Blog Tour!

mood: sugar high
pandora/ipod: "here's where the story ends" by the sundays

Yay! It's finally my turn on the fabulous Jill Myles's fabulous GENTLEMEN PREFER SUCCUBI fabulous blog tour!

If you've been following the blog tour (you can find the full schedule on Shelli Johannes-Wells's blog Market My Words), you've gotten to know Jill by now - her story to publication, her research style, her sense of humor, her writing process. Today, I thought we'd talk about Originality in Urban Fantasy, a subject near and dear to both Jill and me.

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ME: Vampires and werecreatures. Fairies and ghosts. Angels and demons. How does a writer balance originality in a saturated urban fantasy market?

JILL: I think the best thing to do is to take a classic concept and to give it a new spin. Sure, everything has been done, but that's one of the reasons they continue to sell - people love seeing/reading a spin on an old, familiar favorite. I think if you create your own mythology, it's very creative but you won't get that automatic recognition and that built in audience. For example, me -- I love anything with angels. All you have to do is mention 'angels' in the worldbuilding and I'll automatically pick it up and start reading the back of the book.

That being said, definitely look for an original spin. If you want to write about teenage vampire slayers, you need to be sure that you bring your A-game and make it different, or people are going to think you're ripping off Buffy. But mixing it up? Works just fine. Instead of teenage vampire slayers, teenage fairy slayers is a nice concept. Or teenage unicorn slayers? Worked well for another author.

ME: *writes down new idea* "Teenage mermaid slayers riding unicorns..." Oops! Sorry. Back to you.

I've been lucky enough to have read both GENTLEMEN PREFER SUCCUBI and it's hot, hot sequel SUCCUBI LIKE IT HOT. One of the things I've loved in the series is your world building: the way Jackie becomes a Succubi, the rules surrounding her new world. How did you go about developing it?

JILL: Kind of by the seat of my pants. I wanted to make the rules of my world very 'realistic'. People weren't going to have magic powers come out from the middle of nowhere. There's some magic (which you'll see in book 2) but it's related to old rituals that aren't too much of a stretch for believability. I wanted the focus to be on the angels/serim/succubi/vampires/demons and the levels of freedom that each type has. For example, my 'pure' angels are arguably the most powerful creatures in my mythos -- but they're extremely restricted as to what they can do and where they can go. Jackie and the other succubi are the least powerful creatures, but they have some distinct advantages. I was really interested in balance - for every cool thing Jackie got, I tried to give it an equivalent drawback.

ME: Okay, good sequeway. How do you decide where to jump off from the "research" aspect and dive into your own realm of fantasy creation?

JILL: You have to go on instinct! Instinct, and pray that you're not going to piss some people off with your interpretation. I mean, the historic version of the succubus is a female demon that goes and recruits sperm from innocent male victims. She then hands the sperm off to a male incubus who impregnates an innocent female with it. That's...not attractive. I wanted to write about a happier, cleaner version of a succubus (but keep the ties to sex). And I know some people are already vowing my books off because I've changed the succubus myth. That's okay, though - I told the story I wanted to tell. And at the end of the day, you have to be happy with that.

ME: Speaking of the traditional succubus myth, are there any other books/genres you want to differentiate yourself from?

JILL: It's hard to say. A lot of people have asked me what I can compare my books to, and that's always tough as an author. There's another popular succubus series out right now - Richelle Mead's Georgina books -- but I can't say that our books are all that similar other than having a succubus heroine. In tone and set-up I think it's closest to Katie Macalister's Aisling Grey series. Kind of light and funny but romantic, and the romance and storyline both take a few books to wrap up.

I have to say, I don't usually go for romance, but I absolutely LOVED the two books in the series I've read so far and I can't wait to see how it all wraps up! So don't keep me hanging, okay lady?

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As you all know, there's more to the blog tour than just interviews and promo. Jill's fantastic agent Holly Root has agreed to be the "prize" in the Blog Tour Giveaway! Holly is offering up one query critique to the lucky winner - for the agent-seeking writer, this is the chance of a lifetime! To enter, comment on any of the posts in the tour - one entry per person per blog. The winner will chosen at random and announced on the last day of the tour - January 27th on Jill's Blog.

And don't forget to check out the next link in the chain: on Monday, January 18th Wendy Cebula will be talking to Jill about writing sex scenes! WOO HOO!