In fact, she paid good money to charity for this chance, so I don’t feel guilty. And the planning is half the fun – for both of us.
But I wanted to document the process, so I’m sharing Jenny’s story here with you all as we go along. Here’s what happened.
At MarsCon last month, Michael Khandelwal of The Muse suggested something a little different when I donated my usual full set of books to the charity auction. “Why don’t you,” he suggested, “donate the chance for the winner to get a character named after them—and killed off—in your next book?”
I hadn’t thought of that before. But it was a great idea, so I said sure. I’d do that.
I dropped off my books, as usual, along with a slip of paper describing my rather atypical auction offering, and went about my business at the Con. I’d already met Jenny, who was in charge of the charity auction donations; she was right next to my vending table in the dealer’s room. We’d chatted a bit and seemed to hit it off right away.
Fast forward to Saturday night when Michael texted me to say the auction was beginning, and I should come right away to the presentation room. I hustled over and let them know I was there, so when it was my turn for Entheóphage to be on the auction block, Michael described the book, then called me up to the podium to describe the rest of the offering.
I stepped forward and spoke into the mic, watching faces in the audience light up as I said, “If you win, I will name a character after you…” The audience got even more excited when I went on to say, “…and then kill them off in my next book.” Audience volume rose as people began to excitedly discuss the possibilities of that. I loved the reaction, but I wasn’t watching the sidelines. Not at first. I was focused on the audience, where I expected the bids to come from.
It wasn’t until I stepped aside to stand near Jenny—the auction coordinator—that I realized bids would also come from the sidelines, including staff. The bidding started at $50, immediately got lively, and quickly grew into a bidding war. Jenny was determined to get that prize and finally won with a bid that went far higher than I expected. (All proceeds went to the Virginia Beach Animal Shelter, so it was for a great cause.)
When Michael declared Jenny the winner, she was ecstatic. I’d never seen anyone so excited about winning an auction before! This would have been fun anyway, but it’s proving even more of an exciting project given her enthusiasm.
The Nexus trilogy, which will follow the Founder’s Seed trilogy through the eyes of different characters, is next on my plate. Book 1 will feature Jenny’s “demise,” so I told her a bit about it, and its history. She’s got the full Founder’s Seed trilogy on her TBR list now and will be reading it soon so she’s up to date on the storyline, the Founder’s Seed universe, and some of the related characters.
The first Nexus book is already drafted, but needs a lot of fleshing out, so the first task was to find a good place for Jenny’s character. I looked it over, found a perfect role, and ran it past her. She loved the idea! I sent her a questionnaire to help me flesh out the character details and match them to her as much as I can, and she’s returned her answers, so now I can start to create Jenny the character. I’ve already started finding spots early in the book (from the very first chapter) where I can start introducing the new player and making her part of the story. The real-life Jenny and I chatted recently via Zoom to iron out any lingering details and get a feel for where I’m going. Also? I have Jenny’s permission to share this story with you all, so I’ll be blogging about our process throughout, whenever I have a few minutes here or there to bring you up to date.
I expect to be quite busy in the next few months with vending and travel, so the Jenny integration and second draft of this novel will no doubt be slow. But if you want to ride along while I journal about the “killing” of a fan/character, stay tuned. It promises to be fun!