The Spectral Advocate author commentary continues this week with a look at Megan Daniels, the sinister threat behind the Specter in the novel. Whoops. Guess I should have led with the SPOILER WARNING!
Building the threat of Megan Daniels
Figuring out the villain for a story is one of the pure joys of writing. There are few tasks more gratifying than developing someone multi-faceted, yet truly twisted at heart. With Spectral Advocate, I knew the physical threat would always be the Specter. Nothing would come close to that level of terror.
But I wanted to try anyway.
On a purely psychological level, I wanted Megan Daniels to be a totally sympathetic character who simply goes too far. We’ve all been pushed into a corner, but how often do we push back to the point of, oh, let’s say, murder? (Don’t answer that, you’ll only incriminate yourself!)
Megan has a legit beef with Abigail Winslow/Hunt. She abandoned Megan’s husband the night of his death. If she had been present, they both might be dead, sure, but there was always the chance of their survival as well.
The first interaction
It’s still a favorite scene of mine in the book. Okay, there are quite a few in this one (the comic book store, of course, as well as the battle in Ben’s bedroom, to name a couple) but introducing Megan Daniels was a challenge I enjoyed. She needed to exude innocence and did so by leaning on the widow aspect of her life. She yearns for her husband, but doesn’t come off as needy, simply lonely due to the tragedy of Steven’s death.
I was worried about this scene. The reason was simple: I didn’t have another one with a different potential killer. Everything fell on Megan Daniels, and I was worried people would see right through the chapter and know she was the killer.
Every draft brought with it more desire to layer in red herrings. A boss, a co-worker, a secret lover, yet everything felt like a distraction from the main plot. Her inability to let go of the past mirrored that of both Cal and Ben, which I felt was more crucial to explore than anything else in the novel.
After the usual back and forth with myself, I left it alone and hoped no one saw through to the end too quickly.
Megan Daniels revealed
I’ve listed a couple favorite scenes in the book already, but the end of Chapter Twenty-Three remains one of the best images in the entire season. I still close my eyes and see Megan’s dead eyes staring at Ben and Cal, while pointing toward the door with her husband’s ghost hovering overhead.
“Show our guests out, would you, dear?”
It still brings me chills.
Influences
I might have mentioned this in the past, but of all Peter Jackson’s incredible work on the screen, my favorite film of his remains The Frighteners.
Jeffrey Combs, Michael J. Fox, Jake Busey, Dee Wallace, and so many other incredible talents worked on this movie. Dee Wallace, especially, helped bring Megan Daniels to life in Spectral Advocate. Not so much for the crazed mania she portrayed as Patricia Bradley, but with how attached she remained to Johnny Bartlett. They could not be apart, and that aspect I felt was key for Megan in Spectral Advocate.
It’s a freaking phenomenal movie. I might be the only one on the planet that thinks so. (Or so my wife believes…) You should check it out.
Next:
The never-before-seen bonus story I wrote back in 2015 that delves into Cal Cooper’s visit to Bethesda.
