Annotated HMC,N Chapters 24-31 (Patreon)

Cornered has the Frank origin story in it--as in how he met the crew. I haven't read it in ages, and I've always felt a little weird about it. I love Frank. He's the most vulnerable of the crew in some ways, and he's grown into himself, which has been great to see. But the premise of this anthology was stories of bullying and I was told that they knew I used humor and I should feel free to use that. Which is really difficult to do because bullying is really awful. Then again, humor is a coping mechanism. There are a lot of things I love about the story, but I've always worried about whether or not I handled it right. Of course, that's often the case with my writing and my relationship with it. When your audience is teens, you don't really want to make their lives harder or worse, you know? And books have a huge impact at that age.

On to the chapters!

24--Ramon meets Brid's siblings. One thing I tried to do with these books in keep in mind the characters strengths and limitations. Of course we want to see Ramon charging in and leading the way...but the truth of it is, Ramon isn't a fighter. He's young and fit, but he doesn't take secret ninja lessons. He's also smart. Though he wants to run in, he knows he's not the best option to lead the fight. He holds his own though, but in his own way. 

25--Brid finally gets to fight Michael. I...completely forgot I made her swords flame swords? I retained a lot of this book, but clearly not all of it. The line "You don't pet things that talk" has always cracked me up. Would you still pet your pets if they could talk back? (I'd probably have to pet my dogs more if they could make actual demands.)

26--Ramon meets James in dragon form and clobbers him with his skateboard. He gets several of the gnomes, too. Things are going to be awkward when Ramon moves in.

27--Big, bloody (literally!) brawl and Ramon meets his fate. 

28--The only Haley chapter. Mrs. W hits James with her car. Haley, being Haley, has to go and check on him to see if he's okay. Even in cat form, James is uncomfortable with anyone showing him concern. It's part of the reason he takes off. Obviously there's also a battle going on, but on an internal level, James doesn't know how to cope with anyone caring for him, even in a casual way.

29--Sam and Brid both kill someone in this scene. It has always interested me seeing how differently they handle this. Brid doesn't like it, but she's been trained to lead, to shoulder awful burdens, so she sort of just moves on. Sam kills an awful person in self defense and it tears him up. Both are understandable reactions of course, I just find it interesting.

30--When HMC,N came out, I made T-shirts and tote bags. One of the shirts was a recreation of Sean's shirt. "Control Human Population: Support Cannibalism." Sean was one of those characters that I would put in every scene if I could. He's just so fun.

Writers get weird about words. This probably doesn't surprise you. I have a weird aversion to the use of "yummy" in regards to a person. As in "he looks yummy" is a hard pass from me. I know a lot of people feel this way about "moist" but that word doesn't bother me much. Gusto does, though. I have no idea why. I still use it in this chapter, though.

Paul Mankin, who I'm not sure ever shows up again, is a Sam's lawyer. His last name was supposed to hint at the idea that Paul is a demon. Because I had to go for the low hanging fruit of a "demon lawyer" joke. (Sorry, lawyers. I know many lawyers and they are lovely and helpful people, but the joke was RIGHT THERE.) However, I can't remember where on earth I found the "mankin is a reference to demon" information. I had a source at one point, but I sold off a lot of my mythology books that centered on demonology. Alas.

This chapter also shows us what happened to Ramon. Which sucks for him, but I think works out in his favor in the long run.

31--last chapter! The great part about having a necromancer character is even if your other characters die, they can still hang around. I had everyone in this chapter playing Mario Party because my roommates and I used to do this all the time. 

The last line--I always have a hard time with last lines. I don't think this one is particularly great, but I couldn't think of anything better, so there you go. Ha! I did deeply enjoy writing the snippet of the newspaper about Ling Tsu's demise. Redemise? 

So that brings us to the end! I'm glad I reread the book because wow, did I forget a lot. I'm not sure if any of you are enjoying the reread (and I feel bad that it's delayed new Sam chapters) but it's been kind of fun on my end to talk about some of the behind the scenes stuff. 

Next up, NTS!

-Lish