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June 24, 2014

Guest Post by Zoraida Córdova: ON SUPPORTING CHARACTERS

I really love big casts. I love it when there isn’t just one hero. This makes sense since my favorite show is Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I think it’s important to give a hero a good support system. I picked three of my favorite supporting characters from The Vicious Deep Trilogy.

Marty McKay: Marty is a character that transitions through all of my books. He’s an all around peace keeper and messanger for a society called The Thorne Hill Alliance. The Alliance is consisted of the magical creatures in the tri-state area. When Marty joins up with Tristan, he’s not supposed to be as involved as he gets. His involvement doesn’t start until there is a new king. But he’s very much still young (relatively for supernatural types), and he loves some merman tail, and of course wants to protect Coney Island, he stands behind Tristan.

AND HE NEVER TAKES OFF HIS CAP.



Penny: Penny is one of my favorites because she’s a normal young mom. She’s got a kid who is a genetic freak (he has a real turtle shell on his back) and she herself has fingers that can shift into tentacles. She is one of the Landlocked of the Sea Court. Her mother was banished to shore and gave Penny up for adoption. It wasn’t till she was in her teens that she realized where she came from, and found the support of other Landlocked in Brooklyn. She’s a baker and waitress at a cupcake shop, but when it comes time to defend her home, she gets right in it. She has one of my favorite scenes in The Savage Blue. In The Vast & Brutal Sea, her loyalty to Tristan still remains. 

(When I saw this image on Tumblr, THIS IS HOW I PICTURE HER HANDS. ONLY HER HANDS. Penny has hair and a tan.)



Arion: Arion is a merman who is magically bound as the masthead, and Captain, of a ship. His job as long as there is a king, is to carry out his father’s punishment. His father was a traitor and rebel who aligned himself with the Silver Mermaid during her first attempt to steal the throne. Despite Arion’s fierce loyalty to the throne, he was forced to carry out his father’s sentence. It’s part of the Sea Court’s traditions that makes Tristan extremely uncomfortable, as it should. Arion was a dragon slayer during the war with the dragons, and his reward became a punishment instead. Arion is one of my favorite because he’s named after one of my best friends from high school. When I write his dialogue, I can hear his baritone voice. In The Vast & Brutal Sea, I had to cut some of his backstory for pacing, but hopefully I’ll write his a short story one day.

Want to know more about other characters in the books? Shoot me an e-mail at zoraidawrites@gmail.com, or ask in the comments! Catch up on other blog tour stops at www.zoraidacordova.com

3 comments:

  1. You know....you just gave me a serious AHAH moment. I too love big casts in books and on T.V. And lately I've been struggling with a couple of books with one MC--now I am wondering if the issue is not the MC, the story, the setting etc. It could well be my other characters want more of the stage. Something well, well worth exploring so to that I say...thanks!

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  2. Hey Deb! I definitely find that sometimes some characters want to be more center stage. It's hard to find that balance without making the book 1000 pages. Though I guess there's nothing stopping us :)

    Thanks for stopping by.
    Z

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  3. Thanks for sharing!! I love secondary characters -they can really make or break a book.

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