The Black Dagger Brotherhood

by J. R. Ward

  When I went back into the manuscript, I was one hundred percent committed to balls-to-the-walling it—and was surprised that there were really only three scenes that I markedly changed. Two were with Butch and V, with the newer content beginning on pages 209 and 369 respectively, and then I added the scene with V in the war camp that starts on page 287.

  The rest of the alterations or additions were relatively minor, but changed the tone of the Butch/V interactions entirely—proving that a little goes a long way. Take, for example, the opening pages of chapter thirteen (p. 135). Butch and V are in bed together, and V is healing Butch after the cop did his business with a lesser. If you read through the second, third, fourth, and fifth paragraphs of my first draft, you’ll note that V is admitting to himself he needs soothing in the form of another warm body next to his. It’s not Butch’s body specifically, however, and there is no mention of anything sexual. It’s purely a comfort thing: . . . With the visit from his mother and the shooting, he craved the closeness of another, needed to feel arms that returned his embrace. He had to have the beat of a heart against his own.

  He spent so much time keeping his hand away from others, keeping himself apart from others. To let down his guard with the one person he truly trusted made his eyes sting.

  —LOVER UNBOUND, p. 135

  What I added in the second draft were these two paragraphs:As Butch stretched out on Vishous’s bed, V was ashamed to admit it, but he’d spent a lot of days wondering what this would be like. Feel like. Smell like. Now that it was reality, he was glad he had to concentrate on healing Butch. Otherwise he had a feeling it would be too intense and he’d have to pull away. [p. 135]

  Butch shifted, his legs brushing against V’s through the blankets. With a stab of guilt, V recalled the times he’d imagined himself with Butch, imagined the two of them lying as they were now, imagined them . . . well, healing wasn’t the half of it. [p. 136]

  Much more honest about what was really going on. Much better. Could have gone even farther, but it was enough—so much so that it required me to add the few sentences that followed, to clarify for the reader that Jane was the object of V’s desire now.

  That’s the thing with writing. Books to me are like ships on oceanic courses. Small, incremental changes can have huge effects in their ultimate trajectory and destination. And the only way to get it right is to constantly reread and double-check and make sure that what’s on the page takes the reader where they have to go. Once I made those changes (there were a number of other places where I did a little tinkering—including, for example, the dagger scene in the beginning of the book where Butch lifts V’s chin up with the weapon Vishous just made for him), the writing in V’s POV got much easier.

  Bottom line? I look at the whole mess as yet another example of rule number eight at work: Once I was more true to what was in my head, the writing block was lifted.

  As for the scene from the war camp where V loses his virginity by taking another male? Man, I just wasn’t sure how people would view him after that one. The thing was, he wasn’t given a choice, and it was the standard of the camp: In hand-to-hand combat practice, losers were sexually dominated by winners. The key, I decided, was to show as much context as possible—and to depict V’s internal commitment after it was over that he would never do it again.

  After my editor read the new material, I was relieved when she said that it worked for her, but I remained concerned what the overall reader reaction was going to be. For me as an author, reader response is something that weighs on me, but in a curious way. It’s in my mind because unless people buy the books I write, I’m out of a job. But the thing is, I can’t write to please readers, because I truly don’t have much control over my stories. The best I can do, as I’ve said, is always be mindful and respectful and thoughtful with the challenging content. I suppose I kind of live by the motto, It’s not what you do, but how you do it.

  Funny, though. Little did I know that the negative reaction about V’s book would concern something else entirely.

  Which brings us to Jane.

  The third reason the book was so agonizing to write was because I got Jane wrong on the first pass. I’ll admit, I was so concerned with V that although I had plenty of scenes with Jane in the initial draft, the dynamic between the two of them was relatively lifeless. The problem was, I interpreted Jane as a cold scientist. What happened, then, was that there were two chilly, reserved people interacting, and that is about as much fun to write/read about as an ingredient list on a soup can.

  My editor figured it out, though. Jane was a healer, not a white lab coat. She was a warm, caring, compassionate woman who was more than just a repository for medical knowledge and know-how. On the second trip through the park with the manuscript, I tapped into Jane’s core, and the relationship between her and V started to sing, reflecting more what was in my head.

  On a side note, one of the first scenes that I saw for V and Jane hit me way back when I was writing Lover Awakened in 2005. I was running at the time, and this vision of V standing in front of a stove, stirring hot chocolate, suddenly came to me. I watched as he poured what was in the pan into a mug and handed it to a woman who knew he was going to leave her. Then I saw her standing at the window of her kitchen, looking out at V, who was outside in the shadows cast by a street lamp.

  That, of course, became the good-bye that starts on page 322 of their book.

  When the scenes from the Brothers come to me, they do not arrive in chronological order. For instance, visuals of Tohr and where he ultimately ends up hit me before Wellsie even died on the page. So, in the case of the hot-chocolate exchange for Lover Unbound, I was stuck wondering how in the hell Jane and V were going to end up together. The thing was, I knew she was a human, and I wanted for them what the others had, namely a good seven or eight centuries of mating. But with Jane not being a vampire, I had no clue how that was going to happen—plus I knew she got shot, because I’d seen V’s visions and knew what they meant, even if he didn’t. . . .

  When I outlined Lover Unbound, I just kept wondering how the two of them were going to have an HEA, and I was really worried. What if there wasn’t one at all? But then I got to the end . . . and saw Jane standing in V’s doorway as a ghost.

  I was actually relieved and thrilled. I was like, Oh, this is great! They get the long time frame!

  Unfortunately, some readers didn’t see it that way, and part of that I blame on myself.

  Usually when I get to the end of a book, I feel that although I wish I could refine the line-by-line writing even more (I’m never satisfied), I’m confident that the scenes themselves and the way the plotlines flow is rock-solid. I’m also fairly certain that I’ve given sufficient context and grounding for the reader so that they can see where things started, what happened, and how everything ended up.

  For me, I was so relieved about Jane and V’s future (with her life-span issue being resolved), that I took for granted readers would feel the same way. My mistake was that I underestimated the challenge to romantic convention with her being a ghost, and I was unaware that it would be a problem to the extent it was for some. I’ve been over and over the disconnect in my mind (the one between the market and my internal radar screen) and have decided that part of it is my background in reading horror and fantasy—because the resolution worked within the world and provided the hero and heroine with a solution, I just assumed it was okay.

  Except here’s the thing: Even if I had realized it was going to be a problem for certain folks, I wouldn’t have changed the ending, because anything else would have been a copout and a lie. I don’t write to the market and never have—the stories in my head are in charge, and even I don’t get to see what I want to happen in the world occur. That being said, if I were writing the book again, I’d put in another ten pages or so at the end with V and Jane interacting to show the happiness they both felt—so readers were superclear that in the couple’s minds things ended up just fine.

  T
he way I view it? This series has pushed a lot of boundaries, pushed them hard, but I’ve always been careful about the hows and the whys. I truly try to be respectful of the genre that gave me my start and has long been my book of choice—and romance is and will continue to be the basis of each of the Brotherhood books.

  On that note . . . V and Jane as a couple. Man, they were hot. I didn’t blush as much at the computer as I did with Butch, although whether that was because the cop brought me to a new level or I just expected that kind of stuff from V, I’m not sure.

  The scene where V’s in his bed and Jane is giving him a sponge bath was really erotic, and I saw everything about it so clearly. Especially this part where she’s, ah, attending to a certain place:. . . but then he moaned low in his throat and his head kicked back, his blue-black hair feathering over the black pillow. As his hips flexed upward, his stomach muscles tightened in a sequential rush, the tattoos at his groin stretching and returning to position.

  “Faster, Jane. You’re going to do it faster for me now.”

  —LOVER UNBOUND, p. 178

  For V, before Jane came along, sex and emotions were not linked at all. In fact, except for Butch, and to some extent the Brotherhood, emotions were just not a part of his life, and that makes sense. Growing up in the war camp left him with an attachment disorder that persisted into adulthood and colored his relationships. The question is, then, what made Jane—and for that matter Butch—different?

  I think Jane and Butch are a lot alike—for one thing, they’ve both got the smart-ass thing down. Take for instance this little volley between V and Jane, which is one of my favorite exchanges in all the books:“Don’t want you near that hand of mine. Even if it’s gloved.”

  “Why is—”

  “I’m not talking about it. So don’t even ask.”

  Okaaaay. “It nearly killed one of my nurses, you know.”

  “I’m not surprised.” He glared at the glove. “I’d cut it off if I had the chance.”

  “I wouldn’t advise that.”

  “Of course you wouldn’t. You don’t know what it’s like to live with this nightmare on the end of your arm—”

  “No, I meant I’d have someone else do the cutting if I were you. You’re more likely to get the job done that way.”

  There was a beat of silence; then the patient barked out a laugh.

  “Smart-ass.”

  —LOVER UNBOUND, pp. 171-172

  I also think V’s into Jane because she’s no weak and floundering woman. The scene of her abduction from the hospital shows that, especially here when Rhage has her over his shoulder, and Phury is trying to calm her using his mind control tricks:“You gotta knock her cold, my brother,” Rhage said, then grunted. “I don’t want to hurt her, and V said she had to come with us.”

  “This was not supposed to be a kidnap operation.”

  “Too fucking late. Now knock her out, would ya?” Rhage grunted again and switched his grip, his hand leaving her mouth to catch one of her flailing arms.

  Her voice came through loud and clear. “So help me, God, I’m going to—”

  Phury took her chin in his hand and forced her head up. “Relax,” he said softly. “Just ease up.”

  He locked his stare on hers and began to will her into calmness . . . will her into calmness . . . will her into—

  “Fuck you!” she spat. “I’m not letting you kill my patient!”

  —LOVER UNBOUND, p. 103

  At that moment, Jane reminds of me of Butch back in Dark Lover, after he brings Beth to Darius’s mansion and faces off at the Brothers. Even outnumbered, he’s still a fighter. And so is Jane.

  I also believe that both Jane and Butch are driven to do good in the world. Between her being a surgeon and Butch being a cop, the two of them are cut in the hero mold—so V has a lot of respect for them.

  Finally I suspect, as appears to be true for all the Brothers, there is a pheromone thing happening. The Brothers, and indeed all the males I’ve seen thus far, seem to bond instantaneously and irrevocably when they get into the vicinity of their mate. So I can only assume there’s some kind of instinctual component at work.

  But back to V and Jane. From my perspective, one of the strongest emotional exchanges in the book comes when V allows Jane to Dom him at his penthouse, right before he lets her go. For him to put himself at the mercy of someone sexually, considering what had been done to him the night of his transition when he was held down and partially castrated, is the biggest commitment he can make to another person. The scene, which starts on page 315, really shows him for the first time in his life choosing to be defenseless. Back in the war camp, as a pretrans, he was vulnerable by circumstance and physical design, and he’s spent the rest of his life making sure he’s never at the mercy of anyone. With Jane, however, he is willingly giving himself over to someone else. It’s a declaration of love that goes farther than words.

  And again, that’s my point about sex scenes. Yes, that stuff between them was hot, but it’s manifestly significant to their character development.

  Now for a word about the Scribe Virgin and V.

  Talk about mother issues, huh? When V first sauntered onstage in Dark Lover, I knew that hand of his was significant, but I had no idea just how important it was or what its larger implications were. In fact, during the writing of the first two books, even I didn’t have a clue that Vishous was the son of the Scribe Virgin. It’s kind of like Boo or the coffins: When I see something really vividly, I put it in, in spite of the fact that I might not know what it has to do with anything.

  It wasn’t until Lover Awakened—ish that it clicked: white light equals Scribe Virgin. V has white light. Therefore V equals Scribe Virgin. I thought it was a great twist, and I was so good about not blabbing about it on the message boards or at signings when my leaf (the one that keeps secrets inside) dropped. Frankly, once I tweaked to V’s lineage, I was surprised that no one else really caught the connection. (I think there might have been one or two speculations on the boards that got close, but I deflected them with lawyerly nonanswers.)

  In Lover Unbound, V and his mom had a hard time relating, which, given what she’d kept from him and what she’d been complicit in subjecting him to, is understandable. But things worked out, and for a lot of people, their favorite scene in the book is the one at the end, where Vishous goes to see his mother:“What have you brought?” [the Directrix] whispered.

  “Little present. Nothing much.” He walked over to the white tree with the white blossoms and opened his hands. The parakeet leaped free and took to a branch as if it knew that was its home now.

  The brilliant yellow bird shuffled up and down the pale arm of the tree, its little feet gripping and releasing, gripping and releasing. It pecked at a blossom, let out a trill . . . brought a foot up and pedaled its neck.

  V put his hands on his hips and measured how much space there was between all the blossoms on all the branches. He was going to have to bring over a shitload of birds.

  The Chosen’s voice was rife with emotion. “She gave them up for you.”

  “Yeah. And I’m bringing her new ones.”

  “But the sacrifice—”

  “Has been made. What’s going on this tree is a gift.” He looked over his shoulder. “I’m going to fill it up whether she likes it or not. It’s her choice what she does with them.”

  The Chosen’s eyes gleamed with gratitude. “She will keep them. And they will keep her from her solitude.”

  V took a deep breath. “Yeah. Good. Because . . .”

  He let the word drift, and the Chosen said gently, “You don’t have to say it.”

  He cleared his throat. “So you’ll tell her they’re from me?”

  “I won’t have to. Who else but her son would do such a kindness?”

  Vishous glanced back at the lone yellow bird in the midst of the white tree. He pictured the branches filled once again.

  “True,” he said.

  —LOVER UNBOUND,
pp. 501-502

  The Scribe Virgin is not one of the most popular forces in the series. Personally, I respect her, and to see her giving up her one personal attachment (her birds) to balance the gift she gives her son (in the form of Jane coming back) really got to me. I’ve had people ask why she can’t just fix everything, i.e., with respect to Wellsie and Tohr (even John Matthew broaches this issue, too), but the thing is, she’s not a total free agent in the world she created. Absolute destiny is always at work—and is the purview of her father, I suspect.

  V and his mother are reconciled to some degree at the end of Lover Unbound. But what remains to be seen is what happens when V’s twin, Payne, comes forward. Somehow I don’t think V is going to take that well to the way his sister’s been treated—or the fact that his mother has never mentioned Payne to him previously.

  So that’s Lover Unbound.

  They say that every author in the course of a career has a couple of books that are just grueling, and Vishous’s was definitely that way for me. Each one of the Brotherhood books has been a unique challenge, and getting them out is WORK. I struggle at the computer every day, but there’s always some small reward, whether it’s a dialogue exchange that really sings, or a great description, or a really good chapter ending. With V, the rewards were delayed, to be sure. It wasn’t until the final product was done that I sat back and was like, Okay, this works. This is all right.

  I’m proud of LU, and I think it is a good book. . . . I’m just really grateful that the Brother who came next was true to his nature—a total gentleman.

  Because if it had been another like V?

  I don’t know that I could have gone through that kind of struggle again right away.