Guest Post & Giveaway: Working Backwards by Megan Derr

~WooHoo, the wonderful Megan Derr is stopping by the blog and dishing on her amazing series Princes of Blood (Amazing) and she brought an awesome giveaway. Help me welcome Megan Derr once again.~

I have always admired writers who can write out of order. They write part of chapter one, then a piece of chapter twelve, then all of chapter seven … and then somehow later they bring all those pieces together. I can't do that. I've tried, in the interests of learning new skills and wanting to be as flexible as possible when it comes to writing, but that particular skill is just not one I possess. When I write a story, I have to write 1,2, 3 … I can make notes on stuff that will happen later, but I can't write those bits until I get to them.


Past that, though, I have no particular need or desire to write in order. So something like Dance with the Devil, where the chapters go back and forth in time, is pretty easy for me to write. That might seem weird, but I wrote them in the order they needed to be. That they weren't in sequential order was completely irrelevant.

But Princes of the Blood is definitely the first time I've been compelled to write a series backwards. I know many people were disappointed the story did not move forward from Of Last Resort, but the story never came to me that way. It very clearly gave me three stories, and by the time I had them sorted out they lined up best going back in time. I maintain this is the best way to read them, though if you absolutely need them in sequential order you can read them backwards.

The amusing thing is that I actually started working on With Pride first. I got about four chapters in before I realized that no, I needed to stop, give in to the voices, and work on Of Last Resort first. Somewhere in the middle of that I also started In Despair because I needed to make certain I could line everything up correctly.

As exhausting as something like this, there's still a lot of fun to be had. Telmé and Korin are interesting because in OLR and WP they are very much rock-steady, in control characters. They keep Guldbrandsen and the Legion in line. Then comes In Despair where they are still extremely young and have no idea what they're doing (and are put through fucking hell. People think I was a jerk in Engineered Throne, ahahahahaha. That was a warm-up).

Kristof and Håkon are also fun in that backwards respect, because they're established and happy in OLR. I think of the three, their story is the closest to being light-hearted, and it makes a good break before the much more somber stories of OLR and ID.

So as weird, and occasionally frustrating, as I know it has seemed to readers, these books are stronger for having been written in reverse.

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With Pride comes out April 16th from Less Than Three Press (third party vendors will follow after about 24 hours).

Of Last Resort can be found all over. In Despair comes out July 9th.

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GIVEAWAY


Leave a comment to enter, one lucky winner will get a free copy of With Pride. Giveaway will run until April 22nd, at which point I will randomly draw the winner. Make certain to leave a way you can be reached! Winner has 24 hours to respond, after which another winner will be chosen.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful week!


<3
Meg

Megan is a long time resident of m/m fiction, and keeps herself busy reading, writing, and publishing it. She is often accused of fluff and nonsense. When she's not involved in writing, she likes to cook, harass her cats, or watch movies (especially all things James Bond). She loves to hear from readers, and can be found all around the internet.

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meganaderr@gmail.com
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