writing

Writing on Wednesday: Endings

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I’ve got a few books under my belt, so when it was time to write the end of Blood and Other Matter, I was surprised to find I didn’t know how to write an ending.

I’d never ended a book before. Not really. Persephone kind of ended, but mostly it led into the next book. Daughter of the Earth and Sky practically ended mid-scene. The Iron Queen certainly was an ending of an arc for Persephone, but it was a beginning for Aphrodite and what kind of felt like a midpoint (the place where everything changes) for Hades.

And those endings were fine for those books. Persephone needed to lead into Daughter of the Earth and Sky. Daughter of the Earth and Sky did end on a cliffhanger but every threat from the book resolved in that ending scene, any other line I wrote was the beginning of a new story line. Persephone herself got an ending I’m fairly proud of in Iron Queen, but for Aphrodite it had to be a beginning.

But that kind of ending wouldn’t work for Blood and Other Matter. It’s not a series, it’s a single book. It’s okay to end a book without everything wrapped up in a neat bow, but the story needs to conclude, darn it. And I had no idea how to do that.

Don’t get me wrong, I knew how the book would end, it was the little things. The resolution, the wrap up. So…I just didn’t write it. I went back and revised from beginning to climax four times before I finally sat down and realized I couldn’t wait anymore. I had other books to write.

I sat down and wrote over 10,000 words to get my ending. Maybe 3k of that represents the actual falling action and resolution of the book. I had to write every possibility out before I figured out what I was doing. It was a major milestone for me. Not only did I write my first real ending, it was also the first time I’d written over ten thousand words in a day. I’m not entirely sure I moved from my chair all day. My brain actually felt like it was buzzing when I finished and my child had somehow finished the entire show, Dragons: Riders of Berk and raided the fridge for meals (I swear I’m not normally a horrible parent. She actually gets limited screen time most days and her fridge has a snack drawer divided into food groups so she’s used to putting together her own meals, one from each category).

I love the ending to Blood and Other Matter. I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever written. I was crying as I wrote it. My writers group also reported tears (but they may have been tears of agony over the sheer number of typos that occurs when you write straight through an entire day and then hit send without proofreading). And I learned a lot about writing endings.

Struggling to write your own? Here’s some tips that worked for me.

  1. Endings should evoke an emotion. Pick a song or a book or a movie scene that makes you feel the way you want your reader to feel and watch/listen/read before you write. Don’t borrow it, but get yourself in that mood. It helps. I don’t typically listen to music when I write, but there was one song that just made me feel the ending of Blood and Other Matter. Having it playing in my head as I wrote really helped me set the tone of the ending.
  2. Get all the possibilities out of the way. That other 7 thousand words I wrote weren’t wasted. Each scene brought me closer to the resolution and feeling I wanted. Something stuck from every version and acted as a building block.
  3. Go through and find your threads. The major plot conflict is easy to resolve, but sometimes it’s easy to forget promises you made to the readers along the way. On my last pass of Blood and Other Matter, I had a running list of questions that needed to be addressed at resolution. It’s okay not to answer all of them. Life doesn’t get wrapped up in a neat bow. But as the writer you have to be aware of what you’re not resolving. There has to be intention.

There’s a great podcast on endings in Writing Excuses and there’s tons of great books and essays on the subject that get a bit more technical on the subject. But for me, those three tips made all the difference in building an ending I’m super proud of….

4. ….For the moment. Give me a few months and I’ll look back on it and wince. Always, always, always give your drafts time to breathe. I’m all emotionally invested in my super amazing ending right now. That makes me completely blind to flaws. I don’t normally take this many months between drafts, but I have a deadline for another book looming and pre-publication work on another. By the time I return to Blood and Other Matter for my final pass pre-query, I should have pretty fresh eyes.

 

 

Transformation

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It’s important to note that the hero’s journey has other potential steps. There are seventeen identified stages in the hero’s journey, and some stories have every single one of them. Others only have the major touch stones. And most stories shuffle the order.

Disney and most YA novels have shortened and combined many of the stages. For example, the road of trials and the temptation are often merged and the belly of the whale is often moved around to serve the plot.

To get a much more comprehensive picture of the hero’s journey, check out Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces.

In most simplified hero’s journeys, Transformation occurs right on the heels of the Belly of the Whale. This is when the newly humbled hero embraces their flaws and transforms them into strengths. It’s the moment when Goku turns super-duper seyan. When Sailor Moon unlocks her latest, greatest power, when Joy embraces Sadness and returns to her quest with a renewed sense of vigor, when Hercules literally turns into a god. Simba returns to pride rock transformed into an adult lion that embraces his responsibilities.

My favorite example of this is in Wreck it Ralph when it circles right back to his affirmation. He went through the Belly of the Beast when he wrecked Vanelope’s car. He’s given his medal and finds it to be meaningless. It’s an impressive low point. He starts the road back when he realizes King Candy has deceived him, but he lacks what it would truly take to defeat the big bad until this heart breaking scene, when he comes to terms with who he is and fully accepts himself. Only then, once he’s transformed, can his character arc and the big bad be defeated.

Writing on Wednesday: First Look

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Every Wednesday from now until release date, I’ll be posting an exclusive scene from Aphrodite! Like what you read? Preorder today!

Aphrodite

“YOUR KIND ISN’T welcome here,” the dark-haired man growled, pushing his thick glasses up his nose with his index finger. The kid with shaggy hair and the balding man stepped around him, Olympian Steele gripped tight in their hands. I couldn’t take my eyes off the glittering stakes.

Poseidon let out a string of curses that would shock any sailor. “Get behind me.” He held out a hand, ready to push me back if I didn’t comply. His trident appeared in his other hand with a flash of gold so bright in the darkness, I found myself blinking away sparkling dots. “And get ready to run.”

“Run?” I demanded. “Why can’t we teleport?” Poseidon could grant me authorization in a second.

“And leave your demigod as collateral? My vows prohibit that, thanks to you.”

I laced my voice with as much sarcasm as I could. “We could always go get him.”

Pink Dress attacked first, with all the grace of a zombie. She leapt forward, hacking and slashing at the air with the Olympian Steele before she even got within a foot of Poseidon. She was trying to miss. The flashing lights illuminated a wild struggle in her dark eyes. She was resisting the charm the best she could, but what hope could a mere mortal have over a divine force of will?

“And risk ’porting straight into a trap?”

Poseidon had a point. You couldn’t shield yourself while teleporting. We might be able to throw up a shield the second we arrived, but we’d be vulnerable for that second.

“We’re dealing with this now,” Poseidon declared.

I summoned my charm, gritting my teeth against the pain ripping through my stomach. Gah! What was this? The charm slid off the passengers like water. Swallowing hard, I stepped back, bumping into a barstool. Run? From humans?

Poseidon dodged an attack from Baldy, then seemed to remember me and threw himself between the two of us, trident whirling to block his Steele. “We’re going to talk about the bargain we just made later.”

“Talk all you want. Your promises are still binding.” I threw up a shield, power flaring to life within me. Gods, that hurt. Gritting my teeth, I ignored the gut-wrenching pain and pushed the shield at the charmed passengers just as Shaggy joined the fray, Steele shattering my shield in a second.

I froze. Fighting wasn’t in my skill set. Unlike Persephone, I’d never seen the point in spending my spare time learning self-defense or honing my powers so I’d be ready for a combat situation. My charm could quell gods. Why would I ever need anything more than that?

Poseidon shoved me to the side, intercepting the Steele with his trident. Baldy leapt to Shaggy’s aid, slashing at Poseidon, but Poseidon sent him flying into the bar, crashing into a wall of bottles with enough force to shatter them. Baldy hit the ground with a thud, alcohol and glass raining around him. The bartender, unperturbed, kept pouring drinks. What the hell? Everyone else danced or stood around in unconcerned clusters. Was the whole club charmed? Holy Hades, what kind of power were we dealing with?

Don’t just stand there. Do something. Taking a deep breath, I tuned out the pulsing music and concentrated. With effort, I picked out several more charmed passengers as well as a shield enveloping the entire bar. “Poseidon, break the shield!”

A wave of power swelled from Poseidon. The shield shattered. My stomach wrenched as I blanketed the room with charm in a desperate bid to gain control of the passengers before they panicked and fled. They could come in handy.

Gods! The effort of channeling my powers sent me doubling over in agony.

Gritting my teeth, I pushed past the pain, concentration breaking when another passenger lunged at me, knocking me to the floor. Rolling out of the way, I slid across shattered glass. The broken bottles sliced my skin. I leapt to my feet. The uncharmed passengers became aware of the fight in their midst, and rushed toward the door screaming. “Crap!” Pushing past the pain, I refocused my power on the crowd as the music shut off and fluorescent lights flickered on.

“Are you cut?” Poseidon spared me a glance, throwing up a shield to gain the half-second to determine whether or not I was all right.

“Not by Steele.” Taking a deep breath, I forced my charm to take hold of the other passengers. “Help me!”

The bar came to life as passengers threw themselves in between me and the Steele-wielding zombies.

“Go,” Poseidon shouted, trident swinging in a wild arc. Pink Dress ducked around the blow, slashing at Poseidon, but got intercepted by a crew member acting under the influence of my charm. I ran, Poseidon on my heels. The crowd split in front of me, forming a narrow hallway that closed in behind us. A living shield.

Scattered within the crowd, I could pick out the passengers who weren’t under my control waiting for us to get close enough to strike. “Red dress! Glasses! Waitress behind the table!” I shouted warnings to Poseidon as soon as I picked out the passengers who would attack, glancing back to gauge his success.

Poseidon’s trident flashed. Now I understood why Demeter and Hades had been so determined to get him on their side against Zeus. Poseidon wasn’t just powerful. He fought in a way most gods were too complacent to even consider. I couldn’t tell where his powers stopped and his physical prowess began. Green lightning erupted from the trident, followed by a punch, a kick, a shield inverted around a passenger to restrain them. He seemed to be everywhere at once until they tried to strike back, and then he was nowhere.

“You’re incredible!” I hadn’t meant to speak out loud, and, by rights, I shouldn’t be audible over the fight, but somehow, Poseidon still heard and shot me a grin.

“You sound surprised. I thought that was common knowledge.” His grin faded. “Watch out!”

I ducked as another charmed passenger broke through the crowd, slashing at the place where I’d been with the shimmering stake. Poseidon was there in a flash. The passenger went flying into the wall as limp as a rag doll.

We broke free of the bar and dashed through a hallway decorated to resemble the night sky. If anyone thought it odd we ran like our lives depended on it, I didn’t notice. “Where are we going?” I cried.

“Water.”

Right. I veered toward the atrium as the hall opened up into a lobby full of gift shops, tables, and photographers posing random passengers in front of pretty backdrops. The charmed passengers followed right on our heels. “This way!” I rushed across the atrium and up the curved, golden staircase.

I screamed as a hand closed around my ankle and yanked me down the steps. For a second, all I could focus on was the stake centimeters from my face. The weapon didn’t move. My gaze shifted up the arm of the passenger carrying the Steele. His face contorted in a grimace of agony. With a violent jerk, he was flung off of me, and slammed into the wall propelled by an invisible force.

“What?” Leaping to my feet, I found Poseidon. He had one arm up as he cast and recast a shield to keep the passengers at bay almost as fast as they slashed through it, and the other, stretched toward the man, trident extended. “How did you do that?” Telekinesis was not in our skill set.

“Salt water.” Poseidon panted, the strain from casting a new shield every time Steele broke through evident on his face. “Run!”

I scrambled up the steps, my mind reeling. There were whispers, rumors, that the original six were capable of manipulating the human body via built-in fail-safes. A control for each god. Water for Poseidon, trace minerals from the earth for Demeter, and the four aspects of the soul for the rest. But I’d only heard rumors. Precious little information about human creation passed down the bloodlines.

And no one could say for certain whether those same controls were built into us. Forget that for now. How have you not been cut? I’d been knocked over, pushed, and outright missed a statistically improbable number of times not to have sustained a single injury from the Olympian Daggers.

This fight didn’t make sense. I’d been on this ship surrounded by these people for the last day and a half. Why hadn’t someone taken me out then?

Maybe I’m not the target.

What if I was just in the way? Had they addressed both of us, or just Poseidon at the beginning of the fight? He’d stayed behind a shield almost the entire time he’d been on board. Maybe they’d attacked like this because taking down his shield would be noticeable no matter what they did. If you can’t go for surprise, go for strength?

I burst through the exterior door and slammed into the railing, gasping for breath.

“Stay against the rail.” Poseidon slid to halt in front of me.

“Here?” I took a nervous look around. The bit of deck we occupied reminded me of a sidewalk. The narrow strip of white wooden planks and painted metal rails ran parallel to the main lobby, separated by windows and glass doors. The charmed passengers stood in the open doorway, hacking at Poseidon’s shield. Soft Caribbean music and laughter came from the pool farther down the deck. I glanced at the exterior steps, wondering if we should run up one more deck.

“Here.” Poseidon’s shield broke and I felt the power ricochet back to him. “Can you break the charm?”

I hesitated. I’d never succeeded in freeing Persephone from Zeus’s charm, no matter how hard I’d tried. And I’d tried hard. “I have some theories.”

Poseidon nodded. “Try then. I’d rather not have to kill anyone.”

“Really?” It wasn’t as if I thought Poseidon enjoyed death and violence. Much. But I didn’t expect him to care one way or another whether the people attacking us lived or died.

Poseidon shrugged. “I don’t want to give Hades any excuse to come to my realm.”

Right. Gods had to respond to divine causes of death. It figured that’s what Poseidon would worry about right now. The sea god turned to the door. “I’ll buy you as much time as I can. You may want to duck.”

I dropped to my knees, my hands going over my head as a wall of water rushed above me, whipping around the deck as the charmed passengers poured through the doorway.

Go inside, nothing to see here. My stomach twisted as I let the command blanket the ship, fueling the order with every bit of power I could manage. Get to your room and stay there until morning.

The effort of maintaining hold of so many passengers twisted my stomach into painful knots. Oh, gods, this hurts. Water roared around me, disrupting my concentration. Squeezing my eyes shut, I waited until I sensed the passengers under my control begin to retreat across the ship. I imagined doors closing, and gave them a few seconds to get settled, making sure to imprint a strong desire in their minds to stay put until sunup before releasing them from my charm. Even out of my control, they would most likely obey the subconscious command.

I narrowed my focus to the passengers under foreign control heading toward this deck.

How many were there in total? I gave up counting at thirty and shifted my attention to the eight fighting Poseidon.

I could sense the charm holding them, but something about the power signature seemed off. Charm was like a thread of power extending from god to man. A thread. But the charm holding the humans hostage wasn’t a solitary thread but many, woven together like a rope.

“There’s more than one controller,” I blurted, realization hitting me like a tidal wave.

“What?” Poseidon shouted.

My answer got swallowed in the roar of the water. Baldy lunged at Poseidon, but got whipped away by the current. The water animated and whirled around Poseidon, suspended in the air like the arms of an octopus, lashing out every time one of the passengers got too close. But he wouldn’t be able to keep up the fight forever. I gritted my teeth and focused on gathering more power.

We weren’t dealing with another deity like me or a super-charged Titan. This was something else entirely. What did Zeus say? “You think you saved the world by killing me, but you’ve doomed it. What’s coming is worse. And Hades, they’re armed.”

They’re armed. Plural. We were dealing with a group. An army, even.

I kept my eyes closed, tuning out the screams, grunts, and occasional flashes of green lightning to separate each power signature I found connected to one of the charmed passengers. The threads of power were braided together in an intricate chain of charm.

But the woman in the pink dress did fight the foreign control. Maybe she wasn’t the only one. I opened my eyes for a second. The jerky movements of the passengers confirmed my theory. Gritting my teeth against the gut-wrenching pain that came with using my powers so close to Poseidon, I focused on a single thread of charm, ignoring the rest of the rope for now.

The individual threads were weak.

“Aphrodite,” Poseidon snapped. “Any time now!”

More passengers joined the battle. I hadn’t opened my eyes to check, but I could sense them. How many? Ten? Twelve? “I’m trying!” I focused on channeling my power through the gaps between threads of charm. Sweat bathed my face. Using my powers shouldn’t hurt this much.

Almost. I pushed at the gaps, pouring more and more power into the effort. The charm snapped and my eyes flew open. “Got it!” I called triumphantly. “I’ve—” I broke off with a gasp. The passengers hung suspended in a wall of water before Poseidon. Their mouths open, faces frozen in contorted expressions of pain as they’d desperately tried to drag air into their lungs but failed, finding only water. Their dead eyes burned with accusation.

“No.” Poseidon stepped backward and the water crashed to the deck, bringing the bodies to the ground with a sick sounding thunk, Olympian Steele still clutched tight in their dead fingers. “You didn’t.”

The Belly of the Whale

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This is without a doubt the most powerful moment in the hero cycle. Also called the dark night of the soul or “the sad part,” this is where the hero, previous victorious over the trials and at a peak in confidence gets slammed down into reality, most often by a combination of a show of strength from the big bad and a crippling character flaw that can no longer be ignored. They sink into the darkness, confront it, and emerge stronger. It is the moment a hero becomes a hero. See, the bad guys go through a hero cycle to, somewhere in their backstory. And their belly of the whale moment is one they never overcame. They sank and kept on sinking. Example: The ending of Episode 3 of Star Wars was Anakin’s belly of the whale. Had he confronted his flaws, embraced them as strengths, and emerged, humble, but stronger, it would have been an entirely different universe.

The most powerful example of this for heroes I’ve seen in a long time is in Inside Out when Joy ends up in the memory dump.

I’ve already talked about how amazing this scene was at length, so I’ll shut up about it now. But there are a lot of other great examples. In Lilo and Stitch it’s the “I’m Lost” moment, in The Croods it’s the Cave Scene, In Finding Nemo, the Belly of the Whale moment happens in a whale.

Actually, let’s talk about Pixar in general. Remember how I said the villain is a would be hero who failed their darkest night of the soul? Pixar often plays with this idea by making, not deeply empathetic villains, but delayed heroes. Marlin goes through a belly of the whale moment when he loses his wife and all the other eggs. Arguably the entire movie from the end of the opening montage on is him crawling out of the abyss and becoming stronger for it. Ditto for Carl in Up. They still get a full hero’s journey once they receive their second call to adventure, but what we witness in the first few minutes of those movies is where their first journey ended abruptly in a pit of despair, leaving them unfinished as characters. It’s a brilliant writing trick that Pixar executed flawlessly.

Blog Changes

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Once Aphrodite is live for a week or so and I don’t have to worry quite as much about spoilers, Mythology Monday can return to the blog. But I’ve had a lot of fun with the Movie Mondays, so I’m thinking of morphing those into writing on Wednesdays (they are all about writing and plot elements), and while I’m at it, I’d like to change For Real Friday. It’s kind of a mine field of me venting about stuff.

So knowing that mythology and writing will continue to be covered on my blog, what kind of post would you like to see more of on this blog?

Writing on Wednesday: First Look

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Every Wednesday from now until release date, I’ll be posting an exclusive scene from Aphrodite! Like what you read? Preorder today!
Aphrodite

An hour later, the storm raged on but our energy waned. Adonis dragged the two lounge chairs as close to the suite door as possible to protect them from any stray droplets, then tossed a couple of towels onto them.

I took the opportunity to flip on the light switch.

“That’s better,” Adonis cried as light illuminated the drenched balcony. He glanced toward the hot tub built into the corner. “Shall we?” he yelled, over a thunderclap.

“Maybe after the lightning stops.” I laughed. I could survive a lightning strike, but Adonis might get crispy.

“Oh yeah. Good point.” He collapsed into a lounge chair. “Okay then, your turn. You say ‘Never have I ever’ and—”

“And then say something I’ve never done.” I’d gotten the gist of the game the first ten rounds, but Adonis still seemed flabbergasted I hadn’t heard of this game before tonight, so he kept going over the rules.

“Yeah. And if I’ve done it—”

“You have to take a shot. Got it.” I swiped a puddle off the watertight surface and maneuvered a towel beneath me before perching on the edge of my seat. “Never have I ever . . . lied.”

“Aw, come on.” Adonis was forced to take another drink straight from the bottle. We’d long since forgone the shot glasses in this game. “Well, I’ve never charmed my way out of a speeding ticket.”

I swallowed a mouthful of rum as I tried to think of something else I’d never done before but was pretty sure he had.

Adonis smirked. “Come on, Aphrodite, you’ve only been alive two years. This shouldn’t be hard.”

“Three.” But the man had a point. “I . . . never heard this song before today.”

Adonis took a drink. “This is a great song. I’ve never stolen a car.”

I scowled at him. I’d taken a shot almost every turn. “I’ve never hit a girl.”

Adonis swore and took another drink. “I never apologized for that.”

“I’ll never ask you to.” I laughed.

“I never . . .” His lips twisted in a knowing grin. “Shoplifted.”

Okay, seriously? “You are cheating,” I said, giving his shoulder a playful smack with the back of my hand. “You can’t get all of your ‘I nevers’ from stuff you already know I’ve done thanks to Melissa’s big mouth.”

Adonis snickered. “Oh please, Miss ‘I’ve never hit a girl?’ Knowledge is ammunition, no matter the source.” He tapped my bottle with his. “Drink up.”

“Okay, okay.” I took another shot and made a face. “Geeze, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were trying to get me drunk.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s my endgame. You caught me.” He dismissed my accusation with a snort. “Can you even get drunk?”

“Not with this.” I swished the rum around in the bottle. “Gods can get drunk off divine drinks, but run-of-the-mill human stuff won’t do the job.”

“Oh, run of the mill, huh?” He shook his head. “Gods, talking to you is mind-bending. I’ve known my entire life that I’m a demigod. I mean, finding out I’m one of Zeus’s crazy science experiments was news to me. But my day-to-day stuff is grounded in the normal. You don’t even know where normal lives.”

“Oh, I do,” I joked. “Far beneath me.”

“No, I’m serious. We’ve got to like . . . educate you or something. Everyone alive knows this song. Who knows what else you’ve missed? We could—” He broke off. “What are you doing?”

I bounced up and down, brimming with impatience. “I have a good one!”

“Go on then.” He laughed.

“I never . . . “My voice sounded thick with self-satisfaction. “Kissed a demi-deity.”

Adonis grinned. “I can fix that.”

I waited a beat for him to remember his ex-girlfriend, whom he’d surely at least kissed. “Elise,” I prodded when he leaned toward me.

“Holy—” Adonis exclaimed, lurching forward as if the memory had slugged him. “How did I—Augh. Fine,” he groaned, taking a shot.

I laughed. “Maybe we should call it a night.”

“Uh-uh, my turn.” Adonis stood, taking the liquor with him. “Never have I ever”—he frowned as though articulating his thought took effort—“been arrested.” His frown deepened. “I think.”

“Okay, you’ve had enough.” I rose to my feet, reaching for his bottle, but finding only air when Adonis held the tequila over his head.

Thunder rumbled, shaking the balcony. Adonis and I hollered back at it as the boat skipped over the choppy water. He lowered the bottle for a fraction of a second when he yelled, and I snatched the tequila from him, giggling at the startled look on his face.

“Give it back.” Adonis reached for the bottle, but I danced backward, out of his reach, laughing.

“Make me.”

He snickered and started to reply, then stopped, his mouth going slack as the ship emerged from the storm clouds, revealing a clear night sky. I turned to see what could possibly render the demigod speechless and gasped.

Quicksilver lined the midnight blue sea, shimmering like magic. The moon rose from the waves in a slow ascent, sending light scattering through the water in a way that could only be described as ethereal. We watched in utter silence as the light gathered into a ball of white-hot, molten silver and rose above the tide, casting a gleaming path in the water leading straight to us.

The ocean went dark as the ship plunged into another set of clouds. Spell broken, Adonis cleared his throat. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”

“I wouldn’t have either, if not for you.” Swallowing hard, I set the tequila down on the deck and studied the way the moonlight hit his skin and the rain dripped off the contours of his face, committing every feature of the man who’d saved me to memory.

“What?” He shifted under the intensity of my gaze.

“I never thanked you,” I realized.

Adonis looked down at me, his golden eyes darkening with an emotion I didn’t recognize. “I’ll never ask you to.”

 

Movie Monday: The Road of Trials

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After the hero crosses the threshold into the extraordinary world, they begin the road of trials. Often called try/fail cycles, this portion of the story has the hero going against challenge after challenge, failing miserably, then slowly beginning to master their power until they reach the top of their game, only to be shot down into the belly of the beast. But more on that next week.

This also tends to be where character flaws are exposed. The character may get arrogant or show impatience or loss of temper or some flaw that will have to be overcome for them to win later. That flaw is part of what drags them down into the belly of the whale.

Disney does this well with montage. My favorite montage that shows this journey is from Mulan. The many montage songs in this movie feature her trying, failing, trying failing, trying succeeding, trying succeeding, until the last song ends, the stakes raise, she succeeds in one really impressive moment, but that success leads into her downfall.

Other examples include Hercules fighting the monsters, Lilo and Stitch and Nani all dancing around each other, screwing up what the other was trying to accomplish, Mr. Incredible fighting on the island, Carl and Russel making their way through the strange land to Paradise Falls, Rapunzel and Flynn’s trip to the castle, Ralph’s foray through the other games, Ana’s journey to Elsa, and Hiro’s training montage in Big Hero Six. This is the part of the story where manageable and sometimes even humorous problems pop up. It serves as training, confidence builders (or breakers), and landmarks on the journey. I envy Disney’s ability to montage it, because it’s a lot harder to develop in written fiction. The midpoint where everything changes is clear, the start point where everything changes is clear to most writers, it’s the learning curve that’s hard to plot.

Writing on Wednesday: First Look

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Every Wednesday from now until release date, I’ll be posting an exclusive scene from Aphrodite! Like what you read? Preorder today!

Incidentally, did you know that today is Read Across America Day? I’m reading Calamity by Brandon Sanderson. Comment below with the book you’re reading today for a chance to win an e-copy of Aphrodite.

Enjoy!

Aphrodite

“Is he traveling with you?” Miguel wedged Adonis’s suitcase between the door and the frame. He looked ready to throw Adonis out of the room if I said no.

“You can go,” I told Miguel, infusing enough charm behind the words to make sure he did as I asked.

“What—” Adonis asked when the door closed behind Miguel. “How—Why are you here?”

Oh, gods. I recovered from my shock enough to realize what Adonis being here meant. “You need to leave.” I rushed down the stairs, nearly tripping in my haste to reach him before the cruise left shore. “Adonis you need to go. It’s not—”

“This is my room,” he argued, snapping out of his daze enough to grow defensive. “Bought and paid for. I don’t know what you’re—”

“—safe. You can’t be on this ship.” I reached for his bag as I grabbed his arm, propelling him toward the door. That I’d charmed my way into his room seemed too great a coincidence to process right now. For now, I just thanked the Primordials that I’d discovered him on board before it was too late. “Come on, I’ll walk you back to the dock.”

“What do you mean, it’s not safe? He wrenched his arm free and grabbed his bag from me. “What is going on?”

“Demigods are going missing.” I filled him in as best I could, stealing anxious glances toward the balcony to make sure the ship hadn’t yet set sail. “It’s not safe for you to be here.”

Adonis swore, his eyes going to the chandelier as he digested what I told him. “I can’t just leave,” he said finally. “I’m here for work. It’s this big event. We’ve got shoots scheduled at each of the ports and—”

“Any other demigods?” Demigods, particularly those in possession of charm, gravitated to fields like modeling, performing, or politics. What better way to get multiple demigods in one place than by targeting their most probable career paths? I made a mental note to check if the other cruises were geared toward any demigod-heavy fields.

“What?” Adonis shook his head. “None from my agency. Across the whole convention, maybe three or four.” He swore again. “I’ve got to warn them.”

Having three or four demigods on one ship was far too unlikely to be written off as coincidence. They were probably all targets. But if he told them, if they behaved differently because of what they knew, I might lose my chance to figure out who or what was taking them. “Let me handle that. In the meantime,” I pushed him toward the door, “why don’t we find your boss, and I don’t know, maybe charm him into thinking you stayed on board the whole time? Do you want a raise? I think I can work in a raise. Let’s just—”

He didn’t budge. “What’s your plan?”

“Right now? To get you off this boat.” I clenched my jaw, wishing Adonis were a normal demigod I could just charm into leaving. But Adonis was special. Thanks to centuries of inbreeding, Adonis was not only immune to anyone else’s charm, he seemed to have control over his own. The inbreeding bit isn’t as gross as it sounds. Before Zeus died, he’d experimented with turning demigods to a new kind of god. Adonis’s parents were both Zeus’s offspring. As were their parents before that, and their parents before that. Making Zeus Adonis’s grandfather, great-grandfather, great-great grandfather, and so on, on both sides.

Okay, maybe that is as gross as it sounds, but gods don’t have the same incest taboo as humans. We don’t pass on genetic material, just power.

Adonis leaned against the door. “I spent enough time with you last year to know that you’re not infallible, Aphrodite. None of you gods are, no matter what you think.” He pushed away from the door. “Demigods are going missing; I’m a demigod. So are my little sisters—”

“You have sisters?”

Adonis gave me a look that warned me that topic was closed. “What are you planning to do here? You’re not wearing a glamour; why? Anyone who knows anything is going to look at you and see goddess. Is that part of your plan? Is the Pantheon using you as a distraction? Someone that random power signatures can be attributed to while Persephone or one of the gods works in the background?”

“How about I explain on the way.” I pulled open the door, but Adonis shut it, keeping his arm pushed against it for good measure. With a frustrated sigh, I whirled on him, talking fast so he’d leave already. “I can’t hide that there’s a god on board, even with a glamour, because the power that it takes to maintain a glamour is something we can sense. Almost no one has heard of me. I figure it’s better to let whomever or whatever is behind this notice me so they can write me off. Let them assume that I’m not one of the very few gods who could withstand the level of charm it takes to pull off what they’re doing.”

Adonis fell silent while he considered that, taking an infuriatingly long time to do so. “Okay, but what if instead of blending in, you used a glamour to look like us? Demigods can’t normally control their powers, so any stray power could be explained away if you looked like one of us.” The more he talked, the more excited he seemed to get about his idea. “There’s this demigoddess I know—Elise. She was supposed to come to the convention, but she landed this skincare gig at the last minute. We could say it fell through. You could look like her and get taken with us. You’ll get to learn everything that’s going on and if you need to, you can teleport back to the rest of the gods to bring in the cavalry.”

I rubbed my temples, trying to think of the fastest way off the ship. We’d have to go to the main deck, right? “That’s . . . an elaborate plan.”

“Thanks. So . . . ?”

I tugged at the door again to no avail. “I could look like her, but I couldn’t claim to be her. I can’t lie, remember? So what if someone asks her a question that I can’t answer? Don’t you think I’d actually draw more attention to myself if I tried and failed to impersonate a demigod?”

“But you’ve lost the element of surprise,” he protested. “So whatever is behind this is going to see you coming. What about the demigods that have already gone missing? By being so obvious, you might actually be putting them in danger. And then there are the demigods still on board. Did you even consider them?”

There wasn’t a good way to tell him this wasn’t a rescue mission. I wasn’t supposed to stop the demigods from going missing. Just observe, report, and let the realm rulers figure out what they wanted to do with the information.

As it turned out, I didn’t need to say anything. Adonis studied me for a long moment, his mouth dropping open as he figured out what I wouldn’t say. “We’re expendable to you, aren’t we? You don’t actually care that we’re going missing. You just want to make sure whatever happens to us isn’t a threat to you.”

“Adonis . . .” I dropped my eyes, unwilling to meet his gaze.

“And you wonder why they all hate you.” His gold eyes locked to mine, smoldering with rage. “The few mortals who even know gods exist.”

No, we all knew. We’d never had to wonder. The boat bobbed on the waves as we left the port. I focused on the movement, the swaying chandelier, the subtle sound of the ocean beyond the glass walls, uncomfortable with the turn this conversation had taken.

Adonis clenched his fists. “You’re callous, and selfish, and—”

Okay, enough. Calming ocean crap could only drown out so many insults. “You do realize you’re not speaking to a collective here, right? Just me.”

“What, like you’re any different?” Adonis shook his head in disgust. “You’ve known for over a year Zeus wasn’t the one causing demigods to go missing. Why didn’t you warn me?”

“They aren’t dead.” Hades would have seen them in the Underworld.

“So what?” Adonis crossed his arms, then dropped them as if he’d realized he’d mirrored my pose. “You guys assumed ‘not dead’ equaled fine?”

“Zeus said he didn’t touch the demigods, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t behind them going missing. And the disappearances seemed to stop when he died. If I’d known you were still in danger, Adonis, I would have warned you.”

“You would?”

“Of course.” I’d throw myself into the hottest pits of Tartarus before I let Adonis get hurt. He’d trusted me. Even knowing Zeus could have made me kill him with one word, he’d put his faith in me. That meant more to me than he’d ever know. I grabbed his hands. “I’m warning you now, aren’t I? You’re my friend. You’re not expen—”

“We are not friends!” Adonis exploded.

My breath caught. Adonis’s faith in me had kept me going through one of the worst moments of my life. Adonis’s strength held me together when giving in felt like the only option. He hadn’t just stopped me from doing something I’d spend the rest of my life regretting, he saved my life. I wouldn’t still exist if it wasn’t for him. But now, he was looking at me as if he’d rather I didn’t.

“You really don’t get it, do you?” His golden eyes raked over my face, full of anger and disgust. “What is it you’re expecting here, Aphrodite? Gratitude? You think you can just tell me my entire species is being rounded up, never to be heard from again, and expect me to leave? To fall over my feet, grateful you deigned to warn me? Hell, no. I’m not going anywhere.” He snatched his bag and headed toward the stairs. “If anyone should leave, it should be you. I can’t be charmed into forgetting anything. Do your god thing and put a trace on me. Assuming ‘not dead’ doesn’t equal catatonic, I’ll fill you in on all the details when you find me.”

Still stunned, I shook my head. “I’m not using you as bait.”

“I’m a hell of a lot more motivated to get to the bottom of this than you,” he argued. “Go do whatever it is that you do. I’ll make sure my people stay safe.”

“I can’t track you.” There were gods that could trace power signatures from across the globe, but I wasn’t one of them. “But if you insist on staying . . .”

“I do.”

“Then I guess I’ll be needing a new room.” I turned to go get my bags, unwilling to let him see how much his words had hurt.

“There are no other rooms.” Adonis sounded tired. “They offered me this upgrade because mine was double-booked. Then they tried to kick me off the boat entirely because of you.”

What, was he expecting an apology? I forced a smile to my face. “Somehow, I don’t think I’ll have trouble finding a place to sleep.”

“Because you’re going to charm someone out of their suite? No.”

I raised my eyebrows at that. “And who exactly is going to stop me?”

 

Movie Monday: The Extraordinary World

/ kaitlinbevis / 1 Comment

Last week, I talked about the call of adventure and how the acceptance (or refusal and then forced acceptance) of that call acts as a transition point in the story. After accepting the call, the hero leaves the ordinary world and steps into the extraordinary world. Disney tends to handle this in a song or a dramatic pan out.

Identifying the extraordinary world is as simple as stepping through the wardrobe or leaving the shire to journey to the great beyond. In some cases the extraordinary world is as simple as being not home. In others, characters are taken somewhere magical and amazing.

I’m going to use the same examples as I did in the post, the ordinary world, just for clarity.

In How to Train Your Dragon, the extraordinary world wasn’t a place, it was a realization that changed Hiccup’s entire world view. The realization that dragons didn’t have to be their enemy, that instead they could be your best friend was the extraordinary world. And for huge chunks of the movie, the ordinary world and the extraordinary world were kept separate with Hiccup splitting his time between each one and using the tricks from one to master the other. Things only got messy when the worlds collided. It was a really interesting take on the ordinary/extraordinary world and it made the typical hero’s journey fresh and interesting. Here’s my favorite scene showing the extraordinary world from How to Train Your Dragon.This incidentally also marks the end of the first trial.

In the sequel, the extraordinary world was a place. Further and further from Berk. But again there’s an interesting inversion because the way Berk is presented makes IT the extraordinary world to rest of the archipelago.

In the Croods the extraordinary world is everywhere but their cave. The further away they go, the more extraordinary it gets. In Inside Out, the extraordinary world is everything outside of central headquarters. Same deal with Rapunzel and her tower. Belle’s extraordinary world was the Beast’s castle. In the Swan Princess the extraordinary world was the enchanted lake. UP’s extraordinary world was Paradise Falls. In Wreck it Ralph, it was other games.

When the extraordinary world is a place, the protagonist has one of two goals regarding it. To get out of it and go home, or to get as far from ordinary as they possibly can. The hero’s journey is a journey after all. And most journeys have a destination. However there is one special kind of hero’s journey that’s takes a bit more interpretation. When the extraordinary world is a person.

Whether it’s a manic pixie dream girl or a cat, a magical nanny, or a cat in the hat, these journeys occur when some strange and extraordinary stranger intrudes on the ordinary world and forces it to change to become extraordinary with it. For instance, in Enchanted the the extraordinary world depends on your protagonist. For Giselle, it’s New York. For Robert it’s Giselle and her strange ways wreaking havoc in his slice of life.

In Big Hero Six the extraordinary world was Baymax. It fits all the requirements, Hiro even returns to the normal world at the end of the movie, changed. Monster’s INC’s extraordinary world was our world to some extent, but to a larger extent Boo.

Can you think of any other examples where the extraordinary world was a person?

 

Writing on Wednesday

/ kaitlinbevis / Leave a comment

Every Wednesday from now until release date, I’ll be posting an exclusive scene from Aphrodite! Like what you read? Preorder today!

Enjoy!

Aphrodite

I hesitated when I reached the door, listening. Surf crashed against the sand, but no other sound penetrated the walls. A glance through the peephole only showed a shadowy figure with broad shoulders. “Who is it?”

“Me.”

Ares. Gritting my teeth, I tossed my hair back and unlocked the door. Fiery eyes greeted me, igniting months of pent-up anger toward my . . . what? Ex? Did our brief fling last summer even qualify as a relationship? Hell if I knew.

“Aphrodite.” He stepped forward, the motion seeming almost unintentional as his eyes drank me in. When he came up against my shield, he frowned.

My hand itched to slam the door in his face. Instead, I called up my most dazzling grin, dropped the shield, and threw myself into his arms. “Ares!” I made myself laugh—as if he hadn’t broken my heart—when he picked me up and spun me around. “I haven’t seen you in—”

The word forever caught in my throat. Gods can’t lie. Like, it’s physically impossible. But human sayings have a tendency to get stuck in my head. “Thirteen months.”

“You counted?” A cocky grin lit up his face as he set me down and crossed over the threshold. “Got you something.” He drew a long, thin brown paper bag from his coat and handed it to me.

I withdrew the picture book inside, smiling when I saw the cover. It was a children’s book on mythology. Flipping through the pages, I saw tiny envelopes begging to be opened, three dimensional cut-outs, and a hodgepodge of items fastened to the pages like a scrapbook. As a new goddess, some of the nuances of humanity eluded me. Reading their take on our history, particularly how they framed myths for their children, gave me some insight. It was amazing how much humans got wrong.

I flipped to a page that showed a young girl reaching down to pluck a flower from the edge of the riverbed, seemingly unaware of the frost creeping up the petals. The heading proclaimed the myth of Boreas and Orethyia to be the origin of winter. I turned to another section and my gaze landed on an illustration of Eris, the Goddess of Discord, holding a golden apple between Hera, Athena, and Artemis. I frowned, reading the section title. “The Divine Beauty Contest.”

Ares glanced over my shoulder, his breath familiar against my neck. “If you’d been around back then, you would have won that. Hands down.”

Whatever Ares saw on my face made his grin falter. He backed away. “I would have called, or come by, or something after—” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket. “I’m sorry. I was stuck in a jar. It’s a long story, and we’re already running late.”

Late? My insides went cold, and I set the book down on the kitchen countertop. “She told you.” Persephone might be a powerful patron, but I’d worried more than once that her naiveté would be my downfall.

“Poseidon got a lead on the missing demigods, so he pulled her into a meeting to talk strategy. Nothing they think I’d be any help with.” He smirked, stepping into my small living room, dark eyes flitting over the slim furnishings. No one took Ares seriously, and he liked it that way. “Hades stepped out long enough to ask me to collect you.” A flicker of concern lit up his eyes as he looked me over. “And I can sense that you have enough power to dreamwalk. So why did he send me?”

Dreamwalking didn’t take much power. But the ability to stay asleep long enough to slip into a dreamscape helped. Persephone understood why peaceful sleeping was an issue for me, so we’d arranged to meet early. If I couldn’t show, she’d ’port in to physically pull me into the dreamscape.

“Believe me, I’m asking myself the same question.” I moved backward until I bumped against the couch. Sitting down, I crossed my legs and studied Ares.

His gaze lingered on my legs for a split second before he caught himself and met my eyes. “Have the nightmares gotten that bad?”

You don’t get to ask about my nightmares. I flashed my teeth at him. After Zeus died, Ares, Adonis, Hephaestus, and I took off on a celebratory road trip, thinking Zeus would never trouble us again. Right up until I’d woken up screaming. “You’re really not going to elaborate on how you managed to get stuck in a jar for over a year? Seriously?”

“No, I’m really not.” His hands stayed in the pockets of his jacket as he leaned against the wall opposite me, putting as much space between us as the small room would physically allow. “Look, I get it. I’m the last person you want to talk to about this, but you need real help, Aphrodite. If this is the full extent of Persephone’s solution, I mean, it’s cute, but—”

“Cute?” I held up my hand. “Let me stop you right there. Our queen is not ‘cute,’ she’s—”

Ares rolled his eyes. “That whole queen thing was never made official.”

“We swore over our powers! How much more ‘official’ does it get?”

“She gave them back after she killed Zeus.”

Not mine. When Zeus created me, he’d thrown in an extra special quirk, making me obedient to anyone in his bloodline who outranked me. Only Persephone outranked me now. But refusing to break the vow of fealty that gave Persephone control of my powers made obedience my choice rather than his. Ares might see the distinction as meaningless; after all, I was hers to command either way. But some days, the subtle distinctions between Zeus’s choices and mine were all that kept me sane.

“She’s strong.” Ares held out his hands in appeasement. “I’m not contesting that.”

I rolled my eyes and picked up my phone, making a show of looking at the time while he talked.

“But strength doesn’t trump knowledge. I’ve been around a lot longer. I know a thing or two about—”

“And we’re officially late.” I tossed the phone toward him before he could elaborate. He didn’t know anything about what I’d been through. If he did, that night would have ended a lot differently.

Ares caught the phone by reflex. “You can’t afford to be seen as weak.”

My nails bit into the palms of my hands. “I know.”

“I don’t think you do.” He crossed the living room, pausing to set my phone down on the arm of my couch. “You bound yourself to Persephone. On one level, her claim to you may help, because no one is going to touch you unless they want to deal with her. But if they do want to get to her or send a message, then you’re a good way to do it.”

“I knew the risks when I swore to her.”

“Did you? Because you made a statement that you didn’t have to. You chose a side—”

“There are no sides anymore.” Zeus’s death might have set me free, but the circumstances of his demise created a major power vacuum and completely upset the hierarchy of gods, who were long accustomed to picking sides and petty squabbles anytime they got together. Right now, everyone had fallen into an uneasy truce. I knew Ares didn’t expect it to last long, but I had hope. This was a new Pantheon. There weren’t as many of us left, and our issues were a bit more meaningful than beauty contests and scandalous gossip.

“In this moment, yes. But peace never lasts. Persephone might slip up or Poseidon could go off the rails—hell, he’s halfway there already. But something is going to happen and we’re going to be at each other’s throats again. We all know it. Why do you think we all spent the last few thousand years in our separate corners, ignoring one another?”

“To make it easier for Zeus to pick you off?” I suggested, studying the half-moon indentions my nails left in my palms. Zeus had been systematically killing off his offspring and absorbing their powers, unbeknownst to the Pantheon. That was, until he abducted Demeter’s daughter and Poseidon’s son. Going after the children of realm-rulers was too great an offense to ignore, so the Pantheon came together and fought Zeus in a bitter battle, heavy with loss.

“You made a statement, Aphrodite. But the only advantage you’ve got to back it up is charm. That’s not always going to be enough.”

I could do shields, healing, glamours, and all the standard stuff as well, but most of the gods that were left had received something extra from both of their parents. I only had one—Zeus. “You mean the charm I used to completely incapacitate you?” I snorted. “I’d say it’s enough.”

Charm, or charisma, is like mind control. If used correctly, I can look any human, and most gods, in the eyes and make them do whatever I want. Lucky me, since gods need worship to survive. Since I’d only been created a couple of years ago, I didn’t exactly have a cult following to support my existence.

Ares shifted, visibly uncomfortable at the reminder. “I’m not one of the gods you should be worried about.”

I frowned, trying to figure out who he thought I should worry about. Athena, probably, though she’d always been friendly enough to me. Poseidon maybe? Only an idiot would let their guard down around him. Still, I considered everyone else in the Pantheon to be a friend.

“Let me help you.” Ares stepped forward, closing the space between us.

I narrowed my eyes. “What I need, you can’t give me.”

Ares gritted his teeth. “Fine. But for now, we need a convincing reason to explain why we’re late, not to mention why we’re showing up together.”

He had a point. The other gods wouldn’t actually ask, but I didn’t want to start the rumor mill churning with the idea that either Ares or I were too weak to dreamwalk without assistance.

“Okay, so it’s the middle of the day in Bangkok.” Ares’s face screwed up in thought. “If we ’port into a traffic jam there, then we could say that we got caught—”

“How did you even survive before me?” I slid my arms around him, shivering when my skin came into contact with his cold jacket.

“Oh.” Ares said, catching on. He lowered his mouth to mine. “Yeah, that’ll work, too.”

His lips burned against mine, warm and eager. Familiar. The kiss deepened, then multiplied. Ten kisses as short as one, one as long as twenty, and the entire universe dissolved into Ares’s touch. For one precious second, I felt like more than a tool. More than Zeus’s abomination willed to life. Someone, not something.

But his kisses were lies. And they hurt more than any truth I’d ever faced. Memories sprang to my mind unbidden. The whisper of fabric, a gentle caress, his lips against mine. What you’re looking for, he’d whispered, I can’t give you.

My back hit the couch, pinning his arm beneath me.

“Are you ready?” he asked, breaking away.

“Yeah,” I whispered, my voice hoarse with what? Pain? Wanting? Whatever this feeling was, I didn’t like it. Or maybe I liked it too much.

Ares pressed two fingers to my forehead and pushed me into the dreamscape.