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Sunday, March 29, 2009

Starcaster 2 - Resurrecting Old Characters

I think I finally found my major conflict in Starcaster 2, and I've begun to outline it in my head. I wrote a thousand words and I think it's off to a great start.

I intended to bring in a minor villain from the first book and I decided to put her in a position where she can be not only a major annoyance, but a major villain as well.

She's now a cop. Detective Meyer, my crooked cop from Book One has decided that he needs some starcasting help. So he's recruited a few starcasters who don't necessarily have the sterling character so essential to good policework. But that's OK. Meyer isn't looking for good cops. He's looking for good toadies.

And I have the perfect older brother for her. Introducing: Clyde Yancy.

Clyde is a character I developed WAY back in the 80s. Yes, I said the 80s. Some of you were kids back then. But that was when I started my first novel, Oath of the Songsmith. Clyde was a highwayman in Oath. In A Spy and a Lady, he's pretty much the same, but he's a gang member rather than a highwayman. He fits rather perfectly into my Regency-era timeframe. He LOVES having a sister as a policewoman, and he has stepped up his criminal activities accordingly. I'm thinking Meyer offered him a job first, but when he refused, his sister convinced Meyer to take her on.

He's also a thug, which makes him a perfect nemesis for Cecil Crowley, Tory's gentleman friend and fellow starcaster, who's something of a thug, himself.

Clyde is six feet tall, so he is significantly taller than the 5'7" Crowley. But Crowley has one advantage over Clyde and almost every other man. He regularly hoists around his six foot tall mentally disabled cousin, and he is therefore very strong and tough.

I'm having a lot of fun putting together all these conflicts.

7 comments:

  1. Have you changed the entire premise for book 2? will tori be going to the other land (forgot it's name).

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  2. I'm glad you remembered! Yes, that is in the works, but I pushed that to book 3. I needed some more development of events in book 2 before I could send Tory to Tarquil.

    So Book 2 is completely different. Fortunately, I had enough dangling plotlines from book 1 I could pick up, mostly with Meyer and Sally.

    So now I'm in a position where I have more of book 3 written than book 2.

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  3. I love it when it all comes together like that, when this conflict weaves together with that one.

    That's amazing that you're pulling in a character created so long ago--I think it'll make him very real, very three-dimensional, because you know him so well.

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  4. I thought of him when I was trying to find the perfect last name for Sally. I wanted Clancy . . . but then I thought of old Clyde Yancy.

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  5. To answer your question... yep, I'm at work on TWO new novels, as well as Demo Tapes: Year 2 (first draft finished yesterday).

    After last year's debacle of the agent who offered representation and then vanished into thin air (or Twitter poems. Take your pick), I haven't been subbing Trevor. That pretty much did me in.

    I know: I can't grouse about no contract if I'm not actively seeking one. Well, I *can* and I did, but that wasn't meant to be my main focus. Instead, I'm taking one last second to wallow before moving forward.

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  6. Congrats on finding the conflict. And so cool to have an old character resurface! Good luck, can't wait to hear how it goes. :)

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  7. Susan, I'm glad to hear it! I have two novels going as well, but I only intend to write the first three chapters of Starcaster II unless I find an agent.

    Thanks, Anissa!

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