Author: McKay

I'm a writer, a teacher, and a knitter. Not necessarily in that order on any given day. I'm also the McKay half of Ari McKay.
Diary

The evolution of a novel

McKay

I believe I’ve mentioned before that we originally developed the concept for Blood Bathory when we were writing a fanfiction story back in 2007; we wanted the main characters to be involved in an online fandom, but we didn’t want to use a real fandom in case someone took offense and thought we were poking fun at it. We hadn’t planned to do as much world-building as we did, but it seemed that once we got started, we got on a roll and ended up creating much more for the imaginary fandom than we intended.

In the original story, Blood Bathory was intentionally over the top, cheesy, and campy. I had the original Dark Shadows in mind, and when we were brainstorming, we agreed we wanted it to be something we could have fun with and geek out over. I wrote a couple of journal entries about our writing/thought process when we were doing all the world-building here and here, if anyone is interested in more specific info.

When we posted the story, we got several comments about the show we’d created, mostly people saying they would actually watch it if it was real, so when we started thinking seriously about moving away from writing fanfiction and toward writing original fiction, we thought maybe taking the concept of the show and working it into a premise for a novel might be a good idea. We both love the supernatural/paranormal genre, so it was a natural choice for us. However, we had to make significant changes to the overall concept and plot to make it workable. The tongue in cheek fun we’d had with the fictional TV show wouldn’t work for a more serious paranormal romance.

We kept the main characters pretty much the same. The original had a Will Trask and an Evan St. John, and there was a character named Marielle, who started out as a “Voodoo queen”. We eliminated the Voodoo element from the original and replaced it with the theriomorph concept, making them the servants of Gaia who fight Elizabeth Bathory and the rest of the Blood Cursed, i.e. vampires. Marielle ended up evolving into a shapeshifter who is thousands of years old, a former priestess of Isis who became a servant of Gaia.

We needed to create a strong supporting cast, some of whom include Elizabeth’s daughter Anna, a former California surfer dude turned shape-shifter, and an outspoken forensic specialist who enjoys needling Will and Evan every chance she gets. None of these characters existed in the original concept, so we had to develop them once we began writing the novel.

Developing the concept of Gaia required a lot of thought. How much power and influence does she have over the world? Is she a deity or not? Does she have limits? We had to think things through, especially since we decided to expand the story into a trilogy, and we wanted to be sure we could maintain consistency throughout all three books.

So basically we had to do some serious world building on our world building! But it was really fun, and we’re happy with what we’ve come up with. Instead of Voodoo queens and Evan being strapped to a sacrificial altar, we’ve got shape-shifters and a shoot out at a fashion show.

But the one thing that didn’t change is that Will and Evan are desperately attracted to each other, and their rocky road to romance plays out against the backdrop of a supernatural turf war.

Blood Bathory is now available from Torquere Press!

Diary

Trivia Tuesday!

McKay

I’ve mentioned in a couple of previous posts about how certain characters got their names, and I freely admit that I’ll choose names entirely for my own amusement.

Readers of this blog already know that Luke Reynolds from Heart of Stone is named for Mal Reynolds from Firefly and a minor character in “Bay Leaves and Bachelors” — Peyton Wilkes — was named after Payton Place and Ashley Wilkes. Since names have been an inadvertent trend in my trivia posts, I thought I’d talk about names and how we come up with them.

Not all character names are references — just some of them. 😉 Another example of a reference name is Will Trask from our novel coming out next week, Blood Bathory: Like the Night. When we originally created the characters of Evan and Will (and that backstory is a whole ‘nother trivia post), it was because we were trying to create a fake television show for a fake fandom. The show was intended to be cheesy, over the top camp, and I had the original Dark Shadows in the back of my mind in terms of tone and feel.

In our novel, Will isn’t my character; I wrote Evan. But I’m the one who came up with Will’s name, and I took it from the original Dark Shadows, based on a “love to hate” character called Reverend Trask, who was played to melodramatic, glorious perfection by Jerry Lacy. (Have I mentioned I love Dark Shadows? Because I love it to little minty balls.)

In One the Rocks, Aidan Grimm got his last name because Ari and I are both fans of the TV show, Grimm (and of the delectable David Giuntoli, whom Aidan is physically based on).

In Fennel and Forgiveness, Darius Cooper got his last name (and his appearance) from Karl Urban’s character in Red. Ari LOVES this movie; I haven’t seen it yet, but considering the cast, it’s pretty high on my “to watch” list. Right after I get to all the movies and shows on my iTunes and DVR. >.>

There are probably other characters who have reference-based names, but I can’t pull them up off the top of my head, and some I just don’t remember. I’m not sure that we named Agnes from Heart of Stone after Agnes Gooch, for example, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

In short, we frequently include things in our writing because we’re geeks and it amuses us, so I’m sure I’ll have more easter eggs to share down the road. 😀

News Flash

Blood Bathory giveaway!

McKay1 Comment

Blood Bathory: Like the Night, a paranormal adventure novel from Torquere Press, is coming out in just a couple of weeks, and we’re giving away an autographed print copy to one lucky reader!

Evan St. John, a young fashion photographer running from the pain caused by the death of his younger sister, is thrilled when he is offered a job with House of Nadasdy, a leading fashion house in Paris. What he doesn’t know is that Elizabeth Nadasdy, the elegant and powerful owner, is not at all what she seems on the surface; she is actually a centuries-old vampire with a penchant for collecting beautiful people, and to Evan’s horror and against his will, he is turned into one of her “children”.

Unable to bear what he has become, Evan flees back to New York and to his best friend, police officer Will Trask. For years, he has nursed an unrequited love for Will, but he also knows Will is the one person who might be able to help him. As Evan and Will grow closer and deal with Evan’s condition, they are drawn into the world of the theriomorphs: shape-shifters who are guardians of life and the sworn enemies of vampires. Caught in a ancient war between two powerful supernatural forces, Evan and Will find they must choose sides — because if they are to have any chance of ever being together, they must destroy Elizabeth Nadasdy before she destroys them.

 

Go HERE to enter! You can enter to win every day between now and July 4!

Diary

Trivia Thursday!

McKay

It’s Trivia Thursday instead of Trivia Tuesday this week because I was out of town, but better late than never!

Today’s trivia revolves around our Recipe for Romance series. Two stories in the series have already been published, the third will be published on July 24, and the fourth will be published later this year. Right now, we’re planning to end the series with #4, but the door is open for future stories if we ever get a plot bunny that bites hard enough.

As part of our collaboration process, we have to decide which of the characters we’re going to write. We start by picking which main character we want to write (or sometimes they pick us!) and then divide up the secondary characters more or less equally so we have about the same writing load throughout the story.

In the Recipe series, I’ve been writing against type. I tend to write the characters who are more inclined to brood, snark, and angst, which means I’d usually be the one to write a character like Stephen Pierce. But not this time! For those who might be curious, here’s a breakdown of the characters who have been seen in the series so far and which one of us wrote them.

Rhys Montgomery – McKay (i.e. me)
Clay Turner – Ari
Robert Logan – McKay
Stephen Pierce – Ari
Max Boyd – McKay
Darius Cooper – Ari

For minor characters, such as Stephen’s hapless sous chef Craig, we tend to trade off. For example, Ari wrote Payton Wilkes in the scene that created the main conflict for Rhys and Clay. The scene was in Rhys’ POV, so I was writing the bulk of the scene, and she picked up Payton so I’d have someone to play off of.

As a side bit of trivia, Payton got his name because I was thinking about Peyton Place and Ashley Wilkes from Gone With the Wind while trying to come up with a suitably Southern-sounding name.

I liked writing Rhys and Max since they were different from my usual characters. Rhys in particular was a nice change of pace for me; I liked writing a charming Southern gentleman who gets so caught up in making plans for a perfect confession of love that he almost loses his man. One of Rhys’ particular quirks is alluded to throughout the series, but I don’t think it’s ever been spelled out: when he gets depressed, Rhys holes up with a bottle of the best bourbon he can buy and listens to Patsy Cline songs on endless repeat until he starts feeling better. The worst instance occurred after his father’s death, a bit of info which I don’t think made the final cut of Bay Leaves and Bachelors. I can’t hear a Patsy Cline song now without thinking about Rhys and Clay, so she’d definitely be on the series soundtrack!

So far, my characters in the series haven’t been snarky at all, but that’s going to change with Ginger and Gentlemen, which is the third story in the series. For that one, I wrote Ian Pierce, Stephen’s younger brother, and let’s just say certain traits run in the family. 😉  Ian is hands-down one of the most fun characters I’ve ever written because he rarely bothers to censor himself. He was also one of the more mouthy characters I’ve ever had in my head; he choreographed sex scenes and insisted I take notes so I wouldn’t forget what he wanted when the time came.

Readers will be able to find out more about Ian and his rocky relationship with his snarky older brother, Stephen when Ginger and Gentlemen is released by Torquere Press on July 24!