Outside Influences, or Don’t Read the Hamiltome While Writing a Series.

I’m thrilled to welcome Elizabeth Schechter to my blog as part of her Haven’s Fall blog tour. She’s sharing her very entertaining thoughts on how outside influences touch or writing. For better and for worse. Enjoy.

Like many people these days, I’m very much enamored of Hamilton—Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hip-hop historical Broadway smash hit. I probably have a snowballs chance in Hell of ever seeing it, since I don’t live in New York—it might happen if there’s a touring company, and if said touring company ever comes to Orlando and if I happen to be lucky enough to get tickets. That’s a bunch of big ifs.

In the meantime, I listen to the soundtrack, and I watch the Great Performances documentary and any performances I can catch. I also picked up the Hamiltome. the affectionate nickname for the book Hamilton: The Revolution, written by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McArthur. This gorgeous book contains the background behind the development of the show, as well as the  annotated libretto. So I can play the soundtrack and follow along in the book, and actually catch some of the high-speed lyrics in Guns and Ships.

Now, all writers are influenced by their surroundings. It’s just how our brains work; we read something, we see something, we eat something, and whatever that thing is works its way into our subconscious, and from there onto the page. If you go back through my catalog, you can see when my obsession with Sherlock started, when I discovered Tom Hiddleston, and when I started watching Agents of SHIELD. You can tell who my favorite writers are—one of my beta readers will point out when I’m doing Mercedes Lackey impressions, and when my love of Jacqueline Carey or Laura Antoniou or Shakespeare shines through.

This tendency turned into an interesting email passage recently. I had finished reading the Hamiltome the night before, and in the shower the next morning, I had what I thought was this amazing idea. So I sent an email off to my editor for the Rebel Mage series.

Hey, I had this crazy idea. I want permission to kill off Matthias and X. I can do it three or four chapters before the end, and have the final chapters be “who lives, who dies, who tells your story?” We can focus on the relationship of these other characters for the romance angle. It’ll mean a little more work—I’ll need to put more from the POV of the other characters earlier in the book, but I think it’ll be really good. What do you think?

Okay, if you haven’t read the first Rebel Mage book yet, Matthias and X are my two main characters. (X isn’t really the characters name, but no spoilers here.)  Now, the reason I said this was a crazy idea is that, in romances, you don’t kill off your main characters. If you do that, it is no longer a romance. Genre rules. So, unsurprisingly, the answer was no. Don’t kill off the main characters. Bad plan, no plan biscuit.

Sigh.

I think I might still do it—a bit of stunt writing, just for fun and for an extra feature. And just to see if it would work. And if it really works well, then maybe we could release the book with both endings. Maybe this is what really happened!

Why, yes, I did just watch Clue recently. How can you tell?

About Haven’s Fall

 Haven had been their goal since escaping the destruction of the School. Haven had promised safety, rest, an end to running and death. But things had gone badly wrong in the mountains. Tam and Linnea had to leave Matthias and Solomon behind to face the Elders, hoping to return for them once they’d found Haven. The reality does not live up to the promise. Isolated and dying, Haven fears outsiders almost more than it needs new blood. With only the griffon Dancer and the human healer Ilane for allies, Tam and Linnea fear that Haven’s rulers will prevent them from going back for their friends—then fire rains down from the sky, and things became so much worse for everyone.

Buy Links: 

http://fantasticfictionpublishing.com/product/havens-fall

About Elizabeth

Elizabeth Schechter has been called  one of the top erotica and alternative sexuality writers in the world. Her writing credits include the award-winning steampunk erotic romance House of Sable Locks,  the Celtic fantasy Princes of Air, and the dystopian fantasy Rebel Mage trilogy.  Her shorter work has appeared in anthologies edited by D.L King (Carnal Machines), Laura Antoniou (No Safewords), and Cecilia Tan (Jingle Balls; Like a Prince).

Elizabeth Schechter was born in New York at some point in the past. She is officially old enough to know better, but refuses to grow up. She lives in Central Florida with her husband and son, and a most accepting circle of friends who are both very amused and very proud of the pervy, fetish writer in their midst.

Elizabeth can be found online at http://elizabethschechterwrites.com, or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/Elizabeth.A.Schechter.

 

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