The author commentary for The Gifts of Kali begins! SPOILER WARNING is in effect. You have been warned!
Kali’s evolution
There was a steep learning curve in this book, and it was one of my own creation. I thought it would be fun to play with the fact that Kali has a secret identity of sorts. She lives in Portents, does whatever the hell she wants, under the guise of Callie.
It was a clever ploy to throw the reader off until the reveal in Chapter 8.
One problem: I didn’t think of it right away. In fact, I was well into the draft before I considered doing this. So, for the most part, throughout the original draft Kali was simply Kali and that was that.
(What an idiot…)
This is where writing a book from start to finish might have helped. But I didn’t. Nope. Not even close. So by the time I figured out this amazing plan to conceal Kali’s identity even from the reader, I had messed it up.
It took draft after draft to clean it up. When I sent it to my editor, the ever incredible Josiah Davis, I thought for sure I had it all worked out.
I was wrong. Kali was left in one spot instead of Callie. Four paragraphs before the reveal.
UGH.
Thankfully, that was the last one. I really wanted it to be this eye-opener for the reader that they had been following Kali since Chapter 2. I honestly don’t know if it strengthened the book or merely gave me a migraine. These are the little things that keep a guy like me up at night.
The idea behind Kali
Fate was key to the book. The idea of predestination, that we have no true control over our lives. It definitely seems timely as I type this. How Kali/Callie acts at the beginning of the book, the presence she carries throughout the narrative, stems from her fighting this outcome with every fiber of her being.
She knows the end of the story and will do everything she can to avoid it. That is her main drive and why she rubs Soriya the wrong way more and more with each encounter.
I wanted to create someone that Soriya would look up to in Beth for Hammer and Anvil. It was more on the mental side, the lore of the city. Kali brought the physical side to the forefront, so Soriya was hoping to connect with Kali much like she did with Beth. As the story goes along, though, she knows this is a false front. That Kali’s fear is her driving force, not her strength.
Using the flipside of the coin for this book, allowed Soriya to see things from a different perspective. These are her training years, so having these issues come up were important for her own personal growth.
Soriya believes fate to be a beautiful thing, a motivator. Kali believes the opposite, that it is a chain around her pulling her kicking and screaming.
I hope you enjoyed that philosophical argument in the book. It was fun to write.
A look at Mentor next time. Thanks for reading.
