Blue Moon Release Day Q & A Part 1

So, my novel Blue Moon releases today. So, I thought it might be interesting to apply some of the questions I’ve gotten in my email and DMs across social media. So, in this post, I’m going to present ten of those questions. I will present more next week.

---

1. What inspired you to write Blue Moon?

Blue Moon was inspired by a lot of the same things that inspired the entire series, the TV series Lost Girl, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Anita Blake novels, the Dresden Files, Gothic fiction, and film noir. As for the novel itself, I spent a lot of time with shows like Ghost Adventures, Ghost Hunters, and The Dead Files on in the background while I work, read, write, and do other things. So, I started thinking what would happen if a “paranormal investigator” needed help beyond what they were capable of handling. Also, I fall asleep listening to various YouTube channels and podcasts that read creepypastas, and from that I fell in love with the creepypasta rituals. So, that led to thinking about what might happen if one became real.

2. How did you develop the interplay between supernatural elements and modern settings?

A lot of that came from the media I’ve consumed my entire life, from Kolchak the Nightstalker to Anne Rice and P.N. Elrod to others I’ve mentioned and too many to mention beyond that. I also like thinking about how governments and societies would react to that knowledge and how such things would alter law, religions, and other public and private policy. So, how did I do it? I did a lot of research on topics I never thought I would need to learn, and then I started asking questions of how these societal structures would engage with supernatural beings. I also developed rules for magic, what it can do, and what it can’t do.

3. Can you elaborate on the dynamic relationship between Samantha Hain and Carmilla? What inspired their romance?

Ah, this. This honestly was what my initial notebook where I planned the series was something that would NEVER HAPPEN. I wasn’t going to have Samantha fall in love with a supernatural being. That felt cliché to me. And then, as I wrote Carmilla’s Ghost, I wrote three endings: the ending where they fall back in love, the ending where the Order of the Dragon kills Carmilla, and the ending where Sam saves Carmilla but the stress makes her walk away from dating a supernatural being—no matter what her true feelings were. The last two being very gothic endings, no? When I looked over the book, those last two endings did not feel right. And as much as I wanted the series to be everything I had initially intended it to be, their romance felt authentic to the characters. And so, I sacrificed my planning for their authenticity. That is the only inspiration for it. There was no grand design, simply letting characters be themselves authentically as I write.

4. Why did you choose to incorporate Dungeons and Dragons into your narrative?

That was originally going to be a separate story. For a while, I planned to write a short story, “Sam Hain and the Dungeon of Destiny,” which would be the story of that game night and of that adventure. I also wanted to put out a special edition that had the adventure module, and the proceeds from that edition would benefit Extra Life charity. However, I found myself getting bored writing the narrative of the adventure. The narrative of the game night was more engaging, so I put the half-completed manuscript in the slush folder, but I used part of it to inspire the first chapter of Blue Moon.

5. What led to the decision to include such strong content warnings, and how did that shape your storytelling?

I didn’t include content warnings in Liam’s Doom. I didn’t think about it, but as someone committed to the safety and psychic comfort of the players at my D&D table, I felt adding content warnings would be the best way to offer my readers a warning of “This is what you’re going to read. If you’re not comfortable, I advise you not to read.” I would love everyone to read my books, but I write from my own trauma and darkness, and so I know that elements in fiction can trigger distress in readers, and I don’t want my readers to be uniformed on such things that could be harmful.

6. The novel blends humor with dark themes. How do you strike a balance between levity and gravity in your writing?

The short answer is: Isn’t that life? Both horrible events and moments of goofiness? Cue the theme from The Facts of Life (showing my age here). The long answer is that’s how I am. I have a very dark and sarcastic sense of humor, and I cope with trauma by making dark jokes that often worry people. I also really love puns and dad jokes. Those are the peak form of comedy.

7. Martin is an intriguing character. What influenced his creation and development?

Ah, Martin. I knew when I introduced Carmilla, she would need servants. And I have always loved snarky, sarcastic “butlers” who always know more than they let on. So, Martin’s genesis was blending Niles from The Nanny with Alfred Pennyworth from Batman. From there, I developed the backstory of a vampire butler who had served under at least three generations of immortal beings. And being that I put more of my own personality into Carmilla (especially the Germanic brattiness), Martin needed to be someone who could direct, if not tame, the brat.

8. What role does folklore and ritual play in the overarching story of Blue Moon?

Folklore is everywhere in this book and this series. Part of the genesis was asking “What would a world be like if all of folklore and myth were real… but not necessarily in the way we understand them from our stories.” So, that led to developing the histories of the Veil Watchers as being started by famous collectors of cultural folklore—not as mere recorders and collectors but as curators of what the public is allowed to know while keeping the truth of reality from most. Until that night in Berlin. And ritual is a part of that, but I wanted Donal Hain to be the head of a ceremonial occult order. Ritual is important to the magic he has learned. Ritual is important to folk magic, but they look vastly different. And so, I brought in “contemporary” rites like the creepypasta ritual, older rites like using a spirit board, and even rituals that have died out and exist only in brief written accounts, such as sin eating. Rituals show so much about what cultures and people value, how they purify themselves, how they connect to the universe and the divine, and how they take control over situations beyond the norm of daily expectations. Ultimately, I suppose I view folklore and rituals as the everyday expression of a culture’s mythology—the myths are the grand tales of a cultural cosmos, and folklore is the daily rituals and common beliefs that people engage in.

9. The dialogue feels natural and witty. How do you craft realistic and engaging conversations between characters?

So many who produce writing advice say that dialogue is to “mimic” real speech but be more grammatically correct and formal than the way people talk. My educational background is in literature, linguistic anthropology, and rhetoric. What interests me is not in how people “should” use language but in how people actually do use language. So, I made the decision to write dialogue that reflected how people actually speak. I wanted speech patterns to help mimic character attitudes beyond just sentence length and word choices. It always strikes me as odd when every character speaks in perfect complete sentences in formal English. Speech patterns should reveal character. As far as any witty banter, I love banter. I’m a queer, Gen X, German Goth…banter, sarcasm, and shade are my native tongues. It’s what I enjoy reading, listening to, and engaging in, so I wrote that for myself. The fact that others have told me they enjoy it makes me happy.

10. How did you come up with the concept of mixing genres such as urban fantasy, romance, and mystery?

It started with realizing that “urban fantasy” isn’t a genre. It’s a setting. Think about how different Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, The Dresden Files, and the Anita Blake novels are. The only similarities are (a) a contemporary setting, (b) supernatural elements, and (c) human protagonists.

When I talk about my books, I don’t say “This is an urban fantasy.” I say, “This is an urban fantasy mystery” or “urban fantasy thriller” or “urban fantasy romance.” I focus less on blending fantasy with [genre] than I do with blending [genre x] with [genre y]. Carmilla’s Ghost, for instance, blended a traditional late 18^th/early 19^th century gothic mystery with a contemporary paranormal romance. I wanted to see what would happen if the structures of those two genres (which demand different endings) were blended. I thought it would create interesting tensions. That’s what I do.

---

Remember, you can order paperbacks of all my novels anywhere, including my own website! eBooks are available on Amazon at present. That will be changing.

-Robin