Layering A Spy

Today's Mood:
How To Ruin Sexual Tension



Blogger Comment kept giving me the finger so I couldn't address the wonderful and interesting comments left by readers. I'm so glad, though, that readers are so into the myth-arcs and layered storylines in today's paranormal genre. I'm fascinated with the world-building and how involved the readers get into it in discussions!

Leah is especially right when she mentioned about the message boards/forums that really, really have heavy discussions of each character and all the different speculations. It can be intimidating to the beginning reader. But this is good too because it shows that the books are entertaining and rich.

My worries come from my experience with TV series-land, in which the writers (and they are uber-talented) drop the ball when it comes to the myth-arcs. Yes, yes, my bitterness with Buffy and Alias is surfacing. What can I say? I'm one of those who toured speculation threads in search of that one spoiler that would make sense of it all. And the writers had failed to even answer some very basic questions about these wonderful myth-arcs they created (the Shanshu Prophecy, anyone? Why repeat the number 47 for five seasons, people??!)

Books are different, of course. There's time to world-build. The writer can give her/his myth-arc the time it deserves to reach its climax. But writers can grow greedy too and add too many characters or too many layers and the whole thing becomes so complicated that the book is 1000 pages long ;-), with new things introduced and nothing in the myth-arc resolved. This is a problem FOR ME as a reader. Probably not for thousands others.

It's tough to sustain the romantic tension in a series. That's why I kowtow to La Nora ;-). Roarke and Eve. Roarke and Eve. How many books already? And still manage to stay hawt AND interesting. I'm not just talking about the sex. The relationship dynamic between those two is as fascinating as ever.

I'm learning from all these wonderful authors as I write my three-book arc of Super Soldier Spy. It's a complicated world I'm building and to make it worse, I can't make the tech up because it's not a futuristic world I'm building. My hi-tech toys "sound" sci-fi but they are out there, but it's not easy explaining them in a book and not sound like info-dump ;-). Book One has lots of romantic tension. Book Two...that'll definitely be the challenge for me, to see how I've grown as a writer. Book Three...my mantra for the moment, since I don't have any idea what that story is like, is "do not drop the ball. Do NOT drop the ball." And always be prepared for the unexpected.

Like, for example, yesterday morning.

Ranger Buddy, as you know, has been learning Spanish on his own. A crapenter climbed up on the roof yesterday. RB approached him and slowly and very clearly, like a man ordering from a foreign menu, said, "Corte por favor el agujero para la ventilación," or something like it.

I grinned and looked at the crapenter, expecting some kind of Spanish comeback that would confuse RB. From my usual experience, that's what foreigners love to do...someone speaks to you in your language, you answer him in a long fast paragraph to show them how stupid they are ;-).

Crapenter cocked his head. Then drawled, "Sorry, I don't do the roofs."

Hahahhahahahahaha. HAHAhahahahahahahahaahahah. I nearly fell off my perch laughing. Poor RB. He spent all night memorizing that phrase. And still couldn't find a crapenter to cut the damn ventilation for the roofs.

Which just shows, you can build the world and populate it with exactly who you need, you can carefully arrange the best plotlines, and still some character will appear to mess with your best-laid plans.

Bear with me while I learn. The first button likes the POST. The second button likes the BLOG site. Please help me by "liking" me. Thanks!