The author commentary of A Circle of Shadows begins now! SPOILER WARNING in effect!
Two Prologues
I created my own monster by including these in Signs of Portents. I believed it to be important when putting together the series to focus on both leads. It was a natural fit with Signs. Soriya and Loren needed a starting point. They needed some background information conveyed so the reader had that natural attachment before being plopped into the center of the story.
The Medusa Coin followed suit. This was a little more difficult – only on the Loren front. Soriya’s was easy to handle as it continued directly from the final story beat of Signs with the lightning strike. I still love that moment – if only it was always that simple.
Loren’s was challenging but again, once I thought about his starting point, was a natural fit for the opening of the novel. For him it was about isolation, while also introducing elements of the growing mystery surrounding his return to the city.
A Circle of Shadows changed the game in terms of the formatting.
I didn’t have an opening for Soriya and Loren. Their story was pretty much covered by the main narrative. So what could I use for the prologues?
Keeping Soriya and Loren at the center…
That was the key. The prologues had to be ABOUT the main characters, no matter what. My personal rules, however, never stated their actual presence was required.
I went back and forth on this. Were they necessary to opening the novel? What would the reader need to know about them in order to flow naturally into the story being told?
I stumbled on Loren’s connection first. Instead of writing a chapter about Loren’s emotional core for this novel to lay out his arc for the reader, I turned the focus to Beth. She is and always has been the center of his story in Greystone. Her death. The mystery behind her great fall.
Why not play with that moment and tease one of the many reveals in the novel?
Connecting her to Soriya was crucial in this regard. The reader was already set up to believe Soriya was involved in Beth’s fall to some degree, or at least the doubt had been planted with the reader…
Why not showcase their connection prior to Beth’s murder? It was a simple twist to an adjacent character, while maintaining the emotional core of Loren.
Falling into place.
With Loren’s opening in place, Soriya’s came quickly. With the Greystone bearer off the table for her prologue chapter it left only one player capable of filling her shoes –
Mentor.
It was a shame I killed him off in Signs. I love writing his character and this provided the opportunity not only to deepen Soriya’s relationship with Mentor through his story but also allowed me to play him off the woman at the center of A Circle of Shadows…
Karen Winters.
Setting the circumstances of the flashback brought another layer of challenges to the scene. When you have almost twenty years of potential moments to pull from, what matters most? For me, I prefer tighter connections with previous tales.
I combed through the earlier stories to figure out the perfect placement of the prologue. Pulling the small fragment during Soriya’s pounding of the creep on the subway platform, expanding that memory of the two Greystone’s humming next to each other in the Bypass Chamber and then telling it from Mentor’s point of view played perfectly into introducing this scene as well as the antagonist of the novel.
Seeding her plans for the Bypass and the Greystone were not part of my original design but by placing this conversation early it added to her overall motivation, something I felt was important for my villains over the course of the series.
Will the prologues continue in the second half?
Probably. I think format-wise it’s pretty set in how the books open but I am always open to trying new things with each novel.
Did these prologues work for you as a reader or did you feel they were jarring when Soriya and Loren were not involved?
Shoot me an email at lou@loupaduano.com and let me know!
Thanks for reading.
