Nicole Eatough's Blog, page 6

Genie Wizards Gone Rogue!

Sometimes, characters in a story just end up going rouge. This is what happened with the genie wizards who entered The Genie Whisperer way late in the game – those who appeared in the very last book. 

Inspiration

While I was writing book thirteen of The Genie Whisperer, I decided that I should include a few more wizards to help with the spell to free the genies. After all, if I have performing the spell be such a heavy burden on the two genie whisperers, shouldn’t it be a big burden on the wizards too? Unless, of course, they grab a few more to help out!

However, I only planned for the extra wizards to just kind of be around under the genies’ control and help out from the sidelines, which was the way my outline for the last book had them all written. But when I was writing the actual book, they ended up becoming bigger characters than I’d originally intended, so I had to go back to my handy dandy Genie Whisperer story wiki and flesh out their characters a bit more to give them more individual personalities and motivations.  

I ended up becoming quite fond of many of the additional wizards, and I hope readers feel the same! 

Mynoch, arguably, was also a character who went rogue near the end. I genuinely didn’t know if he would side with Ali or Malik for quite a while, though I knew he would play an important role either way. I’m grateful for the side he landed on, because it was quite fun to write him that way – and I love a redeemable villain. 

The post Genie Wizards Gone Rogue! first appeared on Nicole Eatough.

Favorite Scenes: End of The Genie Whisperer

Now that The Genie Whisperer has finished publishing, I figured I would write about some of my favorite scenes that happened near the end of the series! Which, of course, means this post contains spoilers if you haven’t finished the series yet. 

Inspiration

First off for my favorites is stealing more genies. Book ten, The Gathering of Allies, was quite possibly the most fun of all the books to write. Originally, I wrote stealing Mynoch as Ali and the gang always planning for Mynoch to join them, but then I decided it would be much more fun to write it as they only intended to steal his gem to panic The Society, NOT actually have Mynoch be part of their group. That added a whole new layer of fun, especially with other people they try to recruit who are very concerned about Mynoch’s presence. 

And Storm stealing himself was a scene I had planned from the first moment I intended to bring him into the series. Writing him period was just fun, but I especially loved the scene where he sneaks his gem and hands it to Ali. I feel both Storm and Mynoch add a bit of a chaotic air just by being around, though Storm’s brand of chaos is more fun, while Mynoch’s is more sinister.

Another favorite scene of mine in these last books is Tavor and Darios arguing over Ali giving up her life. I’ve known that Ali would risk her life to grant the genies freedom since early on, so also had this scene planned out from fairly early on. Having Darios refuse to sacrifice Ali because he’s being selfish, and arguing he’s always been that way, was particularly fun. Though part of the fun of that scene might have also been Tavor needing Darios’s help and Darios being powerful enough to flat out refuse. 

My next two favorite scenes involve the same characters above – Darios and Tavor, though separately this time. The first is Darios’s love confession. Unlike many other scenes with him, this isn’t one I’d had in mind for a long time, but I was really looking forward to finally writing him confession his feelings. For a long time I wasn’t sure when or how he would do it, but I’m quite pleased with how it turned out. 

The final scene I’ll touch on is Tavor being willing to give up his life alongside Ali to free the genies. He so obsessed with freedom (hopefully understandably) that making him a viable love interest was a bit difficult. My sister and I discussed how we felt in many love stories, the love interests choose each other over the “greater good” and then things end up working out. Some of the genies, like Garan, Rajan, and Darios, are more than willing to choose Ali over the greater good, but that’s not Tavor and it was never going to be. So trying to figure out a way for him work as a love interest without him alienating readers too much was difficult. I was quite pleased with the idea I had for how Tavor could, in a way, choose both Ali and freedom in the end. I hope his choice touched the hearts of some readers and redeemed him in the eyes of some others. 

All that being said, I hope readers had many favorite scenes within these last few books and thoroughly enjoyed the ending of the series! 

The post Favorite Scenes: End of The Genie Whisperer first appeared on Nicole Eatough.

Foreshadowing – Final Genie Whisperer Books

As one can likely tell from the title, today’s post contains spoilers for the last books of The Genie Whisperer. Proceed with caution if you haven’t finished reading the series yet!

Inspiration

As many readers know, I adore foreshadowing in books. I love reading it, I love planning it, I love writing it. Now that The Genie Whisperer has finished publishing, I figured I’d do one final post about the foreshadowing in the series regarding events in the last books.  

First up is Aurora, Ren’s mom. She is first brought up way back in book two, The Perilous Gems, when it’s mentioned that Ren is only half genie wizard. At the time I wasn’t sure if I would bring her into the story, but I liked the option of having that foreshadow already in place, and it wasn’t a big enough mention to bother anyone if Ren’s mom didn’t end up playing an actual role in the story. 

Then I had Ren’s mom appear in the story in book ten, The Gathering of Allies, during a flashback, as well Ren talking to her on the phone in book eleven, The Gathering of Enemies. I admit that with bringing her in a little more, I still didn’t originally plan for her to be a very big character until it got to the point of Ren joining Ali’s little gang. At that point, I realized he couldn’t possibly join them without bringing his mom along. I still debated whether Aurora’s involvement would be more of an offscreen scene or if she would stick around. I ended up loving her character so much that I wanted her to stick around. Plus, I wanted Ali to have a positive female role model to talk to, and it was so much fun having that role model be Ren’s mom. 

This next foreshadow was also brought up much earlier in the series and that is the Voltaire’s missing universal genie! He was an antagonist I had planned out for SO long. I really wanted a good foil for Tavor, which meant it had to be someone powerful. I also wanted to show off that while Tavor might makes some decisions that upsets readers, he’s actually really responsible and caring for a universal. When it comes to his class of genie, he’s not a particularly selfish one. Sometimes, it’s all about perspective. 

 As for the actual foreshadows, I first mention the missing Voltaire universal genie in book five, The Doorway to the Future when the wizards mentions that the Voltaires lost their universal a while ago, so will probably get Tavor. (The wizards say this, of course, when they believe they’ve overpowered and defeated Ali and her genies.) Then the missing universal is mentioned again in book eight, The Stolen Truth, when Gary mentions that the Voltaires are on to Tavor and his plans in some fashion and Tavor mentions that at least they don’t have their universal anymore, indicating to readers that this is a genie Tavor would prefer not to encounter. The missing universal is also, ironically, mentioned by Tristan himself in book nine, The Three R’s of Genie Whispering. 

 This genie is also technically called out in book four, The Doorway of Possibilities, except its not mentioned that its the Voltaire’s missing universal genie. This reference is when Tavor says there were genies who helped form the Archives who he wouldn’t bet on himself in a fight against. 

The last foreshadow I’ll talk about is the possibility of destroying genies once and for all. Nicolo himself brought this up back in book eight when he’s so offended at the idea of ancient scrolls containing a way for wizards to steal genies from their masters. That idea was, of course, a lie made up by Ali to explain her presence at the Villa of the Papyri, but Nicolo believed she really was searching for that at the time. 

I hope that readers have enjoyed the foreshadowing in the series as much as I enjoyed writing them! 

The post Foreshadowing – Final Genie Whisperer Books first appeared on Nicole Eatough.

The Genie Whisperer – Original Ending Ideas

Warning: This post contains major spoilers for the ending of The Genie Whisperer series. Proceed with caution if you haven’t finished reading it yet!

Inspiration

Often with writing a book, things don’t always turn out quite like the author expects. Things change so an idea no longer makes sense. You get a better idea of how to handle something. You realize your idea causes a plot hole. Things like that. With The Genie Whisperer, a couple things I planned on didn’t end up working out or ended up changing. 

A big one is that I originally planned for Lynron and Badan to also end up with Ali  in the end when I began writing this series. However, in another post I also mentioned that I originally planned for this series to have three more books than it ended up having and it was in those books that things were really supposed to change in Ali’s relationship with Badan and Lynron. At first even with that story arc getting cut, I still planned to have Ali end up with them. Except when I tried to write it, it felt so forced. With Lynron being so massively afraid to trust others and Badan being so stuck on the proper way to treat Ali I just no longer had time to organically make it happen, so that ended up getting nixed. 

I’m a little sad for Lynron, because I feel like given enough time, he would have fallen for Ali and it would have been adorable. However I’m quite satisfied with how Badan’s story turned out. He’s very happy being close friends with Leonardo, and I ended up really enjoying their friendship. And Lynron can still be a great uncle to any kids Ali and her genies have 😉 

Another significant change is what happens with Ali’s mom. Originally, I did plan for her and Ali to eventually reconcile. However, when Aurora appears in book twelve, I fell in love with the idea of her and Leonardo getting together and her becoming Ali’s step-mom. I was also okay with giving the message that cutting toxic people, even family, out of your life is okay, because sometimes that is the right thing to do. And I thought Ali and Ren as step-siblings would be cute. 

This last change is something I ended up adding rather than removing or swapping, like with the two examples above. Originally, Gary was going to be Ali’s only genie ancestor. Then when I was fleshing out Mynoch’s character by developing his backstory with his wife, son, and daughter, I had the thought that it would be interesting to delve a little more into their family dynamics and how their story ends up . . . except it would be depressing because it would end with everyone except Mynoch dead and with him thrown into slavery.

Then I had the thought that would be the ending unless Mynoch’s daughter escaped with Gary’s son and they got married and worked together on how to free their dads! That made things less depressing, and I kind of really loved the idea of Mynoch also being Ali’s ancestor. The question then became: How could Mynoch discover Ali was his many time great-granddaughter? 

I had the idea to make Mynoch Ali’s ancestor after finishing the second draft of book 13 and while plotting book 14, and since Mynoch hadn’t ever really looked at the parchment passed down through Ali’s family, I decided that was how Mynoch would figure things out. It was a fun element to bring in, and I’m glad I did. Mynoch was an interesting character to work with and have around, so I loved giving him family members in the present day to see how that affected him.

While I’m sure there will be readers who are disappointed that Badan and Lynron didn’t end up with Ali, I hope that overall you were satisfied with how the series ended.

The post The Genie Whisperer – Original Ending Ideas first appeared on Nicole Eatough.

Story Inspiration – Seduction Genie

The seduction genie ends up playing an important role in the last book of The Genie Whisperer, and, ironically, I’m not sure if I ever would have come up with that class of genie without the work of my cover artist. 

Inspiration

My cover designer digitally designed, drew, and colored each of the genie’s gems. After designing the gems for the seven main genies, she got in a bit of a gem making mode where she made several more gems for practice, some of which she became quite fond of, so she jokingly told me I had to use them. Even though she was joking, I did still consider what class of genie might come from the gems she’d created. 

One of those gems was a gray diamond, and since I knew the storm genie I was already planning on bringing into the story would have a gray color scheme, I knew that I would easily use that gem in the covers. She also had both a pink and a purple gem and I felt like either of those might relate to to a genie whose abilities had to do with love/lust, hence the idea of a seduction genie. I debated between which of the gems to use for her on the covers, but since my cover artist was more attached to the pink gem, we went with that. 

It’s lucky for my cover artist that I was already planning adventures involving Ali’s group grabbing more genies from early on! Otherwise, those lovely gems probably wouldn’t have gotten used. But since I needed more genies anyway, it was kind of fun to think of what class of genie her gems might relate to. 

She also, somewhat ironically, started creating darker green gems for Mynoch after reading book four, before knowing that he would join the fray. But when he did, she already had a gem already to go for him! This work she’d already done with all these gems made the covers for books ten and eleven easier, though crafting the gem for the gravity genie was a little tricky for her because I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted for that one. I’m happy with what she came up with though and even ended up adjusting my original idea for a gravity genie’s colors to match the gem she created. 

I feel like the moral of the story is that covers are important even for writing! Which is why I try to come up with the concepts of my covers before writing a single word of the book. 

The post Story Inspiration – Seduction Genie first appeared on Nicole Eatough.

Writing Mistakes – Genie Names (Again)

Early on, I wrote a post about struggling over revealing the genies’ true names in the genie whisperer books before I should. I knew their names, after all, so I sometimes mistakenly wrote the real names instead of the nicknames Ali was supposed to use. The only genies I didn’t struggle with this were Badan and Lynron, mostly because I didn’t settle on their true names until later in the series, making it easy not to make that mistake. 

After Ali knew the true names of everyone revealed by the end of book two, I thought I could breathe a sigh of relief. For the rest of the series, I no longer had to worry about using the nicknames instead of the real names. Except, things didn’t stay that way. 

Inspiration

Beginning in book ten, I introduced humans, genie wizards, and new genies into the series, once again making it so that Ali needed to use her nicknames for her genies so as not to reveal their precious true names. Except I forgot all about that 😓 Thankfully, a beta reader pointed out that the genies wouldn’t want their real name revealed to all those people, so Ali (though more meaning me) needed to be more careful with that. 

So in my next edit, I tried to pay extra special attention to what Ali called her genies whenever anyone outside the core group was around, and I tried to be mindful of that with the rest of the books. I thought I was SO careful with book eleven, but when my editor returned that book, she told me I needed to be more mindful of that 😅 I think I managed it better for the remaining three books in the series though. 

I also struggled not to reveal the genies’ real names in social media posts before they were revealed in the books, something I particularly struggled with with Badan and Lynron since their names aren’t revealed until much later in the series. Luckily, I’m pretty sure I always caught myself before actually publishing any of those posts! 

The genies having names they didn’t normally share with anyone other than genies was a fun aspect of the series, though ended up being a little more complicated in practice than I originally anticipated. 

The post first appeared on Nicole Eatough.

Book 14 Release – The Sacrificial Gem

The end of a journey . . . I honestly don’t know how we’ve reached FOURTEEN books within two years. I keep calculating the dates over and over again, thinking there’s no possible way I will have published that many books in that time frame. But I did. (Mind you, I didn’t write fourteen books in two years because of what I wrote before publishing anything, but I digress.) 

Next Monday marks the release of the final Genie Whisperer book, The Sacrificial Gem. This cover is probably my favorite of all of them, with all the gems . . . except for Badan’s, since he’s no longer Ali’s genie. 

Inspiration

I admit that as I finished up writing the last book – and at a couple other points along the way – I got a bit teary eyed. Not because of the content in the book, but because this was the last book in a series where I’ve spent hours with these characters nearly every day for years. Ali and her genies have been a massive part of my life, and it really does make me sad to be at the end of their story.

But it’s also satisfying. One of the important things about the ending of a series is that the ending is earned. And I very much feel Ali and the genies earned this ending. Though there is a ton to cover in this book. Fixing the mess at the end of the last book where nearly all the genies were taken, the question of genie freedom (the most important of all since it’s the whole point of this series according to Tavor), and then the fallout of how that turns out. 

One of my beta readers upon finishing book fourteen informed me I should do a sequel series, and while I would love to do a continuation, I’m now deep in the world of The Hidden Hotel, a series my newsletter subscribers voted to be my next series about a young human woman who finds herself working at a hotel for supernaturals where she attracts the interest of several powerful figures. The second book is with my editor right now and I’m so excited to reveal more about that trilogy! But not until later. Because first we have to finish up The Genie Whisperer ;) 

I hope that everyone who’s stayed with the series for all fourteen books has thoroughly enjoyed the genies and all their adventures and finds the ending as satisfying as I do. 

The post Book 14 Release – The Sacrificial Gem first appeared on Nicole Eatough.

Foreshadowing Galore!

As I’ve mentioned previously, I adore foreshadowing in stories, especially when it spans across books. I think it leads to a richer reading experience, and makes rereading so fun when you can catch things you missed the first time around because you didn’t know what was coming. In the Season Four books (The Gathering of Allies and The Gathering of Enemies), I finally got to fulfill a whole bunch of things (or people, I suppose I should say) that had been foreshadowed!

WARNING: As one might imagine, this post contains spoilers if you haven’t finished reading Season Four yet. 

Inspiration

Going in order of all the foreshadowed people who appear in these books, first up is Mynoch! He was first brought into the series (in a vague sense of the word) as an antagonists during Season Two, so I hope readers were either excited or quite surprised for him to actually show up in person. 

While I was writing about the Archives, I didn’t know for sure if I would bring the actual Mynoch into the series, but I did already know I wanted Tavor to suggest they grab more genies, and I thought it would be fun to include a genie readers where somewhat familiar with. Mynoch felt like a great choice because there was lots of justification for them to grab him (even if there was lots not to as well!). And my cover artist was so excited at the idea of Mynoch appearing that she drew up some concept designs for his gem before I ever decided to bring him back, so we already had those all ready to go for the book ten cover when it came time. 

Number two of the foreshadowed people who show up in Season Four is two different beings, and that is Jace and the gravity genie. Like Mynoch, these two were first introduced during Season Two at the Archives. The fire genie who Tavor locked away in her gem suggested they grab this particular gravity genie, and Tavor spoke with Jace on the phone. Again, I wasn’t sure if I would actually bring Jace into the series more fully, but he was a nice, reasonable young man, and I thought it would be nice to show readers that not all Society members are crazy. We also have that with Tristan, but I wanted to utilize Jace as well since he’d already been brought up in earlier books. 

Next up is Ren and Josiah’s storm genie! I imagine many readers figured Ren and Ali would cross paths again someday since he stuck around in the background. And he wasn’t killed like every other McMichael family wizard. He was kept around for the express purpose of joining Ali’s group, but the question now is: Can he really be trusted? As for Storm, he is the storm mentioned mentioned way back in book three, The Three C’s of Genie Whispering. I knew that I wanted to bring that storm genie into the story because with the gang gathering new genies, I thought it would add an interesting dynamic if at least some of them were already familiar with Ali’s genies. And I always planned for the storm genie to essentially steal himself after he realized what was going on.

I did originally plan for Storm to be from a random Society family, but when I was planning out the rest of the Voltaire’s genies other than the shadow genie that appears in book three (a list I literally didn’t make until they were officially listed in book nine), and I listed that they owned a storm genie, I thought, “Why not make the Voltaire’s storm genie be the one Ali steals? That will be extra fun!” With that decided, I gave the storm genie a cameo in book nine, The Three R’s of Genie Whispering, in addition to his mention in book three. I hope it was fun to get a glimpse of him ahead of time!

Number four on the list of foreshadowed characters brought in (since I’m grouping some of the others together) is Nicolo! At the end of book eight, The Stolen Truth, I put in a scene of Nicolo planning to leave the Guardians of Humanity. I admit that I wasn’t entirely certain I would bring him back at the time, but I wanted the option there, so left things ambiguous as to whether or not he was around for the final fight against the guardians. 

 Last up of the foreshadowed characters fully coming to light is the Voltaire family! You knew Ali and the gang had to meet up with them eventually, right? They’ve been hanging around in the background way since book three, after all. Since I knew early on that I wanted to pull another powerful Society family into the story and that they would play an important role, I wanted them on readers’ mind quickly. Hence why Maurice first appears and speaks with Tristan on the phone way back in book three. Though the Voltaire’s first mention is actually in book two, when the genie wizard Santiago mentions his niece working for them. Then the Voltaires are mentioned again in book five (because the wizards who think they’re going to steal Tavor assume he’ll be handed over to that family), and we see them briefly in book six. They’re also mentioned in books seven and eight via Gary the transformation genie, and then appear again in book nine during Gary’s spying before they finally make a full appearance in the story (meaning Ali meets them) in Season Four.

Goodness, that was a lot! I hope you all enjoyed Ali meeting up with all these characters. And that you’re looking forward to seeing what role many of these characters play in the series’ climax 😉 

The post Foreshadowing Galore! first appeared on Nicole Eatough.

Book 13 Release

We have made it to the very last season of The Genie Whisperer! I know that I expedited publishing the rest of the series, but I still can’t believe we’re somehow down to only two more books. 

WARNING: The below post contains spoilers for book nine, The Three F’s of Genie Whispering. 

Inspiration

The Deceptive Gem is probably the most dramatic of all the books (yes, even MORE dramatic than Tavor being such a jerk in book nine!). But with only two books left, the drama has gotta happen somewhere. 

I’m pleased to say that I believe this book has the villain some of my beta readers hated the very most. And the very best villains are either ones that readers love or hate. I admit that I rather enjoyed writing this villain. They have a lot more . . . personality, we’ll say, than some of the other villains in the series. There’s more I’d love to say, but I’d hate to spoil anything 🙂 

Though all of the drama in this book definitely isn’t the villain’s fault. Ali and her dad still haven’t worked things out between them, and the genies had to find out about the freedom spell killing Ali eventually. Unsurprisingly, some of them don’t take it very well. Which leads to one of my absolute favorite conversations between Darios and Tavor that I’ve been planning for ages. 

I hope you all enjoy! And remember, no matter how depressing things might get in this book, I promise a happily ever after ending for the series 🙂

The post Book 13 Release first appeared on Nicole Eatough.

There Are Two Kinds of People . . .

Occasionally, I take inspiration from my life for my stories. The below quote about bugs from book nine, The Three R’s of Genie Whispering, is one of them. 

Inspiration

I don’t know about your own experience in your families, but so many times I’ve walked into a room and picked out a bug that none of my family noticed. They used to accuse me of looking for them, but while I’m not a fan of bugs, I’m not so afraid of them that I have to scan a room for any before I can relax. It’s the different color and movement that catches my eye. The wall isn’t supposed to have a little black spot over there, after all. 

My family’s accusations led me to believe that there are just some people where this (color/movement on the wall and ceiling) catches their attention and some people who are oblivious to it, and I decided to give this same belief to Gary. So while he has super spy powers with being able to turn himself into tiny insects, he also has a bit of a fear of whether or not anyone around is one of those people who spots bugs without even trying. 

Also related to bugs, the inspiration for Ali’s fear of them came from my own fear of bugs, which is much less than it was when I was a teenager. But I may or may not still go get my big sister, who lives next door, when I find a ridiculously large bug in the house . . . (Though one time a spider was so big she went and got her husband, who swore at seeing it, which made me feel better about calling for back-up.) 

My grandma was also skilled in this ancient art of bug sighting, so perhaps I come by it naturally. (Though we also shared the same fear, so maybe there’s just a touch of paranoia about bugs that leads to this skill after all.) 

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