This time on the author commentary for The Clearing, I’m talking about juggling the leads. SPOILER warning is in effect!
Juggling the Leads
What am I talking about with this? Well, in Greystone, there are two main characters–Soriya and Loren–and they pretty much run the show for the series. Most of the scenes, if you go back and read the books, are straightforward with a back and forth pattern between two principal characters.
I found that dynamic worked best for those opening novels. But as I went along, I started to look for more complex setups, more intricate scenes and pacing to keep the reader interested and moving through the narrative.
DSA was the perfect exploration, especially with The Clearing.
When the team is sent to Bellbrook, suddenly there are four main characters handling all the action and dialogue. Four personalities that needed to be fleshed out and seen through their actions and their words with each chapter of the novel.
Was Ruth snippy enough? Do we understand Morgan’s fear of connecting with Ben? Was Lincoln too callous, or did that fit with his role as the soldier of the group? As I said before, Ben was no longer the main focus. There was an ensemble cast to build up and tear down. Each scene provided the means, and The Clearing threw them all together very quickly.
Challenges
I’ve heard from readers about the jumping around at the start of the novel. I’m not a huge fan of it either, but looking back each scene is absolutely critical to introducing these elements. If not for the opening ten chapters, why would you care about their journey to Bellbrook? Why does it matter when one is shot and another dies, unless there is that innate connection?
Another challenge I found when plotting came with how to stage each encounter. The initial drive to Bellbrook was one such scene, because each character needed to shine on their own without actually doing anything. They are stuck in the car for crying out loud, so that back and forth element needed to lean into their personalities more.
The electronics store offered another challenge. Who moves where? Who acts first? How to give each player something to do? All these elements ran through my mind while staging the beats for this scene and the rest of the novel.
Will there be more whole team adventures?
If you look at the rest of Season One, there wasn’t another time when all the main players are on the same mission at the same time. That might have been a mistake, but the choice also allowed each character to grow through their own plotlines.
There are a couple moments in Season Two that utilize the entire team, but for the most part there is a split dynamic that I believe works better.
So will there be more whole team adventures? Absolutely. I’ve plotted a number of them in Season Three, which looking at it now is a surprise. It could be a sense of comfort with the characters, or that the readers should know these characters almost as well as I do at that point.
Or it could be that the threats warrant it, which was the case with The Clearing.
What were your thoughts on the juggling of leads in The Clearing? Was it a case of too many cooks in the kitchen (voices in the scene) or did you enjoy that sense of chaos with so many disparate personalities constantly clashing?
Next time: The rise of Gregory Sullivan.
