The next several months will bring author commentaries on all six stories contained within the Tales from Portents collection. My hope is to offer insight into the decisions made in putting the project together and the challenges therein. It’s also fun to point out the little Easter eggs throughout. (I love that crap.) So, SPOILER WARNING is in effect for the duration.
Kitsune time.
Figuring out the threats for a Greystone tale one of the most challenging and rewarding parts of the writing process for me. I spoke about this more in depth a few weeks back.
When it came time for View From Above, most of the pieces were in place. It was a Vlad story to examine his relationship with Soriya in an attempt to build on what was seen previously in Signs of Portents.
It was also a Soriya story, dealing with her anger and the burden of her task ahead. This was early in her career so the challenges therein were nice to play with.
But what about the big threat, the big baddie for the narrative?
My number one edict.
I had a rule when plotting this story. No murders allowed. As I started coming up with the slate of tales from this collection this was one of the main challenges I faced. Signs was essentially a giant murder mystery. The Great Divide, while eventually riffing on the drug angle of the crime started with a death. The same with Eyes in the Storm and The Consultant, both of which are coming up in a few weeks.
I didn’t want to fall into a routine with the same formulaic devices used to drive the stories along.
So no murder allowed.
How about some petty crime?
Revealing the Kitsune as the ringleader for a petty crime brigade of thugs and hooligans felt like a great change of pace for the series. No life altering battles, no great stakes with the city of Portents hanging in the balance. Just a bunch of punks that needed a beatdown… with a shape-shifting fox as their boss. Simple and straightforward.
It also played into the role of the Kitsune in the narrative and as counter to Soriya’s arc. It always comes back to character for me so having a trickster as the threat, having the Kitsune not really care one way or the other about what she is in charge of or the effect it has on anyone or anything really struck home the difference between her and Soriya.
Dangling threads…
I wrestled with this one as well. A definitive end meant no more threat or a neutralized threat. Something else we had seen previously in the Greystone series. By having the Kitsune escape, a point that seemed spot on for where the narrative was headed, it opened the door for her return. Leaving threads for later is the hallmark of a great series, in my humble opinion.
And I wasn’t quite ready to say goodbye to our foxy fiend just yet.
When will she return? Ah, that would spoil the surprise. You’ll have to wait to find out.
Next time:
The fight scene never seen from View from Above.
Thanks for reading.
When I received the edited version of Signs of Portents from my editor, 
Soriya doesn’t play well with others. And when she does they typically come from a place of authority. Mentor. Loren. Ruiz.
May and June are editing months it looks like but I’ve already started pooling my notes for the fifth and final book in this part of the Greystone series. Lots of plots coming together. Mysteries revealed. Characters going bye bye. I’m going to be a wreck when I sit down to draft this puppy.
As I pieced together the lineup for the collection, I realized I was missing something. I had solo stories with the main leads, a focus on our main supporting cast member in Ruiz and another with Vlad. There was 
At six months into the start of their partnership both characters are still feeling each other out. On Loren’s side it is much worse, his anger clouding any sense of trust in the pairing. That level of tension, that lack of comfort between the two leads compared to where they are presently in Signs was very interesting to me and something I wanted to explore fully.