Grappling
Wherein a “pantser” gets his pants in a knot…
So, it’s like this: I am itching to craft a character who’s a little unhinged, one who readers might not know how much to trust. The four characters he engages with in Future Fugitives should constantly be wrestling with this issue, too—do we trust this peculiar stranger?
He bops into town knowing too much, saying too little, and leaking out prognostications that strike fear into one kid who’s dad’s life is in peril. The law is pursuing this stranger after a shootout in a cafe. The APB on him is that he’s believed to be armed and dangerous, and that he may have abducted four local teens. So the readership (that would be you) may not know what to think of this guy, either, if I’ve done it right.
In the prequel, we follow the guy along for 10 years in a surrealistic sci-fi setting that exposes us to all kinds of elements that will help later in the Endless Tempest series. It totally builds his character for all his future appearances in the books.
So here I sit, putting the last stitches into the quilt of that series, and I’m so not sure of myself. Ugh.
I’m having issues bringing this same “stranger” from September 2024’s upcoming Future Fugitives into the fold with who he is in the pre-prequel (let’s call it Sack).
In Sack, he’s been displaced in time, and he wishes at first more than anything to go home. As things progress, he becomes more equipped to deal with that world and time, but he is hunted because he is believed to be someone who is a great disrupter. The villain wants him captured, eventually revealing that this young man’s father is truly the man in the crosshairs of a centuries-old manhunt that’s been terribly innacurate and ineffective. The villain says something to our lead that motivates him to volunteer to return to his original time and place, with a horrible mission.
What would the villain say? What is the mission? What would motivate anyone to do what’s asked of him?
Without spoilers, I guess I am left to sweat this out myself.
Thanks for listening/reading.
