The interesting thing about the Herc’s Mercs series is that it basically steamrollered us. Ari came up with the basic premise quite a while ago, and we put it on The Plot Bunny List of Doom, but we didn’t focus on it right then. She mentioned it a few times as a possibility when we were casting around for ideas on what to write, but again, we didn’t latch onto it. A few months ago, a Herc plot bunny attached itself to her ankle and started mangling, and since it was inspiring her so much, I rolled with it.

I chose to write Jude in “Herc’s Mercs: The Bigger They Come” because action isn’t really one of my strengths as a writer, and I wasn’t confident I could pull off writing Herc. Once we hashed out the basic plot and started writing, the story flowed, and we’d scarcely reached the end of the rough draft before we were coming up with ideas for Herc 2.

“Herc’s Mercs: Line in the Sand” is coming out later this year from Torquere Press, and it focuses on Alec “Red” Davis (you were right, Macky!) and Jon Baldwin, an actor who has recently skyrocketed to fame thanks to his starring role in a summer blockbuster. Alec is Herc’s right hand man, and he hasn’t been in the field for a while, so Herc assigns him as Jon’s bodyguard to change up his routine and get him back in the action again.

We tossed around various ideas for the plot, and since we knew we wanted to avoid repetition, giving Jon a stalker was out of the question. Jon does end up in peril, and Alec has to call on all of his strength and wits to save him, but it’s a very different kind of peril than Jude and Herc faced.

Continue reading “Herc’s Mercs, Tom Hiddleston, and The Walking Dead”