Spy Silhouettes

I'm actually going to blog about my writing process today but first....

To make Marjorie Liu and Me happy puppies...













Found another pic in my files for my Bird Day ;-D. I love this particular photo, by the way. I can just look at it while writing and tag the names Jazz, Hawk, Reed, Cucumber, Dirk, Mink, Turner and Zone (Z-Man). No faces, just up to your imagination, but the incredible silhouettes of their bodies--definitely helped me to write my Crossfire series! I bet I know which one Sadista picks as "her" Cucumber...bwaha!

Now I need a simiar one with SEVEN silhouettes for the COS Commandos, eh?



Writing Notes--Hero Silhouettes Part One:

Writing the middle book of a series of three, with the same hero, is proving to be a major challenge. The middle book has always been a tuffie because there is so much info-dumping the author must do (in a subtle, clever, manipulative way, of course), what with carrying over the major story arc as well as giving some kind of background of what happened in Book One.

In the Crossfire series, I sort of sneakily solved this problem by making a favorite character, Hawk, to carry the story forward. Hawk McMillan, who's a reader favorite, is usually seen as the hero who would anchor a series, be it one book or three. If you look at the series books on your shelves, you'll almost always find that your favorite brother of a family, or the leader of the group of operatives, or the best of the three best friends, will be the last book written by the author. It only makes sense to do that because that character should be the ultimate dude to end the arc.

Well, I broke the rules in the Crossfire series by using my Hawk as the middle child. It had to be done because I needed him to carry a very complicated story forward. Also, I wanted to explore the "anger," an emotion that one wouldn't associate with Hawk, the poster child of the Navy SEALs. And of course, I thought it was perfect to place the man, whose reputation as "catnip for women," among women he wouldn't want to seduce, or hurt, or even desire.

I found it helped solved the problem of giving the neccessary background info about the main mission through Hawk's anger and POV of what was happening to the mistreated girls in Macedonia. Through that particular sub-plot, I managed to insert the carry-over arc of the missing explosive device and yet not have it overwhelm the human dilemma in the story.

Again, I sort of broke the rules because most military romances focus on the go-go-go adventure of accomplishing the Big Arc, i.e. get the device, save the world, big Kabooms, lots of action. I did have one big scene that was cut that I thought was essential to the story--the end when all the SEALs came together to destroy the Big Bad Dilaver Dragan--but because of page constraints from the publisher, the end result was more muted, with the emphasis on Hawk's ultimate meltdown with Dilaver. As a writer, I'm not truly happy with that particular scene because I DID want more Kabooms, with all the SEALs doing their thang, but I had to sacrifice those pages because I thought highlighting Hawk's and Dragan's fight was more important. It was his story and his mission, after all.

The overall story arc of the Crossfire series--human trafficking in different countries (Asia, in the first book, Europe, in the second and third book)--needed a beginning, a middle, and an end in the series too. In the books, I introduced three heroines, each who had their own personal reasons to be in this war against the human traffickers.

In The Protector, I wrote that from the viewpoint of a victim of the cultural system, who had lost friends to human traffickers. In the second, The Hunter, I wrote from the viewpoint of someone who was a daughter of a missionary, an observer who wanted to do something to help these women and children. Lastly, in the third book, originally titled The Sleeper, and which you bought as Sleeping *** (sigh), I chose the ultimate victim herself as the heroine, with a twist. In this way, I get to explore the story arc of human trafficking in different dimensions, and hopefully, open a few eyes along the way. Boring to some readers, yes, but it was a three-book arc that needed to come out.

But I needed Hawk. And I couldn't have him anchoring the story. I needed him angry and unable to do something because he was in the middle of his own mission. Seduction was too easy a theme for him--I cannot see him and Lily together, can you? Of course not!!!

So he was my all important guy holding the baton in Book Two.

Now, I'm writing Book Two of another series and this challenge is altogether very, very different. I don't have a different hero in each book. It's the same man, and I'm introducing him in this story, really, because he is the man of mystery in Book One. You would think that it would be easier to write but...nope. It's the second book dilemma for me all over again.

How do I carry the first book arc forward and make sure there's no info-dumping or long narrative of what went on in the first book? Sure, I'm in HIS POV this time and yes, that's cool as hell to write, but because of the technical nature of Hell's experiment, I have to refer to it again, through the hero's eyes this time.

Chapters 1-3 are proving to be root canals. I love this hero, I really do, but he's killing me.

Part Two of Spy Silhouettes tomorrow, my lovelies. Now Gennita has to go a-roofing.

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