What A Character! - Crowley

I've always felt that the hallmark of good, strong fiction was a cast of characters who felt real, no matter who or what they were.  By the time I've finished a book, if I wanted to know more about them, or felt like I had made friends, it's a good one.  I feel particularly fortunate and grateful that so many readers have told me that Lines of Power is full of such characters ... and I decided it might be fun to let you get to know them a little more, one by one.   So now, once a month or so, I'll be starting a new feature here on Between The Lines ...

Given my recent blog about hopepunk as a genre and what it represents, it seemed only natural to start with the character who embodies it most, and who has been in every single novel so far: Crowley.  Some of you who have only read From the Desk of Buster Heywood know him as The Spanner, and in The Proper Bearing, he goes by another nickname for a while: Topper.   But none of these are his real name, which remains to be disclosed (sorry, no spoilers here - yet).  Crowley is, however, his favorite of his nicknames, and the one his friends and colleagues in the Organization know him by.  

Jeremiah’s latest patron was an older man who looked to be somewhere in his forties, judging by the furrows at the corners of his mouth and the sallow circles under his eyes.  His dirty blonde hair fell in disheveled spikes over his forehead, and to Buster’s great intrigue, a few shocks of bright blue and green dye accented the style.  The worn-out leather jacket he wore was covered in patches, and his jeans were frayed at the knees and hems.  The overall effect may have spoken of some kind of midlife crisis, if the man hadn’t weaseled his way up to the bar as if he belonged there, grabbed the bottle of Crown Royal from where it sat at Daniel’s elbow, and taken a swallow straight from it. 

That image was how Crowley first appeared to me, fully formed and full of attitude.   The only difference is that when he's out and about as The Spanner, he sports a leather jacket instead of his usual denim vest - formerly a jacket, with the sleeves cut off, just as covered in buttons.  Each one of the buttons is either sarcastic, political, or punk in nature, and anyone who looks close will note that some of those political buttons date all the way back to the 60s, right along with the yellow smiley face he keeps front and center amid all that punk, right over his heart.   

While I was filling out the Organization, I knew that I'd need someone who kept to the darker side of its balance, someone who did the deeds nobler people would balk at doing.  A punk fit the bill nicely, but someone young wouldn't understand why it needed to be done: they'd only do trouble for trouble's sake.  I live in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire, where we have an annual tradition called Motorcycle Week(end).  Every June, the town next to mine is flooded with bikers who gather to participate in rides, races, and a myriad of other events, and a sea of vendor tents, entertainment pavillions, and leather and denim consumes us.   As such, I've seen more than my share of aging dudes with 'tudes, people who have had their inner anarchy tempered by time.  I knew that was exactly the sort of person the Organization needed, but I still lacked a face and a name ... until I picked up a Greatest Hits CD of a certain musician on a whim.   Listening to it in the car, a particular line struck me like a bolt from the blue, and with it, came not only the face, but Crowley's singular name. 

I've never done good things / I've never done bad things / I never did anything out of the blue

Crowley - a name that instantly evokes the darker side of magic: occult secrets, meetings in the dead of night, rituals with daggers, all the negative aspects of modern new age witchcraft.  It's the sort of name someone slated to cause trouble would use to his absolute advantage.  And just like that, I could picture im lounging in my passenger seat, hanging an arm out the window to flick his cigarette ashes out into the road.  And we had a nice little conversation about where he was from, and what he did for Janus, and what some of his favorite moments were.  I won't spoil them all - they're bound to make their way into future Lines of Power installments - but I will say that he was among the bikers at Altamont, and that the mining story he tells Miles in The Proper Bearing was prior to his joining the Organization.   Also, a fun fact for those who've read In The Cards: he wasn't Ral's original trainer!  That honor first belonged to Felicia Sabrien, the Enforcer who becomes Janus' right-hand-woman.  See one of the stories in "Finders Keepers" for the details...   

Clearly, there's a lot more to Crowley than just his attitude and his penchant for showing up to annoy the heroes of my tales.  He has his own story to tell, and it will likely come out in small pieces over the course of everyone else's.  As much as I'd love to give him his own novel, it doesn't really seem his style.  The devil is in the details, and he's content to stay there.  In the meantime, I take comfort and pleasure in knowing that he's out there, somewhere, no matter what I'm writing, making sure things don't go too well.  I have to be able to give my heroes something to fix, after all.  It's a good working relationship, and one I'm glad to have.  

Want more Crowley?  You can find him in everything on the Novels & Short Stories page, with the exception of Times of Trouble: try as I might, I couldn't find an easy spot for him there.   Got a favorite Crowley scene?  Or maybe you've got a question about him I didn't address?   Hit up the comments section, let's talk!  I love character chats.  

Until next time, I remain your hostess,