Faerie Tales

Make Willing the Prey is still not quite out. I hit refresh on my Amazon DTP bookshelf every hour or two, but that's not making it go any faster. :)

I'm really excited about this story. It's the longest thing I've ever completed. The characters are great. The pacing and plot turned out much better than I expected before the rewrite. The genre is booming right now (dark urban fantasy -- thanks Twilight!) I'm tackling an oft-ignored supernatural race: faeries. I'm returning them to their folklore roots (dark, not-so-nice, alien morality) in a modern setting.

Given the state of the story before the re-write, I'm really pleased with how it went. It's amazing what your characters will do for you if you development well enough and give them free reign now and then. I'm a firm believer in the philosophy that your best stories write themselves.

The world of Make Willing the Prey is very interesting, and I'm going to continue. There is a series here, but I'm not necessarily thinking of a direct series. I'm thinking of stories where the same characters weave in and out, and sometimes interact, but it will be much less of a "trilogy" and more of a universe.

This is one of those times where I must balance "art" with "money". Traditional trilogies are done so often because they sell books. People who like Make Willing the Prey will want to know if [spoiler redacted] ever ends up [spoiler redacted]. Or how [spoiler redacted] ever [spoiler redacted]. So they will buy my next book to find out. But if I don't use those exact same characters and follow up on those exact questions -- if instead I follow those characters separately through separate stories so they can grow and develop and then follow up on their goals two books later -- readers may be disappointed.

These are the sorts of things I think about when weighing my next project.

There's also a new character that's driving to get out. I'm really curious about her. I suspect she will be a main character in my next project, but I don't know anything about her, or if she even knows any of the characters in Make Willing the Prey.

I'm also looking for a name for this faerie world I'm building. I had an idea few weeks ago, but it's gotten one thumbs down so far. I want something that reflects the dichotomy of my universe -- Dark, gritty, not-always-pleasant, often creepy on the one hand. But also magical, capable of goodness, love, light, art, and beauty.

My idea was "Undying Dreams". What do you think?