoming Pathways in the Dark. I knew the character’s arcs. Knew where they were coming from and the building blocks of an external threat. Just not the threat itself. Having that background with the characters, using them as the basis for telling the story instead of winging it, allowed me to find possibilities until I was left with the perfect threat that spoke to both the internal and external conflict of the story.

Resources for researching threats

I was going to go into depth on the wonderful world of Wikipedia but I thought better of it. Suffice it to say I use the internet and different directories that list classic myths and legends as a starting point before building a short list of finalists for the story in question.

Then it is all about research, research, research and tying it to the protagonist’s journey in the narrative. Nothing is more important than that to me.

Thanks for reading.

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