Origin of Nocturnal Silence

The Origin of Nocturnal Silence
 
 
Dearest deviants, 
 
It's been eons since I published a novel, which is why I decided to explain the origin of Nocturnal Silence.
 
Over the course of the series, I toyed with whether or not I should write Nocturnal Silence. I had actually decided against it for more than a decade. 
 
After I finished Thief, then lost a large portion of Dirty Laundry when the cloud saved an older version over the new version, I decided to write a few short stories. Instant gratification to fill my confidence meter.
 
End Game was born in under a week. It was supposed to be a short story but ended up growing into a full-length novel, which takes place the night before Thief ended. It reveals another side of the story, as Ezra struggles with his ex's upcoming nuptials and the suffocating loneliness as his house guests return to their reconstructed homes. Who doesn't want to give Ezra a hug? Several of his newfound cousins volunteered.
 
FYI: End Game as in the chess maneuver. Not Endgame as in relationship status. I hope the chess cover helps denote this fact. If not, Katya & Ezra's chess match will draw the title to light. 
 
During End Game, a few scenes are mentioned that would occur during Scion (I hadn't written a word of Scion at that point) Then doubt crept in after the Beta-Read. Show versus tell. Do we hear about the scenes first or do we experience them firsthand on the pages? 
 
Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
 
End Game or Scion?
 
It's me. I have shit luck. First, Dirty Laundry was shelved until after my frustration abated (it hasn’t) Then I decided Scion came first, which put Ezra and his End Game on a shelf as well. 
 
Scion was SUPPOSED TO BE A NOVELLA. A fun honeymoon romp to show what took place at the end of Thief. 
 
Around 80k words into Scion, I took a break. My writing sessions range anywhere from 60 to 80 thousand words before I burn out and need to regroup/recharge. Immersive writing takes a huge toll on me, not just disregarding everyday life while treating eating/sleeping/basic hygiene as a reward for meeting a daily goal, but it emotionally drains me until I’m running on empty.
 
Followill is my easygoing series. The emotional palate cleanser without fifteen books of history to remember. To gain confidence and take a breather while being productive, I wrote the full-length novel, Not a Followill. Again, me and my shit luck. It was a bit of a mess. Changed the cover, changed the title, decided to wait to let the story marinate, while also waiting to publish it during the time period in which it takes place. Damien Followill and Angelique Dawn are good to go this August, when the Followill teachers head back to school. 
 
So... after I regained and lost some confidence with Not a Followill, back to Scion...
 
Remember, I was 80k into a story. Last I left the story, Levi had filled a school bus with past and future narrators to go get snipped en masse. Then I was hit with another feedback comment from End Game, where the beta wanted to know when Levi and Cort became besties (Cort screams this at Ezra, how Levi is his best friend) They'd been coconspirators for nearly two decades at that point. 
 
Show not tell.
 
So, unlucky me, I hit the flashback brick wall. How much is too much to flashback? A scene? A chapter? As I was fleshing out the plot outline, it became a huge hunk of backstory. No good. No way was Scion going to take a book-length intermission directly in the middle of the novel to go back to the past. 
 
Then there was the issue of a major plot point in Scion. Uber helpful Cort thought he was doing his bestie a solid. After fifteen books, where we’d journeyed beside Faith and Levi, we knew their relationship was a strange one, then Caleb came home from the military and Kat was suddenly on their radar. Fast forward to the present, Cort wanted Levi’s partners to not only love Levi but to understand what makes him tick. The unpublished, original manuscript of Nocturnal Silence began making its rounds at Shadow Haven, creating dramatic havoc for the brides and grooms.
 
Taking over the plot, Nocturnal Silence became its own character during Scion. Much like the scenes in End Game, show versus tell was paramount. Between the flashbacks and the gifted book, we needed Nocturnal Silence to be brought to life.
 
After a decade of being confident in my decision, I flipped on myself. 
 
Nocturnal Silence was a go.
 
On a random day, an itch that needed scratched, I sat down and just started typing. None of it was anything I had plotted out as the flashback chunk during Scion. The first half of Nocturnal Silence, more than the length of an average novel, just manifested on the page without an outline or any forethought on my part.
 
Flowing like water, Nocturnal Silence was the easiest novel I’ve ever written but also the hardest. The most immersive. The most heartbreaking and entertaining, and oddly enough, the most humorous.
 
When I hit the halfway mark, where the fresh story ended and it had to match up with the previous novels in the M&M series, it was time for me to not only reread Faithless but to study it. For the first time ever, I had to annotate the hell out of a book. The “flying by the seat of my pants” novel transformed into needing to follow a 27-page annotated plot outline. What was flowing like water turned into a research project. The linear timeline mattered. It was an f'n trip with Faith's version of War & Peace. 
 
48 days later, I resurfaced, having written over 280,000 words during the writing session. No breaks to regroup, especially emotionally. 
 
A 280k-word, trilogy-length flashback. 
 
Nocturnal Silence is not a POV flip of Faithless. I tried my best to have as few shared scenes between NS and Faithless as possible. Only the most pivotal scenes were duplicated from Levi’s perspective.
 
Nocturnal Silence doesn’t necessarily follow previous events word for word. This is by design. It doesn’t make it an unreliable narration, nor does it overwrite previous novels. Both are true.
 
Why? Three reasons.
 
One: First-Person Narration (see below)
 
Two: The joy of a long-standing series is how the story evolves with each installment. As the story builds, the world becomes richer with knowledge, backstory, and characters. No matter how honed in the art of storytelling, no writer can anticipate what will happen in book 5, 10, or 15 while writing the first book in the series. I already experienced this issue after I took an entire series off-sale, then reworked/rewrote those novels. I would never do that again. I will never do that again.
 
Stories evolve. It’s the very nature of this artform.

Three: Nocturnal Silence is Cortez Abernathy Hunter’s novel. While this is Leviticus Wilson’s memoir, I wrote it in the bent as if Cort was the one truly authoring the novel. While a head trip, not only was this easy for me, I had a blast writing it.
 
The maddening restrictions of first-person narration, which I find to be the most realistic viewpoint— the viewpoint of a human being traversing this world without being able to read minds or have an overview narrator giving them a heads-up. The characters can read body language, make assumptions based on actions, but they never know what the others are truly thinking or doing, especially since a major facet of the human condition is to lie to oneself. This doesn’t make an unreliable narrator— it creates a very human character.
 
Anyone who has read more than few of my novels understands that my main objective is perspective. Perception is reality. No two people read the same book, nor do they experience the same life event, even if they were both there. 
 
It's always "my truth" and "your truth" and “second-hand truth” and the “bystander’s truth” where I don’t believe the real truth is somewhere in the middle. It’s all true from where they’re standing. Empathy is the point.
 
Every time I release info on a book, readers will question why I chose that specific character. Some choose not to read it because they don't like that particular character. Others read it despite that... and suddenly the previous villain is now the reader’s new favorite character. Meanwhile, a whole different view of a previous beloved narrator is shown.
 
Nocturnal Silence isn't a rewrite of Faithless. Cortez was intrigued by his muse, and he longed for Levi’s story to be told. Important scenes in Faithless are glossed over because they weren't important for Levi's journey. However, I do mention them to jog memories. We’ve already experienced the scenes in other novels. We didn't need a repeat unless it was vital to Levi's character development.
 
Due to this, I've already heard from betas how "that didn't happen that way" and no doubt I’ll hear it again from readers. Never fear, Caleb Green is currently throwing an epic shit fit during Scion because he didn’t view events the same way Levi did. I'm not rewriting history. I'm not filling plot holes. Not only did Levi experience these events differently than previous narrators, we’re getting this account through Cortez’s lens, including the biases and affections Cort feels for the characters.
 
I liken it to the normie who enters the paranormal world at the beginning of a novel. We always read it from their perspective because the reader learns the world building alongside the naïve character. This makes an easy to digest story versus a major info-dump that is impossible to swallow.
 
Faith was that naïve person— Levi was not. It's a vastly different experience reading Faithless versus Nocturnal Silence with all that knowledge and foreshadowing for both Levi and the readers. It’s not a plot hole that the story has evolved and my writing abilities have grown in the decade between these particular novels, even if they take place at the same point in the linear timeline.
 
If you've watched The Affair (Showtime) where scenes were shown from multiple perspectives, you'll get the gist. If you haven't watched it, I highly recommend it. The show is a perfect example of what I attempt to do with my writing. Each perspective is the truth, no matter how vastly different it is between each of the narrators.
 
When I reread my own work during the proofreading process, I generally hit a wall and struggle to finish. I envisioned it. I wrote it. I rewrote it. I proofread it. I edited it. I reread it. I rewrote it. I proofread it again. I edited it yet again. Repeat. I've read those words dozens upon dozens of times over. I get sick of myself. This go-around, no matter how many times I’ve read Levi’s story, it’s still a page-turner for me. I’ve managed to give myself a book hangover every single time.
 
In a similar vein as Thief's Boyd, Levi is a character I want to hug and keep safe. Levi gets a HFN during Nocturnal Silence, but he experiences one heck of a glow-up during Scion. I mean, he shares the novel with three other narrators but it's his glorious self on the cover.
 
This has been the journey of a lifetime for me, one I thoroughly appreciated. Like a proud parent, I obviously think each of my novels is perfect just the way it is, flaws and all. We won’t admit we have a favored golden child, but I’ll be bold and admit it. Nocturnal Silence was not only my favorite book to write, I think it is my best novel to date. On a subconscious level, and with purpose, threads upon threads wove together into a magnificent tapestry that represents Dominion, New York. Our wallpaper of a character was the perfect conduit to reveal the whole picture, and now it’s time for Leviticus Wilson’s glow-up.
 
TLDR: 2 short stories turned into THOUSANDS of pages over the course of 3 novels, one being a 280k-word flashback, while another novel was written as a palate cleanser. I have been writing, just not publishing, because I had the misfortune of writing the books out of order.

Thank you for your patience!
-Erica