Gabrielle Bisset

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Author Jordan K. Rose Guest Post

I'm happy to welcome fellow author Jordan K. Rose to my blog today. Here's the blurb for her book, Perpetual Light and keep reading for her post below.

Fate is cruel. Especially when the one you’ve sworn to love for all eternity, the very soul who changed your destiny is the last person you should trust.

After more than three hundred years of running, Lucia Dicomano must make a choice.

Forced to take her place as a Pharo of Redemption, the divine slayer needs to master her forgotten powers. Lucia turns to Vittorio, the one vampire she’s failed to deliver from eternal damnation. But overcoming smoldering remnants of love, lust and anger aren’t their only obstacles.

Samuel, who may know Lucia better than she knows herself, hunts her with a fervor stoked by a thousand years of vengeful hatred. His plan—capture and enslave the weakened Pharo then take control of her elusive power. 

Can Lucia trust Vittorio long enough to reclaim her powers? Or will she have no choice but to kill him and battle Samuel alone?

Thanks for having me on the blog today, Gabrielle. I’m excited to be here, blogging with a fellow vampire lover.

Making an Old Idea Fresh, New, and Exciting

How do you take something that’s been done over and over and create a story others will want to read? And…how do you create characters readers will become devoted to, care about, even wonder about late at night months after they’ve read the book?

Before I began writing I could not understand how writers came up with ideas, how they could think of these things, and of course, I thought several of them were quite twisted. Since writing the first draft of Perpetual Light I’ve learned the answers to all those questions and confirmed that yes, many of us are twisted. (It sort of helps in story development.)

Everything in life impacts a writer’s thought process, just as it does anyone else’s. Writers draw from big events like 9/11 to the mundane like laundry. We mull things over, inspecting and wondering, “what if…” until our little question becomes the entire reason for our book to exist. 

I was raised Catholic. I believe in God and heaven and redemption. The idea of vampires as soulless creatures of the night has been written, and many writers have also written vampires with humanistic traits, for example, the ability to love. But what if vampires have souls? What if they’re simply lost? What if a vampire is a frightened soul who mistakenly believes he is condemned and soulless? What if God has ordained a divine slayer to bring lost vampire souls back to The Light?

That is my twist on vampires. In the Perpetual Light series vampires have souls. They just need some help getting out of the shadows. My heroine is tasked with helping them find redemption, but to do this she must slay them, even the ones she loves.

When I think about that, having to kill the people (even if they are vampires) she loves, it makes my stomach knot. I could never kill someone I love. I’ve been driven to lunacy by some of them, but I’ve never even considered killing one! So for me this is pretty steep conflict.

Now to make the hero and heroine likeable, no lovable I needed to understand them both. I also needed to understand their relationship and commitment to each other. Knowing the ins and outs of each character is crucial to creating characters readers can, will, and want to relate to. I had to learn all their flaws and be able to demonstrate their love for each other.

These are the things that make a reader stick with a book once the back cover copy has intrigued them enough to buy it. Readers must connect with the characters. When I think about the books I have not finished, I know I walked away for one of two reasons. Either I did not care enough about the outcome of the story or I didn’t like the characters, and sometimes both.

Of course, this is simply my perspective and the foundation I use to get my stories going and completed. What about you? What do you do to create new twists on old ideas? 

About Jordan:
After trying her hand at many, many things- from crafting and art classes to cooking and sewing classes to running her own handbag business, Jordan finally figured out how to channel her creativity. With an active imagination and a little encouragement from her husband she sat down and began to write, each night clicking away at the keys with her black Labrador, Dino curled up under the desk.

A few short years later she’s entered the publishing arena with no plans to ever turn back.

Jordan’s a member of Rhode Island Romance Writers, as well as RWA National, and the New England (NEC), Connecticut, and Fantasy, Futuristic and Paranormal (FFnP) Chapters.

Her first book, Perpetual Light, is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, kobo, and All Romance Ebooks from Crescent Moon Press.








Find Jordan on her website at www.jordankrose.com
Follow her tweets on https://twitter.com/#!/jordankrose 
Friend her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/jordankrose





1 comments:

Anonymous said...

Gabrielle, thanks for having me. I'm thrilled to spend a little time with another vampire romance writer and I can't wait to read Blood Betrayed. Jordan