March 21, 2022
Do you have a favorite secondary character in your books? Or a favorite sub-plot?
I have a problem. It’s a good problem to have, but it complicates my writing. The problem is secondary characters who want to take over my stories and tell their own. And the stories deserve a book of their own.
Take Tasha, from Wolves’ Knight. She was a secondary character in Wolves’ Pawn, and was written out of the story half-way through the book. And since I’d written Wolves’ Pawn as a stand-alone urban fantasy, I thought she was out of the picture for good. I was wrong.
I was busy writing The Baron’s Cufflinks, the third book in the Harmony Duprie Mysteries, when I needed a bogus name for a book. Only it wasn’t a real book, it was a fake one that was used to store old jewelry. The name I picked was Tasha’s Tale. Then I was stuck.
See, Tasha wanted me to write her story. And she didn’t want me to finish The Baron’s Cufflink’s first. She wanted it now. (She is strong-willed!) That’s where Wolves’ Knight came from, and what turned a stand-alone story into a series.
Lori from Wolves’ Gambit has a similar story, but at least she didn’t interrupt me in the middle of writing a different book. She waited patiently while I finished The Baron’s Cufflinks (finally!) and politely asked for her turn. Which I gave her. Now, she and Tasha have teamed up on me, but I’m holding them off. For now.
Because the most consistent of all my secondary characters has my full attention. Jake Hennessey.
Jake was meant to be a throwaway character. He was part of Harmony Duprie’s past, and he was supposed to stay there. When he showed up in Her Ladyship’s Ring, I decided to humor him and let him stay. Big mistake.
I thought I got rid of him in the third book. Sent him off to Chicago and sent Harmony to West Virginia. Done deal, right? Nope, he showed up in West Virginia, and intruded in Harmony’s life again. So, I put him to work and let him help Harmony solve her mystery. I could always write him out of the next book. Or the one after that, or the last one. One thing I can say for Jake, he’s persistent.
When I finished the series with The Ranger’s Dog tags, I was ready to move along. Maybe write that book for Tasha and Lori. Or the female PI series.
But nooo. Jake decided he wanted me to write his story, that he’d stayed in the background (more or less) long enough. Now, I’d tried to get him to tell me his backstory several years ago and he wouldn’t talk. I was fine with that, everyone deserves their secrets.
Still, Jake is Jake, and he decided that now was the time. Only what he asked me to write was a prequel to all the Harmony stories. That meant I knew a lot of the guidelines for the story, and how it ended. What I didn’t know were Jake’s motivations. For a change, he made them very clear from the beginning.
Caged in its gold setting, the deep-green emerald glowed in the dim light. Jake didn’t stop to admire the ring before slipping it into the hidden pouch on his waistband. There’d be time for that before the new owners claimed the prize. It wasn’t a stunning ring, but its ties to the French monarchy made it priceless to a collector.
The Fall of Jake Hennessey, coming April 2nd, 2022.
But Jake isn’t ready to let go of me yet. Not yet. I’m working on a sequel, both to Jake’s book and all the Harmony stories. It’s quite an adventure, trying to write a book placed in the future. That’s all I’m going to tell you.
I know that some of our other authors write secondary characters that have made an impact on them. I’m looking forward to finding out about them. You can too, by following the link below.
March 21, 2022
Do you have a favorite secondary character in your books? Or a favorite sub-plot?
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