Win the Rings By K.D. Van Brunt Author Guest Post, Book Tour, & Giveaway

Jace has been the property of the U.S. Army since they found out about her when she was five, and now she has become one of its most valuable weapons. But Jace is not the only one of her kind. Gray is one too, but with the help of his sister, he has spent most of his sixteen years hiding from the Army.

Now, the Army has found out about Gray and they cannot allow him to roam free. Operating on the theory that it takes one to catch one, Jace is send out with a special ops squad to hunt Gray down. But Jace is not the only one pursuing Gray, and the competition is after her too.

What ensues is a desperate chase through city after city as duty and honor collide with love and sacrifice.

 

Excerpt:

“I’m Mark,” he says.

“Tina,” I blurt out before I know what I’m doing.

“Princess Tina from the kingdom of Berwick,” Mark says with a wolfish grin.

I can’t help myself. I shoot him a flirtatious smile. I’m about to tell him that he looks like Justin Bieber having a bad hair day, in a kind of blended compliment-insult thing, when Nia’s words crash into my head.

Gray, I think it’s him.

Where?

By Au Bon Pain. He has a dark green trench coat on, but I saw a flash of the hoodie underneath.

“Shit,” I say out loud, grabbing the wheel back from Tina. I toss the paper and bolt for the restaurant.

“Hey, wait a sec,” the Biebs shouts to me.

As I turn the corner of the newsstand, I hear Nia’s frantic words.

He’s pulling something from his coat.

I see him now. He’s standing in front of a plate glass window looking in on a crush of people inside, sitting at tables and queued up behind counters to buy lunch. He’s pulling back a slide on an automatic assault rifle, preparing to pump the first of a hundred rounds of bullets into the crowded restaurant. There’s no time to find a policeman. In seconds loony tunes will be shooting.

We have to stop him, I say, and then I see Nia sprinting at him like me.

We both slam into him at the same time just as he’s leveling the gun to fire, and all three of us tumble to the hard, icy concrete. I’m lying on my side facing Peter Eklend and he’s on his side facing me. I’ve wrenched my shoulder and it’s too painful for me to sit up. Peter Eklend shoots a glare of such hatred at me that I flinch. Then I see that he still has the gun in his hands. Nia is on her feet now, but before she can do anything, Peter pulls the trigger. The explosion brings a sudden quietness to my ears, as if I’ve just gone deaf, and I feel a stabbing hot pain in my chest, as if I’ve been impaled on a red-hot fireplace poker. I cough, sending a froth of blood spraying out of my mouth. I need to breathe, but my lungs aren’t working.

Then my ears start working and I hear Nia scream. Others are now wrestling with Peter.

Another shot goes off. It doesn’t hit me.

Gray. Shift. You have to shift!

I’m losing consciousness. I can’t breathe. My lungs are filling with blood. This body is dying. I can feel it. I’m seconds away from the last, icy embrace of death. I have to get out of this body, leave it behind and flee to another body—a healthy, unwounded body. I need to shift now. With one last shred of will power, just as awareness winks out, I shift back to me.

A crowd has gathered around me by now, and I hear a collective gasp when they see me shimmer and change. I’m lying on the ground in a sticky, syrupy pool of blood, but I’m back in my own body now—my own bullet-free body. Nia is immediately at my side pulling me to my feet. Some of Tina’s blood stains my pants and sweatshirt as I roll away from Peter Eklend.

I’ve shifted away from death in the nick of time. A strange exhilaration causes my skin to tinkle and a rush of adrenalin floods through me. I’ve evaded eternity by mere nanoseconds.

Run! Nia says, bringing me back to the moment.

 

Guest Post: YA CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT—THE FINE LINE BETWEEN “SERIOUSLY FLAWED” AND “UNLIKABLE”

Most stories aim to have at least one character that the reader can relate to, sympathize with, and root for. For most of us, a character that is perfect and without sin is also a very boring character—they never make big mistakes, they always win in the end, and they’re unbelievable beautiful. We see characters like this in YA stories, of course, particularly at the younger ages, but in mature YA stories perfect characters tend to create a treacly mess. So, we need realistic characters who have problems and shortcomings like us. Our characters need flaws. You can find thousands of discussions about the line between characters who are too good to be true and characters who are nicely flawed. What about the other side of this: making characters so flawed that they become unlikable? Unlikable may be fine if the character is meant to be a bad guy or a villain, but not if you want the reader to root for the character at the end of the day.

I faced this question in creating the character Jace in my book, WIN THE RINGS. You don’t have to look far to find her flaws: sullen, angry, violent, a bully, and more. If you stop right there, wow, that’s a really unlikable character. Yes, if you stop right there she is, but I didn’t want that. I wanted the reader to see her for what she is, but to be on her side by the end. You can read the book for yourself to see if I managed it or not.

So, if, like me, you want a character with some serious issues, but you don’t want him or her to end up totally unlikable, here’s four things I learned.

 

1.} Consider using the first person. There’s a reason why the first person dominates in YA. It gives the reader an immediate and intimate window into the character—we’re in their head seeing, feeling, and sensing what they do. If done well, we understand them, even if we don’t always agree with their choices, and with understanding comes acceptance. You can do this in third person, too, of course, but it is a little more removed and more challenging. Using first person by itself isn’t always enough, though; for example, a first person story of Ted Bundy the serial killer probably isn’t going to save him from being unlikable.

2.} Take time to show why. There’s a reason why somebody is angry or violent. Show the reader why the character is lashing out or acting badly. It’s sounds obvious, but it’s harder than it sounds. In my case, my goal was to suggest to the reader that if they had been in the same situation facing the same adversities as Jace they might (not would, might) have made the same choices. If the reader understands the character, you’re half way there to getting them to root for that character. A strategic question with this is when and in what manner do you show the why of a character. In my case, I chose to show why from the start, but in other cases you can save that for later or at the end. Take Severus Snape from Harry Potter. There’s a lot not to like about this character at first, but slowly, very gradually, we see there are lots of layers to this onion, and only at the very end do we fully understand why he did what he did. And then we accept him and his choices (at least, I did).

3.} Show flashes of good. Consider showing the reader something good about the character early on. Yes, your character lies, steals, and drinks in chapter one, but in between his second cigarette and third beer, he saves his sister’s baby kitten from being run over. Okay, stop gagging. Better example. Take Katniss Everdeen. She’s got some real flaws and we see a lot of them in the first pages of the book, but she shows us her fierce loyalty to her sister right off the bat, and from that moment on we’re on her side no matter what nonsense she may do or say after that.

4.} Bad and stupid is usually a fatal combination. I can accept and root for characters that do bad things or make bad choices. That’s what a flawed character is all about. However, if you have a character that not only acts badly, but on top of that he or she is supposed to be a person of normal intelligence, yet they act like a stupid idiot—then you’ve dug quite a hole for yourself. If I’m going to root for a seriously flawed character, then I need to understand at some level why the character does what it does.

That’s hard when a character acts like an idiot, which, by definition, means acting irrationally. So, if you’re going to have a bad, stupid character, you’ve got your work cut out for you if you want to avoid making them totally unlikable.

5.} There’s bad, and then there’s “bad”. If your character does lots of bad things, but they’re things all of us have done or experienced at one time or another, if not on so grand a scale, that’s one thing. Done right, the character doesn’t have to be unlikeable.

However, there are some lines a character can’t cross and avoid becoming unredeemable. Where that line is will depend on a variety of things (e.g., a vampire can get away with murder, but the rest of us…probably not). If a boy tortures and mutilates puppies, good luck saving that character from the dark side of the force. So, choose your flaws wisely.

Thanks for having me.

 

K.D. Van Brunt has been writing professionally his entire career and has published an extensive list of nonfiction works. Win the Rings is his first fiction book. When not writing, he reads and listens to audiobooks during his daily drive through the sea of gridlock that is commuting in and out of Washington, DC. A long time resident of Maryland, he can often be found tromping around the many civil war battle sites in the area. To find out more about

K.D. Van Brunt, including bonus content relating to Win the Rings, check out his website–www.kdvanbrunt.com–and follow him on twitter–@KDVanBrunt.

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K.D  will be awarding a $50 Amazon or B&N Gift Card to a randomly drawn commenter during the tour. { US & Canada only} Follow the tour and comment; the more you comment, the better your chances of winning. The tour dates can be found by clicking the banner below:  Good Luck!

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