My ten favorite scenes of 2023

Note that this post has SPOILERS for every single thing I published in 2023, so stop reading now if you’re not caught up!

I thought it would be interesting to look back at 2023 and talk about some of my favorite scenes to write from the last year. As an added bonus, when I wrote out this list it turned out to be ten scenes, which is convenient since all the news sites run their Top 10 articles at this time of year anyway.

Reminder, SPOILERS!!!

Here they are in no particular order.

1.) Nadia bursts through the roof with Delaxsicoria in CLOAK OF DRAGONFIRE.

That was a fun one to write. I used to joke that I originally intended Nadia’s character arc to be a bad person reluctantly and against her will slowly turning into a good one, but what her plot arc actually turned out to be was Catwoman slowly turning into Gandalf.

Exploding through the roof of an athletic complex to save the day while riding a dragon was definitely one of the more Gandalf-esque things that Nadia has done.

The following scene where Nadia, Delaxsicoria, Varzalshinpol, and Tarthrunivor all chase Ferrunivar through the skies of southern California was pretty great as well.

2.) Caina deduces who Kalliope Agramemnos is in GHOST IN THE SERPENT.

I have to admit that for a while I knew it was likely Caina would have stepchildren she didn’t know about since she’s married to Kylon, who used to strive to be a model Kyracian noble, and Kyracian nobles in general tend to regard abstinence as something to be avoided at best and a disgraceful vice at worst. But for a while I didn’t know how to write it in a way that would be interesting.

If the mother died and Caina was left to raise the stepchildren, that would be lazy writing.  It would also be lazy writing if everyone got along. There’s an apocryphal story that for a while in the 2000s, all these newly remarried middle-aged screenwriters kept pitching sitcoms where a screenwriter, his new, younger wife, and his ex-wife all lived in harmony together. The studio execs, while not always known for their firm grasp upon reality, always rejected these ideas because they knew a majority of the female half of the audience would hate it. So a scenario where Caina, Kylon, and Kalliope all got along seemed likely equally lazy writing.

But what if Kylon and Kalliope couldn’t stand each other? And Kylon had further grievances against Kalliope because she had never told him about the children? But Kalliope ends up being in awe of and a little frightened of Caina? So the dynamic is that Kylon and Kalliope can’t stand each other, but Caina keeps the peace between them? I thought that might turn out to be pretty interesting to write.

Especially since this would be happening while Caina is one of the few people who know how dangerous the Cult of Rhadamathar really is.

3.) Delaxsicoria tells Nadia not to be so hard on herself in CLOAK OF DRAGONFIRE.

The unlikely friendship between Della and Nadia has been fun to write throughout the CLOAK MAGE series and side stories. From Della’s perspective of course they would be friends – Nadia caught the murderer of her uncle, and Nadia is wound up tighter than a spring and doesn’t relax very much. Nadia, of course, is a little baffled by this, especially since she doesn’t really have any interest in music, which is Della’s great passion. So they have a great dynamic, and we’ll see more of that in future books.

4.) Sir Telemachus and Niara kill Mharoslav in DRAGONSKULL: WRATH OF THE WARLOCK.

This was fun because Mharoslav always got away from or got the best of the heroes in their previous encounters, including nearly killing Telemachus in the process. Telemachus decided that he would sacrifice himself in seeking vengeance against Mharoslav

Then he met Niara. Niara comes from the General Patton school of warfare – dying for your country is a fine thing, but it’s way better to make the other jerk die for his country. Her utter loathing for all wielders of dark magic played into that as well, allowing her to show the way for Telemachus to defeat Mharoslav at last.

5.) Myotharia versus Xothalaxiar in DRAGONSKULL: DOOM OF THE SORCERESS.

I have to admit Myotharia was originally going to die in the final battle of DRAGONSKULL: FURY OF THE BARBARIANS. But she was such a great character that I felt I could get more narrative mileage out of the poor woman. 🙂 I always knew from the beginning of the series that Niara was going to have to fight Xothalaxiar for the final time, and Myotharia lost everything to the urdmordar. So I realized that having Myotharia join the fight against Xothalaxiar would give her a sort of emotional catharsis, and help set Niara onto a path other than seeking her own death in battle.

6.) Thunderbolt.

I lucked out with Thunderbolt’s character in the SILENT ORDER series. I charted out the rest of the SILENT ORDER series waaaay back in 2021, which is when Thunderbolt was first mentioned in SILENT ORDER: ROYAL HAND. I originally envisioned her as the sort of classic STAR TREK Evil Sentient Computer, the sort of computer Captain Kirk would have to talk into a logic loop every other week.

But! Then in 2022 and 2023 ChatGPT and Bing Chat came along, and they were terrible! For a while, the various insane ramblings of ChatGPT and Bing Chat regularly made the news. So when it was time to write SILENT ORDER: THUNDER HAND, I based Thunderbolt’s personality off some of ChatGPT’s more hilarious public meltdowns. Though I left it ambiguous just how insane Thunderbolt actually was and how much of her behavior was just screwing with people to put them off their balance. By the end, Jack March definitely suspected the latter.

7.) The Battle of Calaskar.

The entire Battle of Calaskar sequence in SILENT ORDER: PULSE HAND was fun to write because I’ve been thinking about it for ages, since I’ve had a clear endpoint for the SILENT ORDER series in my head for a while. I liked how it was able to bring back Admiral Stormreel, the Navigators, the Calaskaran Navy, and a bunch of other elements from the series for the Grand Finale.

8.) Gareth figures out the Dragonskull.

I liked the final confrontation with Azalmora in DRAGONSKULL: CROWN OF THE GODS. Azalmora was such a self-controlled and intellectual villain that I wanted her end to be intellectual, sort of a moment of revelation that kills her. When Gareth figures out the nature of the Dragonskull itself and the way the xortami twisted it with their dark magic, he’s able to use that against Azalmora, and in her final moment she understands the true nature of the Dragonskull. Albeit briefly. 🙂

9.) Riordan MacCormac vs Michael Durst.

This was a fun scene to write in CLOAK OF EMBERS. Durst had been an arc villain over the last few books. He proudly considered himself a monster, but then he had the bad luck to start working for Maestro, who was just as evil as he was but without any of his self-destructive indulgences. So it was little wonder that Durst found himself dragged into Maestro’s orbit, even if he didn’t realize what was happening. (The scene where Durst goes to kill Maestro and instead she talks him into doing exactly what she wants was also pretty great.)

Even if Durst didn’t want to kill Nadia, Riordan would still have fought him to the death, because Durst represents a rejection of self-control and responsibility, something Riordan finds utterly abhorrent. And unlike Durst, Riordan knew that a moment of reckoning was coming, which was why he practiced and trained so much with Sir Trandor, while Durst simply went begging to the Dark Ones for power.

So the final showdown between Riordan and Durst was quite fun to write.

10.) Rivah and the Magister’s Tower.

When I plotted out Rivah’s heist of Ramarion’s tower in HALF-ELVEN THIEF, I didn’t get too detailed in my outline as to what the inside of the tower would look like. I just knew I wanted it to be as weird and freaky and unsettling as possible, with a lot of Evil Wizard Stuff cluttering up the place. Several people have told me Rivah’s venture into the tower was their favorite part of the book, so I think I succeeded!

So those were my ten favorite scenes that I wrote in 2023. Thanks for reading, everyone!

-JM