The Black Dagger Brotherhood (20 page)

All went well and goes well, though, because I let what's in my head be the driver. Even when I get lost, I trust the stories . . . largely because I don't have a choice. What I'm shown is always infinitely better than what I try to deliberately construct.

Here's a minor example of how I listened to my Rice Krispies when it came to Rhage's book. As I started to write
Lover Eternal,
Vishous, keeper of visions of the future, popped up and told Rhage that he ended up with a virgin. When I saw this, I was like,
Er
. . .
that's going to be kind of tough, given that Mary's been with someone before she met Hollywood.
Still, I was like,
Okay, V said it, so it's going on the page
. And then, throughout the book, V kept hinting about Mary's name having a special significance. I had no idea what the hell he was going on about, but I kept seeing him in my head, always with the name. I figured,
Well . . . just throw it in, and when it goes nowhere, I'll trim it out
.

It wasn't until I got to the end of the book when it all became clear. Mary and Rhage were holding each other after being reunited in his bedroom:

I remember typing that and laughing out loud. Vishous is never wrong!

Now, though, let me give you an example of when being true to what was in my head wasn't so easy.

In the course of doing Rhage's outline, which was fifty-eight pages long, I saw a scene that ran counter to one of the big unspoken rules of romantic convention. In the vast majority of romance novels, the hero is never with another woman after he meets and gets physically involved with the heroine. It makes sense. After all, who in their right mind could fall in love with someone who goes around bed-hopping?

Except Rhage went out and was with another woman after he and Mary had been together. The two of them had yet to make love, but the attraction was there and the bonding was in place—at least on Rhage's part. The issue was his beast. In order to keep his curse under some measure of control, he was forced to burn off his excess energy with fighting and sex, using both as release valves. The night the “adultery” happened, he was in a tough crack. Being around Mary juiced him up because of his attraction for her, and he'd tried and failed to find a fight, so he was reaching a critical, dangerous level. He hated what he did and hated himself for his curse—and it was obvious that what happened was mandated by circumstance, never something he would have chosen. What went down was definitively not a case of a loose-moraled player just out for tail.

The scene where Rhage comes back to their room was heart-wrenching to write. I can still picture him after he'd had his shower, sitting on the edge of the bed. He had a towel around his waist and his head was hanging down and he was utterly defeated, trapped by the realities of his curse and his love for Mary. The situation was tough all around, and it did create a stunningly difficult conflict between the two of them. Together they were able to get past it, but I knew this particular part of the story was not something all readers were going to be comfortable with. And I could understand why. Accordingly, when I wrote the book, I was very careful with how I handled the whole thing.

When I started working on the Brotherhood series, I didn't set out to be a firebrand or a convention breaker, and that is still not my goal. However I did, as I said, vow to keep true to what I see, and that remains my operating principle. The difficulty for me always is, How do I show what's in my head without offending the genre I respect so much? It's always a balance, and it's the thing my editor and I spend the most time on in the revision process. Sometimes, with Rhage, I think I do a good job of walking the line. Other times . . . I wish I could have done better. But more on this later.

Speaking about revision . . . a word on Butch. Originally the story of the cop and Marissa was supposed to be in
Lover Eternal.
The two were going to fall in love, and he was going to be made a Brother after his transition was jump-started—and that was that. As I started drafting Rhage, I was excited to write about Butch and Marissa because I thought they had great chemistry, and there were a lot of good scenes with the two of them in my head.

Two hundred pages into the manuscript, though, I realized I had a problem. Butch and Marissa were competing for airspace against Rhage and Mary to such a degree that I was basically writing two separate books.

The cop was no subplot.

The idea of taking those scenes out terrified me, though, because I was afraid that a lot of the depth of the world would be compromised. I was also worried that I would lose the scenes forever and they were great—at that point, I wasn't sure how many of the Brotherhood books I was going to get to do, and I totally wanted to put Marissa and Butch on the page. Finally, I just really, really, really liked what I had written. I mean, I really
liked
it. Removing those pages seemed like I was giving the material a demotion.

But the book wasn't working. No matter how much I hemmed and hawed and tried to make excuses, it just wasn't coming together right.

Let's hear it for rule number three:
Own your own work
.

If you know something isn't working, no matter how much you like it, get rid of the stuff. Don't wait for your editor to tell you what you know in your heart is true—and make those hard choices because it's the right thing to do for the book you're currently working on.

I'm not saying it's easy.

Even though I knew Rhage's story was in danger of losing focus, I just couldn't bring myself to make the cuts, and the
I-don't-want-tos
went on for weeks. What finally tipped the scales was that the nagging conviction I was fucking the book up refused to go away—and in fact just got louder and more persistent. When I finally grew a set and decided to man up, I put my work gloves on and did some heavy lifting. I cut the hell out of that manuscript, just sliced it to pieces, and in the process scared the crap out of myself because, as always, I was under a serious deadline: I knew if I robbed the book of its texture, I wouldn't be able to fix things and still get Rhage in on time (which would lead to all sorts of scheduling complications for my publisher).

The thing was, though, after I put Rhage's material back together again, I read it through and knew I'd taken the correct action. The focus was where it needed to be, and the book worked better.

The point is, listen to your internal editor like you listen to your Rice Krispies. Just because you think something is brilliant, don't let it compromise the story you're writing. I try to keep that in mind always, because there are so many moving parts to the Brotherhood books—I'm always in jeopardy of spiraling away from the main story or stories. And balance of plotlines remains tough.

Let's see, my favorite scene in
Lover Eternal?
Hard to say, but if I had to pick . . . I'd go with the one with the moon—that second one, after Mary has broken up with Rhage, left the Brotherhood's mansion, and moved in with Bella. It happens right after Rhage goes to see Mary at the farmhouse and they have the official we're-done conversation. Rhage leaves her in the bedroom upstairs and goes out the front door. He's utterly ruined, completely at a loss. Up in the night sky there's a big moon, and as he looks at it, he's clearly thinking about what Mary did when they were in the park on their second date:

I think it's a great scene because it's so poignant to see him echoing what she did during a happier time. And then when she comes out of the house and grabs on to him, it marks a turning point for her. She's reaching out to Rhage, finally including someone in her life and her illness.

The most erotic scene? Er . . . the bed scene. You know the one . . . with the chains? I'll just put this passage in to remind you. This is right before it all goes down, and Rhage is over in the Pit looking for something to keep himself on the bed:

And this reminds me of one of my favorite lines from the book. It happens fairly early on, when V and Butch have taken cover in the Escalade while Rhage's beast goes postal on some
lessers
in a field:

One of the other scenes I love is when it becomes clear that the beast is a danger to everyone but Mary. The final showdown with the slayers has played out at her place, and the beast has done its thing with the
lessers.
After the carnage, it approaches her:

Mary has captured both Rhage's and the beast's hearts, and the two of them are utterly devoted to her. And as she says, she loves the beast—'cuz he's cute in a Godzilla sort of way.

In the scenes that I've seen of Rhage and Mary and the beast since the end of
Lover Eternal,
it's been great to find that Rhage and his alter ego have become more integrated. The beast is never going to be an escort for a debutante ball (his table manners haven't improved much at all), but he's not as uncontrollable as he was. Rhage is happier and calmer. Mary is fulfilled and living her life. S'all good.

Which brings me to a final thought. After each of the Brothers' books, they and their
shellans
continue to live their lives and keep changing and evolving as people do over the course of time. I wish I could show more of where they are and what new challenges they are facing and how their relationships have deepened. The Slices of Life (SOLs) that I post from time to time on the message board give me the opportunity to put out these new scenes, and to me, it's comforting to see everyone continue on and keep living. Just as we all do.

So that's Rhage . . . and now thoughts on my favorite Brother, Z.

—LOVER AWAKENED, p. 424