Author's Comments
I usually start a new book with a random list of threads from previous books that I want to catch. The fallout from the events of Fire Touched is going to be extensive in both the human and the supernatural world–and Mercy’s personal life. I’m not sure how many books that will take... And there are some bits and pieces that have been germinating, unseen, for three or four books (a few all the way back to the beginning). I have come to rely on my subconscious sense of story to dictate how far on each over-arcing plot line each book should travel. Sometimes it’s a lot farther than I planned—and sometimes not far at all. Some things have just got to wait until the right time. I’ve learned not to fight my subconscious about the story, because when I do, I usually get stuck–and often have to go rewrite the whole danged book.
So I had a full set of threads from Fire Touched to chose from for this book. And I decided to pull a few things together from Frost Burned..and I had a few that trailed all the way back to Moon Called. I shook them up together, set up the beginning scene of Silence Fallen in my head–and the whole thing took a left turn at Albuquerque before I was ten pages in. Even for me that’s a little fast for the story to take off sideways.
It is no secret that I’m a pantser rather than a plotter. But I do plan a bit. I usually know where I want the story to go, I usually have a sense of how I’m going to get there—and I have a very good idea of what the next four or five scenes are going to be.
But when a story takes off on me? I run with it—and I’m so glad I did. I had so much fun writing this book. Some books are hard (I’m looking at you, Cry Wolf) and some books are easier. Some books almost write themselves. Silence Fallen wasn’t exactly one of the easy ones, but I don’t think I’ve had a book that was as much fun to write since...well may not since Dragon Bones.
Happy reading!
