I Made THAT Character the Protagonist? Really?

I’m sure that everyone is so sick of hearing me say, “I didn’t plan this.” But it’s once again true. I really didn’t plan on giving Rod his own book. Why would I when he was such a jerk in the beginning?

Yet about two thirds of the way through Evan’s story, I knew how it was going to end. He and Rod were going to be running from the authorities, Evans would be apprehended and his younger, more temperamental accomplice would be left to handle everything on his own… which is where the next book would begin.

I got so excited about it that I even wrote the first chapter of “Amateurs Play Elsewhere” way before I was done with its predecessor.

In it, a panicky Rod is making his way along dark Baltimore City streets, sticking to the shadows and wishing that Evans could be there with him.

It was a pretty intense opening, but then “Moves and Countermoves” took twists I hadn’t anticipated, making my forward-thinking efforts an absolute waste.

Oh well.

I gotta say, after I realized Rod was going to be the next protagonist and after I’d accepted it and even after I’d gotten excited about it, it was still a little bit of a daunting idea. I mean, this was kinda new territory I was tackling.

Back on June 1, this is what I said about writing from Evans’ perspective:

“One chapter, I was writing from a familiar female point of view; the next, I was doing my best to think like a guy. A guy who used to be in the military. And turned to crime. And then grew a conscience again. Now, I’ve never been a guy, or in the military, or turned to crime. Though I have shed and regrown a conscience a time or two. So I figured this was going to be three-quarters of a major challenge.”

Now take all of that and add in how Rod’s a bit of a moody baby who’s “a nasty letch with a bad temper,” as Kayla puts it in “The Politician’s Pawn.” In other words, out of my main three characters in this series, I have the absolute least in common with him. Perhaps I have the least common with him out of all of my main characters in any of my books.

So how did I get around it?

Stay tuned. I’ll tell you all about it on Wednesday.