Two angels are driving shotgun too their own sadness. One is tracing figure eights in the window condensation, and the other is smoking a cigarette in the backseat trying to keep from bleeding to death. 

                                                 Another bullet wound?  The one up front asks. The bleeding one snarls. The bleeding one asks for him to pass back the whiskey already. Neither of them is driving.

They’re cruising down a highway in the Nevada Desert and no one wants to talk about the empty outside. No one wants to talk.

                                              Rock and Roll is pulsing through the speakers and the angel up front turns it up while the other tells him to turn it down.

Don’t you give a damn about me? The bleeding one asks. This isn’t some goddamn action movie. This road is going anywhere and you know it. This road is going nowhere and we haven’t got the time. 

                                                 The desert is spread out around them like a bright ocean. The sand glowing neon orange as the sun turns angry, as the sun turns to rust. The bottle is halfway empty now and the angel up front is crying. He doesn’t know this but he is. He’s twisting open a bottle of pills and shaking blue tablets out by the handful. 

                                         What are you crying for? The bleeding one in the back asks him. His hand curls angry around the headrest. His hands curl and prod like vines.

It hurts. The crying one tells him touching his face. It hurts like hell. He whispers. 

                                        This makes the bleeding one spit. This makes the bleeding one howl something fierce. 

          You don’t know what hurting is Michael. You don’t know a damn thing. 

You whine and whine and I’m the one bleeding. I’m the one who has gone to Hell and back to get us here and what do I get in return? I got to swallow a goddamn bullet Michael. Everything is all backwards. Everything moves when I’m still and stops when I’m not. When are you going to realize that the sun has been going backwards this whole time? There comes the bullet and the driving, and the whiskey, and the music, and the crying.

                                    Michael we’ve come through the blood in the sky 10 damn times now and the sun always winds us back.

Stop it Michael. Stop crying.You don’t get to be Icarus dammit. You don’t get to be the victim. When you’re the one holding the damn gun. 

                     The angel up from shakes his head. Another handful of pills. Then another. Outside the sky is a battlefield but inside the angel up front is making a waterfall of blue.

This only ends one way Michael. This only ends if one of us makes it stop.

                               The angel up front shakes his head. The angel up front doesn’t have any wings to speak of, but heaven has always been holding the bleeding angel’s hands.

Let’s get going Michael. Let’s get gone. 

               The suns going to turn soon. I’m tired of this damn cycle. You’re always the one shooting, and I’m always the one getting shot. This desert is okay. This desert is nice enough, but I haven’t seen the moon in ages Michael. I can’t even remember what it looks like anymore. So give me the gun and take the wheel. 

                       So much road ahead of us. So much road ahead of us and we haven’t seen anything but this stretch of desert in forever.

Stop crying Michael. Stop. 

                       Put down the pills, turn around. Someone had to die before the desert lets us go Michael. You knew this. You knew.

And the angels aren’t angels at all. The angels were two boys driving too fast for the thrill of it. And the boys were too tired to find heaven in the desert sky. 

                     I’m bleeding Michael. I’ve been bleeding for a while. Turn up the music. No. Up. UP DAMMIT. 

                     The boy is quiet for the longest time, and then he laughs.

“Highway to Hell” Sounds like us Michael doesn’t it? Sounds like this road is going somewhere after all. 

So in my brief time on this Earth I have consumed a lot of lackluster angel-related media, and in order to save baby writers from making the same mistakes over again, I offer you a concise list of the most annoying, lazy choices you can possible make when writing angelic beings. 

We have angels but God is dead/absent/done with putting up with humanity’s shit/cannot be contacted.  In the words of youngsaminamerica: “if you wanna write people with wings, that’s fine. Do the James Patterson thing and make them genetically engineered or something. But don’t call them angels unless you’re ready to go all-out divinity”. If you wanna play in the angel sandbox you’re gonna have to at least step into the God sandbox. They are a package deal. You can do virtually anything you want to do with this relationship (although #2 and #3 seem to be popular) but it is a relationship you have to deal with. Angels are created by, close to, and work for God. Presumably, they see Him pretty often. Having them wrestle with/discuss/nurture/injure this relationship is way more interesting than the angelic equivalent of “Dad’s on a hunting trip, he hasn’t been home in a few days”. 

Angels are so righteous and obsessed with holiness that they are actually horrifying creatures who get really excited about mass cleanses of the human race. This isn’t an awful idea, “every angel is terrifying” after all, but it gets overused a ton, and I think it’s a really backhanded and incomplete way of expressing an (understandable) fear of God’s wrath and anger with His decrees and unwillingness to trust that He is really all good. Which is a totally valid emotion that I would love to see explored in media in a way that isn’t reductive, lazy, and unhelpful, which brings us to-

Angels somehow can wreck shit on Earth without arousing God’s attention or discipline, and have this weird free reign to do whatever they want, usually #2. This makes no damn sense. Whenever I see angels setting fire to Earth in movies I’m just like “Where’s your Father?!” “Who signed your ground visa?!” “Who’s orders are these?!” It’s just an excuse to blow up up as possible without actually engaging with the idea that God interacts with us. Using angels to wreak havoc takes away the agency of both humans and God, and our relationship is where the attention should be falling. Angels want what’s good for us, presumably, and they do what God tells them, with debatable amounts of free will to spice the dish, so we shouldn’t bitch about the messengers when our real beef is with the One who sent the message. Engage with your anger with God directly or get out of my house.

For some reason celestial ageless beings of light fall romantically in love with random humans, often forsaking Heaven in the process. Alright, I can’t bitch too much about this one because, according to Enoch and Genesis, this actually happened at one point in time, but that is a sticky tale we don’t have time to get into here and it is not the norm. But, paranormal romance writers, you expect me to believe that a cosmic being in perfect intimacy with the Godhead would give that up for sex with some random chick that somehow has managed to catch his eye despite the fact that he has probably encountered millions of humans over his lifespan? Add to this the fact that sex is just a taste of perfect unity with the Godhead which is way more full and satisfying, not to mention the fact that a specific human would have virtually nothing to offer an angel outside of their own novelty. Not to mention that the way writers treat sex as this powerful unholy thing that will tempt you away from the Lord is super gross. Sex is good, lust is not, and sex was made for humans, so say thank you for the gift and stop trying to pit God against it. Giving up wings/immortality/grace for a fling with a flawed creature isn’t romantic, it’s stupid as shit. The last thing we need is more romance narratives about how romantic love is better than our well being, better than the divine, and worth throwing away our lives for.

(when asked if the throne of hell was worth falling for, the devil argues that the question really ought to be whether or not freedom was worth the pain dealt by a brother’s sword, and to that he would answer yes, always.)

What’s it like to fall?, Azrael asks next and his voice is curious, as if he’s walking over a frozen lake waiting for the ice to break. Lucifer looks at him and wishes some of his naivety back again, the wide eyes, blowing open, the curious hitch of his voice, God on your tongue - It’s like losing one of your limbs, Lucifer finally whispers but he’s not sure Azrael even heard it.

What’s it like to fall?, Gabriel asks when they meet, eyes determined but calm like deep rivers. His presence is as soothing as it always was and when Lucifer closes his eyes he’s almost sure he can hear the voices of his brother’s and sister’s in heaven. It’s like a mouthful of apologies, Lucifer murmurs and loses himself to the memory just a tad longer.

What’s it like to fall?, Raphael asks with a sharp grin and his lips twisted in a haunting way. Something ugly coils inside Lucifer and he remembers Michael’s touch on his shoulder, throwing him out, the pain on his chest, the taste of blood on his tongue - It’s like losing all hope, Lucifer snorts and ignores the sour taste in his mouth.

What’s it like to fall?, Metatron asks, voice full of fear. Lucifer wonders, for a brief second, if God is still with them, peeking over the edged shoulders of his children, waiting for the betrayal to set in again. He feels suddenly incredible tired. It’s like becoming a monster, Lucifer answers and flinches from the burning phantom pain on his shoulders.

What’s it like to fall?, Michael asks with fire behind his eyes and his lips pressed into a thin line. Lucifer watches his brother, shoulders square and muscles tensed from clenching his hands too tight. He remembers the his wings catching fire and the reek of burned flesh in his nose, his skin in shreds on his back - It’s like dying, Lucifer chokes and ignores the pain in his brother’s eyes.

Dear banphrionsa-sarah,

I imagine there are as many different answers to this as there are authors of series, because multi-volume stories come in all shape and sizes, with many different narrative purposes.

Deep inside, I’m a standalone consumer rather than an episodic consumer. I’d rather watch a film than a TV show, and I’d rather watch a limited edition/ mini-series show than ongoing-episodic show. I like the feeling that comes from knowing we’re headed for a planned end. I want to look for clues and know they were planted with confidence by a creator who knew how they were going to use them.

So that’s how I try to write as well. I don’t need to know everything about future books in a series (and in fact, there is much I don’t know), but I do need to know how many books I have to plot in, and I need to know general arc shapes, as well as conclusion of the Big Plot Question. I need to know enough to make true promises along the way. 

Some of this heavy lifting is done for a writer if you pick an easy shape (maybe I should say “easy”) like a trilogy — you already know the trilogy will follow the expanded shape of the three act structure. So book one will establish what normal was, break it, and then see the protag take the first step toward an active journey. Book two will see the protag taking on ever more conflict with increasing stakes and rewards, changing the protag as they learn from these adventures. The darkest moment usually comes at the end of act two, so you can conclude book two on it as a cliff hanger, or begin book three with it: it’s when everything goes to shit, and the climax is kicked off. 

You can see this shape in many, many trilogies if you squint for it, just as you can see this shape in standalone novels, if you squint for it. 

It gets a little harder to adapt it if you write a duology or a quartet (you can see how a quintet would just expand a bit).

For me, I apply this theory generally and then I also look to make sure that I’m beginning each book and ending each book in a satisfying place. A cliffhanger is fine, but it has to follow a real ending. I want it to feel like THE END … but also! not and then and then and then … to be continued. Moreover, I want each book to feel like it belongs to the same series, but also to have a mood of its own. I love having favorite books within a series, and mood is a big thing that draws me back to those favorites. I want them to feel like distinct chapters.

It’s a daunting undertaking. It’s also fun as hell.

As far as not throwing everything into the first book to keep folks excited … if you think about the shape of the series like a three-act-structure, there’s really a time and place for every reveal and fun thing. So it answers a lot of hard questions for you. It’s one of the reasons why I enjoy writing the second installment in series better than the first or last. A lot of elements have been put in place already, and then it just becomes about exploration and doing what you promised.

Happy writing!

urs,