Favorite scenes of 2020
It’s December, and as 2020 proceeds (okay, staggers exhausted like John McClane at the end of DIE HARD) towards the end of the year, it’s natural to look back at the past twelve months.
Here are my favorite scenes of the books I’ve published in 2020. Note that this post has mild SPOILERS!!! for everything I’ve published in 2020 except for WRAITHSHARD: WRATH & BATTLE, which is new enough that I don’t want to mention any details since not many people would have been able to finish it yet.
So, it that in mind, here are my favorite scenes from 2020!
-Nadia vs. Mr. Hood in CLOAK OF ASHES. In CLOAK MAGE, Nadia is in a weird position in terms of magical strength. She’s stronger than most wizards she encounters, but outclassed by archmages like Tarlia and Morvilind and Prince Valcander, who are practically armies in their own right. But Mr. Hood is about her match in strength and slightly exceeds her skill in some areas, so that was a fun fight to write.
-Rzarn Malvaxon’s last scene in DRAGONTIARNA: CROWNS. Malvaxon, like all the dvargir nobles, is extremely good at keeping the letter of his agreements while weaseling out of them, a skill that serves him very well right up until he encounters Warlord Agravhask.
-Lucan realizing that Tymaen is still alive in WRAITHSHARD: SIEGE & STORM. Poor Lucan! The WRAITHSHARD series is basically Lucan’s second chance after he screwed up everything back in DEMONSOULED, but he’s going to have to earn it.
-Mazael’s and Lucan’s meeting in WRAITHSHARD: MAGE & KNIGHT. Mazael is still really, really angry at Lucan after he screwed up everything back in DEMONSOULED, and he wants to kill Lucan (again) for it. Indeed, it seems like killing Lucan is both the sensible course of action and the morally correct thing to do.
-Niall and Moriah’s long escape in DRAGONTIARNA: CROWNS. It combined a chase sequence and a dungeon crawl, two of my favorite kinds of scenes to write. And they’ve both been through the wringer in the DRAGONTIARNA series, so it was nice to give them a win.
-Caina meeting “Countess Kalthane” for the first time in GHOST IN THE VISION. The meeting between Caina and the Countess has been building up ever since Caina met Sebastian Scorneus for the first time back in GHOST IN THE RING, and later Caina found out that Kalthane has been essentially bankrolling the Empire’s war effort against the Umbarian Order. But why? All is revealed in GHOST IN THE VISION, and Kalthane is what Caina might have been if her life had taken a different turn.
-The final sequence of WRAITHSHARD: WRATH & BATTLE. No spoilers here!
Now, for my favorite scene of 2020:
-The Battle of Shadow Crown Hill in DRAGONTIARNA: DEFENDERS. That was a fun battle to write, since it was basically a climax of a lot of subplots since the second book in the DRAGONTIARNA series. The “fog of war” is both a concept in real life, and a very useful tool in fiction, and the Battle of Shadow Crown Hill was shrouded in that fog. Ridmark went into the battle with a plan. Accolon had a plan. Merovech had a plan. The Theophract had a plan…and all their plans crashed into each other like trucks ignoring the stoplights at a four-way intersection.
Thanks for reading, everyone, and looking forward to writing more scenes in 2021!
-JM