On Ryzerman, Vengerov and Blackburn…
First of all, Harper created an awesome graphic for the INSIGNIA ebook deal. It’s very lovely.
That said, I’m doing more of this origins thing for the four or five people in the world who may be interested. Just to recap, for lack of better ideas about what to post about, I’m just going to talk about various bits of INSIGNIA and how the story and characters came to be. If you haven’t read it.. It’s 2.99 right now! See above! Ahem. Anyway, if you haven’t read it, these post might not make sense. Sorry.
On Ryzerman, Vengerov, and Blackburn:
(slight spoilers for the future of the series below. Read at your own risk!)
Who or what is a Ryzerman, you may ask?
Ryzerman was the character originally playing Blackburn’s role in the story. He was there solely to be a foe, because let’s face it, the guy who gets to program all the brains? That’s some power there, and I thought it would be interesting having a third villain (in addition to Dalton and Karl) to complicate things for Tom. Like Blackburn, Ryzerman was a driven, formidable person who’d had a psychotic break due to the neural processor; he’d reprogrammed his neural processor until he regained his sanity. But unlike Blackburn, Ryzerman was supposed to be a Maximilien Robespierre type: calculating, cold-blooded and ruthless. He didn’t have much of a conscience, and he was fascinated by power.
Oh, and he was a bit insane still. Unlike Blackburn, Ryzerman hadn’t fully fixed his neural processor issues. He also had never had a family, and there was no Roanoke.
Anyway, something happened after INSIGNIA got picked up for publication. I had a three book deal, so I examined my plans for the next two books. I had them, but they were vague because I’d been heartbroken in the past when I planned out whole trilogies that came to nothing. Since I now had a book getting published, and two guaranteed sequels, I reevaluated my vague plans.
The Big Bad who I originally had in mind for the series, Dalton Prestwick, had been rather humiliated in the first book. By the end, how could a reader have any respect for the guy, even as a despicable villain, when the protagonist had already so thoroughly defeated him? Not only was Dalton lacking in menace, but since he was always supposed to be a greedy, self-centered sociopath eager to suck up or do most anything to advance himself, he wasn’t particularly multifaceted or deep.
The fact was, Dalton couldn’t carry a series. Although Ryzerman was far more menacing, and had certain layers of his own, he also wasn’t in a position (wealth, power, or job-wise) to be the big bad of the INSIGNIA world. And Karl– ha ha ha. No.
The fact was, Dalton couldn’t carry a series. Although Ryzerman was far more menacing, and had certain layers of his own, he also wasn’t in a position (wealth, power, or job-wise) to be the big bad of the INSIGNIA world. And Karl– ha ha ha. No.
So I wrote Joseph Vengerov into the story.
You’ve only seen a snippet of him so far, but I think it’s given you enough of a glimpse of what he’s like that I won’t be spoiling things here too much…
Vengerov was icy, calculating, cold-blooded and ruthless, which basically meant he was an amplified version of Ryzerman. The problem? Two Vengerovs/Ryzermans can’t exist in the same story. The universe would implode. One had to change drastically.
Since my awesome editor was also urging me to humanize Ryzerman, I picked him for the personality makeover. I first tried adding a mentor dynamic with Wyatt. It was a great idea because it gave Wyatt more of a role in the story independent of Tom, but it just wasn’t working. Even toned down, Ryzerman wasn’t a character I could convincingly imagine being tender and patient with anyone. He didn’t have enough humanity to love, to care, much less to invest in the performance of some younger protégé. I tried several times adding in back story to explain him and humanize him, but it failed spectacularly with every attempt.
So finally, I realized that I needed the entirely new perspective that could only come from taking Ryzerman out of the story and inserting a new character in his place, someone I imagined as a different person, but who could fill in for Ryzerman whenever he’d driven the action in the story (with very different motivations, of course).
This decision, naturally, came about ten days before my line edits were due. Luckily, editor and imprint understood, so I wrote in Blackburn.
Although most of the kid characters just exist in my head, I tend to picture some of the adult characters looks-wise as actors, or sometimes politicians. Dalton– I envision as a cross between Rob Lowe in Wayne’s World and Paul Ryan. Vengerov– I picture Daniel Craig meets Vladimir Putin. With Blackburn, I picture this guy:
Although most of the kid characters just exist in my head, I tend to picture some of the adult characters looks-wise as actors, or sometimes politicians. Dalton– I envision as a cross between Rob Lowe in Wayne’s World and Paul Ryan. Vengerov– I picture Daniel Craig meets Vladimir Putin. With Blackburn, I picture this guy:
Although it was rather terrifying, tearing out a prominent character so late in the process and replacing him, I think it made the story a lot stronger. James Blackburn had the humanity I needed him to have, while retaining the ruthlessness I needed him to have, but his back story allowed me to set up something in future books that I could never have pulled off with Ryzerman.
The only difficulty with doing this mostly cropped up in book one. There were times when I’d slip mentally from Blackburn to Ryzerman again, and his speech patterns would drift toward Ryzerman’s accordingly. I corrected some between the ARC and the final version, but when I reread the book now, there are definitely a few I missed. That aggravates me, but there’s nothing to do about it now.
Thanks for reading!
Thanks for reading!
I like that you included the video LOL. I think Blackburn is such an interesting character. To me he’s very likable. I’m so excited to see what kind of a role his character is going to continue to play in future books. Also, I think he’s brilliant and I really enjoyed reading the parts when he was mentoring Wyatt. I can’t wait for book #2 to come out! 🙂 #SoFreakingExciting
Thanks, Deedee! I’m glad you appreciate him. He’s fun to write.
I’m inlove with your character of Blackburn! I so much enjoy and laugh whenever he appears in the book (still reading the first one). Can’t wait to read the rest. I’d love to see if he’ll ever find out who is the lovely hacker that is always giving him trouble <3