N.L. Bryar

The editing software of choice for my debut novel-length work was Literature and Latte’s Scrivener. Its organizational features let you scale beyond your former, short-form projects’ tools (e.g. Microsoft Word). You’ll hate organizing book-size content in a ‘flat’ tool like Word. But to max-out your mileage in Scrivener, you’ll want a few tweaks to its out-of-the-box templates.

(Most-read post of the year)

The top post being Writing a Novel? Pick Scrivener over Word surprised me — but in hindsight, it makes sense. Writing long fiction is as much an engineering problem as an artistic one, and this post lays out why tools matter once you move beyond short pieces.

My work is my work in The Curse of the Unholy Grail. Virtually no text from generative AI will appear in what I write, except the occasional molecule in the organism. But AI can be directed helpfully, … it’s like fire that way.

Creatives and AI: Where I Stand wasn’t written to provoke, but to clarify — for myself as much as anyone else — where I draw lines, where I don’t, and why I think the conversation around AI and creativity, and the softening or sharpening of our intellect, often misses the point.

Imagine the conflict when the ultimate predator is also its own most vulnerable prey. Picture the turmoil when the very source of the hero’s power becomes the catalyst of the hero’s corruption. That’s the dhampir, a being fusing human and vampire natures, under a heat and pressure that deform both. If the yin and yang of a normal life twirls like a merry-go-round, the dhampir’s spins like a saw blade. Sink your teeth into the dhampir mythos … before they sink theirs into you.

(The one I think was robbed at the Oscars)

Why Your Next Read Should be About Dhampirs makes the case that half-human protagonists endure not because they’re edgy, but because they dramatize deeply human things: identity, duality, the cost of power.

Initially, the inciting incident in The Unholy Grail had Nikki finding Grandpa David’s diary after his funeral. The cut-scene here would have been a flashback or conveyed memory of what led to that funeral. However, I decided early on 1) I wanted to minimize flashbacks/memories, 2) Nikki’s inciting incident needed tighter drama, and 3) the Bishop evolved in my mind to have just a little more heart, … un-beating though it is.

If you’re curious what my world sounds like rather than what I think about it, the Cut Content category is the place to go.

The Bishop Pays David a Call is a quiet scene, a theological conversation, … about duties shirked and responsibilities inherited.

Within The Curse of the Unholy Grail, you’ll find several familiar, well-loved vampire- and magic-system-tropes, a few hit with just a touch of cue-ball English to give some spin. The lore is dribbled throughout, progressive-fantasy-style, as our heroine, the dhampir Nicole Lange, discovers supernatural laws and grows to master her powers.

This is a behind-the-scenes look at how the book’s mythology came together — what I borrowed, what I resisted, and why I tried to keep the supernatural strange rather than explanatory.

You’ll recognize traits, of course, but you will find some fresh spins on familiar tropes.