My Favorite Song & Shadow Character

Picking favorite characters is like picking favorite children. I’d like to deny that I have favorites, but secretly, everyone does, and it changes depending on the day. And just like favorite children, favorite characters change depending on what I’m writing, where I am in the midst of my characters’ development, and just my mood.

So for today, I’d say my favorite character from the Song & Shadow trilogy is Tiresias.

When I began character planning the Song & Shadow series, I knew that Constance would meet a mentor figure in Limbo. And I knew that I wanted that mentor figure to be someone somewhat grounded in “reality.” Reality being a loose term here, of course, because obviously Tiresias is a fictional character. But Tiresias is someone that people could identify—I think just about everyone has read Antigone or Oedipus Rex or one of the Greek stories that he shows up in.

One of the tricks of making paranormal fiction seem plausible is having firm roots in the real world and then twisting aspects of it on its head. By populating Song & Shadow with familiar (if fictional) characters, it adds that element of the known that roots the story in reality. It’s fun to have a blend of both worlds.

Tiresias did that for me, and it has been a pleasure to flesh him out as an actual character, and not just the one-dimensional blind seer from old Greek literature. It’s been fun to play with his back story, and fun to play with common attributes, such as the blindness and the golden cane that was a gift from Athena. The rest of it—the long white beard, his short stature, the rosy cheeks, and other details were my own version of him that brought him to life. And I really like him because he knows Constance’s true potential (I’m not giving any hints here!), and although Constance doesn’t see it herself, she’s going to come to depend on Tiresias in big ways. But that’s further down the road, so you’ll have to read Possession,  Illusion, and then see what the future holds for both Tiresias and Constance in Obsession.