Project updates: July 2025
Progress on the sequel to The Good Killers
Hello everyone. It’s been a month since my last update so I’m letting you know that work is continuing on the sequel to The Good Killers.
They Also Breathe Fire: this is the sequel to the first book in the Ben Rossi/Riley Lopez series, The Good Killers.
This book has been really kicking my butt. I’ve been struggling for months with the characters and the plot.
Finally, in early July, the book snapped into focus.
Because I realized the book isn’t about Ben Rossi.
This one is about Riley Lopez.
So, on the positive side, the plot really came together at that point. By defining the story on Riley’s terms, the choice of antagonist also became more easily defined. The themes of the book also fell into place.
I’m not sure, exactly, why this happened. All my planning up to this point was to have Ben Rossi continue as the lead from The Good Killers. But the more I’ve worked on the sequel, the more I realize it’s her story and she has the most to lose if she fails, and the most to gain if she succeeds.
It’s been a tremendous challenge writing a female protagonist and I’ve been leaning heavily on the many women in my life for advice and information regarding everything from hairstyle choices to emotional reactions and motivations.
Speaking of that, my research load has basically doubled, and I’ve been leaning on some of the new AI tools to speed up the research process. Since Riley is a cop, They Also Breathe Fire includes many details of police procedure and internal police department politics. I mean to say, I can handle the larger topics, but there are a ton of details that go into a novel and they all need to be researched. For example, I was able to learn just what I needed about police radio frequency interoperability in less than 20 minutes and use that to add some color to a scene. Ordinarily, I would have had to go down many internet rabbit holes to find that information.
Additionally, I’ve been able to use image generation tools to create what I call “visual character references” such as the image of Riley used in this article. While these are imperfect AI generated images, and frankly I don’t care if they’re not photo-realistic, they allow me to see how a character reacts in a space. For example, writing Ben Rossi is easy, because I’m a guy. I don’t need to think much about how Ben interacts with the space around him: how he stands, how he moves. Riley, however, is a woman. And beyond that, she’s a tall woman. Creating a visual character reference for Riley, and placing her in different situations, allows me to portray her more accurately on the page. It also saves me from a lot of awkward conversations with women that start out with “How tall are you?”
Riley is also a fun and interesting character to write. She’s intelligent, she’s literate, she’s snarky, and unlike a lot of her contemporaries in mystery fiction, she really enjoys being a cop. I’ve also enjoyed getting into her backstory and exploring other aspects of her personality, which come into play in the book. Her approach to problems is also different from other characters I’ve created, so that’s a refreshing challenge.
While this book includes a murder mystery, the main focus is still on the thriller side of the genre. Now, however, I’ve branched out to include a romantic subplot. We also learn more about the shadowy syndicate that appears to be driving organize crime throughout upstate and western New York State, and across the border into Canada.
If you’re a fan of the Ben Rossi character, don’t worry, he’s still in the book.
I’ve mentioned in other updates that the majority of my readers seem to be women (and people who identify as women), which tracks with men actually being in the minority of readers for the mystery/thriller genre. I hope that Riley is received well by that part of my readership and that I’ve done her justice as a character.
Wrapping this up, then, I have the plot and characters established for this book, and I’m beginning to write out all the individual scenes. Currently, there are 60 scenes spread out across three acts. I’m aiming for about 15-20 chapters and a total word count of around 90K, or about the same length and complexity as The Good Killers. We’ll see how this turns out.
I hope everyone is having a good summer!
If you haven’t yet, check out the first novel in the Rossi/Lopez series, The Good Killers (ad).
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