BLURB:
Long ago,
Olympian gods imprisoned the demon Pandora in a human—Hope—creating a creature
whose only purpose was chaos and death. Remorseful, the gods locked Pandora
away in Tartarus, ruled by Hades.
Now, centuries later, Pandora
escapes. Nate Garrett, a 1,600-year-old sorcerer, is sent to recapture her and
discovers her plan to disrupt the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, killing thousands
in a misplaced quest for vengeance.
Fast forward to modern-day Berlin,
where Nate has agreed to act as guardian on a school trip to Germany to visit
Hades at the entrance to Tartarus. When Titan King Cronus becomes the second
ever to escape Tartarus, Nate is forced to track him down and bring him back,
to avert a civil war between those who would use his escape to gain power.
Creating Characters:
I’ve always enjoyed character creation. Being able to create
a whole new person and have their lives laid out before you is an experience
unlike many others. In my case with the Hellequin Chronicles series, my main
character Nathan (Nate) Garrett is 1600 years old. That gives me a lot of life
to plot.
Nate has lived in my head for about 10 years now in one way
or another, and over that time he’s formed from a relative shadow of a person to
a fully-grown entity. I can switch his voice on and off in my head like it was
nothing, I can do the same with several of the main characters of the series.
When you have someone stuck in your head for so long it doesn’t take a huge
amount to know what they’d do in any given circumstance.
It’s easier for me to create characters now that it was when
I first had the idea of this series all those years ago. New characters, both
minor and major, come and go with each new book, so being able to give a glimmer
of an idea a personality, history and reason for their role in the story is
important to figure out the kind of person I’m dealing with. Admittedly, these
aren’t always pleasant people, and sometimes it’s difficult to figure out why
someone wants to do something horrific, but once it clicks, whatever unpleasant
person I need quickly finds their role in the story.
There is one slight problem I have with character creation.
Actually it’s two, but I’m trying to get better at one of them.
The first problem, and one I’m trying to get better at, is
hair. I have a tendency to just write whatever colour comes to mind when
creating someone, but that has in the past created a lot of people with one
hair colour. It’s something I’m now quite mindful of.
The second, and more problematic of my issues, is naming. I
can pick the names of planets, realms, weapons and pretty much anything else I
can think of without too much fuss, but names, names are a different matter.
Even minor, almost inconsequential characters will drive me nuts with their
name choice. A major character might have their name changed two or three times
in the same script when I realize they don’t sound like a Peter, or they don’t
look like a Mary. It’s infuriating, and it’s also something I’m trying hard to
get better at, but I still find myself annoyed that I’ve spent an hour reading
names trying to find the one that fits.
Hopefully one day, I’ll be able to figure them out without
trouble, but then that means I won’t get to learn new and weird names when I go
searching… so maybe, I should just be happy that my brain is never happy and
let it get on with things.
EXCERPT:
The
power collected by the runes would have returned to me until I’d regained my
strength. Breaking the runes had changed that. On the plus side, it meant
getting my missing energy back much more quickly; on the minus side, it turned
the car park into a damn bomb.
The
remaining magic exploded outward like a nuclear shockwave. Windscreens and
headlights shattered, tires blew from the pressure, and the lights and windows
at the front of the restaurant rained down glass over the ground. The blast
picked me up like I was made of paper and threw me aside. I felt a crunch as I
collided, back first, with something hard. Pain rocked through me, and then,
just as quickly as the magical energy had rushed outward, it stopped and all
rushed back into me as if it were attached on an elastic band.
The
final thing I remembered before passing out was that I cried out in pain.
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Steve’s been writing
from an early age, his first completed story was done in an English lesson.
Unfortunately, after the teacher read it, he had to have a chat with the head
of the year about the violent content and bad language. The follow up ‘One boy
and his frog’ was less concerning to his teachers and got him an A.
It wasn’t for another decade
that he would start work on a full-length novel that was publishable, the
results of which was the action-packed Urban Fantasy, Crimes Against Magic.
Steve McHugh lives in
Southampton on the south coast of England with his wife and three young
daughters. When not writing or spending time with his kids, he enjoys watching
movies, reading books and comics, and playing video games.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/StevejMchugh
Website: http://stevejmchugh.wordpress.com/
Prison of Hope: http://www.amazon.com/Prison-Hope-The-Hellequin-Chronicles-ebook/dp/B00OV403VM/ref=pd_sim_kstore_4?ie=UTF8&refRID=09TZX1Q9Z16GND6QVJEM
Steve McHugh will be awarding a $25 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
The more you comment, the better your chances of winning. The tour dates can be found here: http://
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Thanks very much for hosting my post today. It was a lot of fun to write.
ReplyDeleteGreat excerpt, sounds like a very intriguing story.
ReplyDeleteWhich actor/actress would you like to see playing the lead character from this book?
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your comments.
ReplyDeleteI liked your post on how you create your characters. Good character development really adds to a book.
ReplyDelete