In a London hotel, my naked protagonist settled in beside me. Together we stirred the vestiges of my tea contemplating the lives of the people around us. Who were they? Where were they going? In this hotel, were they beginning their journey or would this invisible woman bring about the end of their journey, even as she was the start of mine?

Before long, this predator possessed me. I wrote about her emergence into London instead of working on the next chapters of my NICU memoir Growing A Rainbow. I also think I needed the emotional break from such personal material. I returned from my holiday with four drafted chapters of a supernatural urban fiction, and a fledgling concept of the predatory character who derailed me. I wanted to pursue her path, but I had self-imposed publishing deadlines to meet for my memoir. My new companion didn’t get my full attention, although we daydreamed together as my schedule allowed.

I’m glad I placed some distance between us. During that time, I strove to fill my brain with the skills I needed to hone my talent. At the 2014 Ad Astra convention, Canadian SciFi author Nina Munteanu described a key component of writing fiction. I attended her panel out of curiosity, not because I wanted to write about a hero.

I don’t regret my decision.

Nina spoke of the monomyth of Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey, a narrative pattern with classical origins. If my protagonist was my pilot, then this was her cockpit. My stand-alone novel exploded into the V’Braed Trilogy, as inspired by Nina and the Villains 101 panelists including Rob St. Martin and Matt Moore. Luckily for me, Nina spared a few minutes with myself and M.J. Moores. Rob was gracious enough to let me squirrel him into a quick Q&A session.

Furiously scribbling in my notepad at the start of the Con Dance Party (I carry paper everywhere), I fleshed out the archetypal characters I subconsciously understood to be integral to the story. My protagonist developed a relationship with her antagonist in a way I hadn’t anticipated.

At the end of the Convention, I tore into my original four chapters of the unnamed fiction. More specifically, I tore them apart, and rebuilt them with my story Promise as the fuel for my protagonist’s flight. Plot is a mechanism to convey a theme and develop a character. These mentors made me realize how to ask the right questions of my characters, and how to guide them more effectively with a structured outline.

I absolutely love writing the two intertwined story lines of The Queen’s Viper. I structured my Elizabethan and Modern story lines on a side by side storyboard. I fleshed out the majority of the outline before writing copious chapters that don’t fit the story Promise. I write the two timelines interchangeably, for they are inextricably linked. One path is not inhale and the other exhale. They are the apical and ventricular contractions which give my novel life.