Favorite UNDER THE NEVER SKY Scene

This week’s assigned topic is tough—rather like choosing your favorite child. I think if you do your job well as a writer, then almost every scene should be your favorite. At least, that’s the hope.

Having said that, there is a scene in UNDER THE NEVER SKY that comes to mind. Without giving too much away, it’s a scene that occurs on a high rooftop surrounded by a pine forest. Aria, my female protagonist, and Peregrine, my male protagonist, are alone up there, talking after a very tense situation. The scene itself is a quiet scene, relaxed, and very private. 

It’s the private part that gets me every time I read it. I always feel like an intruder when I get to those pages in the story. It makes me want to tiptoe away and sneak closer. That scene is special to me because it’s special to them in ways I can describe and in ways I cannot. It’s their moment, and I feel like I was lucky enough to be there to see it and try to capture it on the page.


What inspired the scene? Perry happens to share more than his name with the falcon. He likes space, preferably elevated where he can see for miles. He found his way to the roof, where a real peregrine would be. From there it was all feel. The result of combining the setting and the characters and the situation. Of mixing exhaustion, surrender, the quiet of the mountains and the smell of pine. A poor answer, but I'm standing by it. It's the truth.

Favorite ALTERED Scene

This week we’re supposed to talk about what our favorite scenes are from our books. And not to be lame, but the first chapter of ALTERED is by far my favorite. Trying to put the why into words is harder than I thought it’d be, however.

A large part of ALTERED is spent running from someone, shooting someone, or hiding from someone, so I wanted that first chapter to show the reader how Anna, the main character, has lived her life the last few years. I wanted the reader to know what she was leaving behind when her life finally turned upside down.

But most of all, I wanted to show how much Anna cared for Sam (the love interest), and I wanted the reader to feel how hard it was to care for someone you couldn’t touch. Because the Sam Anna knows has spent the last few years locked on the other side of a glass wall.

There’s something simple and poignant about that first chapter (I hope). Anna wants Sam and she wants Sam to want her, but there’s more than just a glass wall standing between them.

Whenever I talk about the genesis of ALTERED, I can’t help but describe it as a story that started with a boy and a girl. A girl who loved the boy so much, she’d do anything for him. I can't imagine the book opening anywhere else than with those two.

Jennifer Rush is the author of ALTERED coming Fall 2012 from Little, Brown. Check out her blog for news and updates.

Boring scenes need not apply

It seems really early to talk about my favorite scene in LEVEL TWO, because it’s still a year out and I really don’t want to give anything away.  I’ll try to talk about it as vaguely as Jay did yesterday (although I am sure I won’t be half as amusing – sorry!).

I’m a big believer in the adage “If it’s boring, cut it.”  But I go a step further – if I think it’s boring, I don’t even put it to paper.  When I’m drafting, I know the basics of the story – the beginning and the end and the general character arc as well as some of the big twists.   Then I brainstorm scenes that will not only tell the story, but will also be fun for me to write.  Only after I have an idea for a scene that really excites me do I start writing.  And I’ve been known to sift and tweak ideas for scenes for days at a time.

In one such case, I knew that I needed to show my main character’s special bond with her father, and I thought a father/daughter trip might do the trick.  Now I’ve travelled to over 55 countries, so I had plenty of my own travel experiences to draw on, but after thinking for days about the elements of the trip, none of the locations I had personally visited really fit what I had in mind (vague, I know). I actually ended up taking inspiration from a trip that my husband took without me, which strikes me as rather ironic.

But oh was it fun to write!

Lenore Appelhans is the author of LEVEL TWO (Simon & Schuster BFYR/Fall 2012), a dystopian afterlife thriller. Visit her blog and/or follow her on twitter.

All Hope Is Gone

So this week, we’re scheduled to write about our favourite scenes in our upcoming books, and I have no idea how to do that without spoiling the bejeezus out of things.

Maybe if you go watch this video of kittens duelling with lightsabers, I’ll have thought of something un-spoilerific by the time you get back.

…

… nope. Still got nuthin’.

So let me try to explain it without really explaining anything. My favourite scene in STORMDANCER is what I call the ‘All Hope Is Gone’ moment. It’s the point in the story where it seems like things are moving smoothly towards resolution and victory and Happy Dances™, and then everything goes horribly, horribly wrong. And hopefully, the reader is left sitting there, blinking at the page, wondering how in hell we can have Happy Dances™ after something so singularly awful has happened.

Best example of what I'm talking about? The Princess Bride. Now, if you haven’t actually seen the Princess Bride (my god, what are you doing here?), you totally should. Go away and watch it, and we’ll hang here with the lightsaber kittens ‘til you get back.

…

Pretty good, wasn't it?

Now in the Princess Bride, the AHIG moment happens thusly:

Wesley has rescued Buttercup from the Fire Swamp, and they’re speeding towards the ship Revenge, ready to sail off into the sunset and make lots of Dread Pirate babies. But instead, they get captured by the dude who played the vampire in Fright Night (original, not the new one with David Tennant in tight leather pants) and a man with six fingers.

“Captured?” you’re thinking. “Pfft, no big deal. People escape capture all the time.  In fantasy settings, it’s practically mandatory  that the hero gets captured and tortured before escaping, effecting bloody revenge on the Big Bad Guy and skipping over the castle wall with the hottie on his/her shoulder.”

Which is all true, of course. But instead of escaping, Wesley gets killed. No flesh wounds. No playing possum. Just stone cold murdered.

And Fred Savage is all WTF’ing at his Grandpa, shouting “Damn you, old man, you’re ruining the story, we should’ve had you committed to that retirement home where they harvest your ailing flesh for organs…” and the viewer is all like “Wow, didn’t see that coming. Maybe Buttercup hooks up with Andre the Giant?”

*shudders*

And then Grandpa drops another straight-shot to the baby-maker on us: the bad guy doesn’t even die at the end of the book. The evil Prince LIVES! And Fred Savage loses his tiny mind and starts screaming blasphemy and rending his garments, and the viewer starts looking sideways at the person who recommended the film and wondering if they’ve been tricked into watching some French arthouse movie about the futility of existence.

All hope seems gone.

And that is my favourite scene in STORMDANCER.

(well, no Fred Savage, but you get the idea)

Jay Kristoff is the author of STORMDANCER, a dystopian fantasy set in steampunk feudal Japan, out in Spring 2012 through St Martin's Press & Tor UK.

You killed his father. Prepare to die.