Guest post written by author Faith Hunter
Faith Hunter is the award-winning New York Times and USAToday bestselling author of several series: Jane Yellowrock, Soulwood, Rogue Mage, and Junkyard Cats. In addition, she has edited several anthologies and coauthored the Rogue Mage RPG. She is the coauthor and author of 16 thrillers under pen names Gary Hunter and Gwen Hunter. Altogether she has 40+ books and dozens of short stories in print and is juggling multiple projects. She sold her first book in 1989 and hasn’t stopped writing since.
Faith collects orchids and animal skulls, loves thunderstorms, and writes. She drinks a lot of tea. She likes to kayak Class II & III whitewater rivers. Some days she’s a lady. Some days she ain’t.
Hi Fellow Nerds!
I’m Faith Hunter, and currently I am writing three series:
The longest running is the Urban Fantasy, Jane Yellowrock series, set in New Orleans, La. and Asheville, NC. The Soulwood series is a Paranormal Police Procedural series set in the same world as Jane Yellowrock, but features magic-user, rookie agent Nell Ingram, in Knoxville, TN. Lastly, the Junkyard Cats series is completely unrelated to Jane’s world. It’s a Post-Apocalyptic Sci-Fi novella series, starring Shining Smith…and several special psychic cats!
Today I’ll be chatting about the difficulties of writing a long-running series with all the character building and development necessary to keeping a series interesting, sharp, and full of forward progression that keep the reader coming back for more, book after book. To illustrate, I’ll use my longest running series, the Jane Yellowrock series.
My next book is TRUE DEAD, number 14 in the Jane Yellowrock series, to be released on Sept. 14, 2021. This series is an urban fantasy with mixes of mystery, action adventure, amazing fight scenes, a well-known but altered setting, and just enough sizzle to keep things interesting. The series features Jane Yellowrock who starts out as a biker-chick / hunter of rogue-vampires / Cherokee skinwalker / who accidently absorbed the soul of a mountain lion in a desperate, unintentional act of black magic when she was five years old. She is a contradictory blend of strength and vulnerability—a gun toting Harley rider, a tribal war woman, and a self-taught magic-using skinwalker who has big holes in her skinwalker knowledge. That pesky Beast inside her is another problem entirely, and they don’t always have the same goals, desires, or agendas. Jane is woman who would rather shoot first and chat later, and who has a serious lack of social skills.
Jane (and her Beast) used to hunt down and kill rogue-vampires. In the first novel, SKINWALKER, she takes a gig in New Orleans, to track and kill a rogue-vampire that the master of the city himself couldn’t find. In SKINWALKER everything in Jane’s life begins to change, which is one big secret to character development.
A character develops when they evolve to solve changing circumstances and conflicts. In Jane’s case, through a quirk of miscommunication, unintentional timewalking, an attack of black magic, and the action of a crown that might just have a mind and agenda of its own, by book 14 Jane Yellowrock is now the queen of the vampires in a sultry city with a history of pirates, buccaneers, voodoo, and Mardi Gras celebrations. And her throne, her crown, and her city are coveted by powerful vamps all over the world for reasons she doesn’t really understand. Oh – and she sucks at being royalty, so she still has a way to grow.
To make a series work and a character develop, a writer needs two main things:
- What I call “The Device of The Unanswered Question,” (and yes, I made that phrase up in 2018. Cool, eh?)
- A character who has weaknesses that can be challenged by conflict and plot arcs
The Device of The Unanswered Question is just that. In book one, the writer mentions something in passing that can be expanded upon or disproved in a later book. For instance, a media report: “A female child, estimated to be twelve years of age, was discovered yesterday by park rangers in the Appalachian Mountains of South Carolina, wandering alone, naked, malnourished, with bullet wound scarring on her torso. She has no language and seems feral, as if she has never seen another human. She has been dubbed by the locals as ‘The girl raised by wolves.’”
When I need something special for my character, I can pull from this, can use it as a jumping off point for a plot problem or a backstory complication or a statement that she hadn’t been raised by wolves. The truth can be far more bizarre than that first info and can be twisted and used to show character development and growth. It also gives this writer a lot of potential backstory in just a hint, instead of an info dump.
Every protagonist (main good-person character) needs weaknesses. I am not talking being whiney or annoying or heartless or cruel. I mean, specifically, weaknesses in learning, potential, social skills, or knowledge needed to solve the conflict(s) generated by the writer as the initiating plot problem. Think, say … Luke Skywalker in the original Star Wars film. He had no spaceship, no fighting skills, no real knowledge of where the missing princess was or how to find her once he got to that place, no weapons, no knowledge of his own magic—the Force, (cue dramatic music). Luke learned all that stuff and acquired all that stuff as the story progressed. His weaknesses and strengths were challenged by the conflicts, and he was forced to grow, or fail at his goals. That is called character development.
Every time a character does something new, something they have never done before, they develop more. Every time a character faces an inner demon, deals with some major or minor past trauma, and pushes through to solve the current conflict problem, they develop more. A canny writer can use that growth through an entire series.
Jane Yellowrock isn’t Luke Skywalker. Her magic is specific and internal and dangerous to use, and her Beast is often more of a problem than a help. At first. Because even Beast has to develop. I hope you’ll give the series a shot. And if you have started it already, book 14 is out Sept 14. TRUE DEAD!
Later!
Faith Hunter
