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Saturday, August 2, 2014

Welcome to HaV Academy

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Every other book I've had to share this week has been straight-up fantasy. Today's is a Superhero Boarding School Dystopia.

(It's a trilogy. That makes it a Dystopia, yes?)

The story began as a roleplay that I was participating in. It had the same premise - a boarding school that trained supers - and chose whether they would be heroes or villains. My characters were Maryanne and her brother. Maryanne was a villain. Her power was language. She was fun. Her brother was a hero. He was fun too.

One of the fellow villains was one that the RP'er used in multiple superhero RP's (this was actually the third RP that I had a character hang out with her, although in the other two, it was with Clara), and as a result, had a very complicated backstory for her parents. So I wanted some backstory for Maryanne's parents. Since I was reeling in the aftermath of publishing Sew, I decided to use a twist on Robin, Robert, and Eric's story. I eventually left the RP, but the backstory wouldn't go away. I liked this superhero version of Sew, It's a Quest.

Of course, if I was going to market it as a separate book, I would have to change names. Robin became Roxanne. Robert became Riley. Eric became William. Rosamond became Willow, but I'm not certain I want to keep that name. Roxanne and Williams's backstory became less hostile, and she became more depressed and withdrawn. Riley became more energetic and carefree.

Then I started plotting backwards and forward. The twins' parents' backstory was now intriguing me, and I removed Maryanne as Roxanne's daughter and replaced her with Lucy, who I can't tell you much about as it's the last book of the trilogy.

And yes, I'm referring to it as a trilogy. I know that I've said before that I was going to try to make it a single book, but the stories are getting too big for a single book. So it'll be a trilogy. I think ya'll will be happy with it.

I actually tell the story out of order, starting with Roxanne's, then her mother, and then her daughter, but I have a good reason. A good series should rise in tension with each book, and while ROCKS is an intense story, it would be a bit of a let down reading it after Lavalight. Ms. Reverse, however, follows it naturally. Also, there are secrets revealed in Lavalight that, while they are important to Ms. Reverse, don't really affect ROCKS, at least not in a noticeable way. So, I just think it's a better decision to tell the story out of order.

So, anyway, I have some fun planned today. I probably won't be around much, as it is my long day at work, but do enjoy yourselves. Three people volunteered to interview characters from HaV Academy, (actually, I had the same number of volunteers for Worth yesterday, but I turned most of them down because I didn't have very many characters that I was able to interview) and two of those people are interviewing two characters each - so check out Kiri's Blog to meet Riley and Roxanne, then swing over to Robyn Hoode's to meet William, and then you can hop over to Jessy Jones' blog to read all about Fiona and Ian. Enjoy!

1 comment:

  1. (Hee hee.... dystopian and trilogy... that made me giggle.)
    Very interesting premise! RPs can be a great way to get story ideas.

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