Guest Post: Keary Taylor (Branded)

Today I have the awesome Keary Taylor, author of Branded, stopping by!

What was the process of transforming the idea of terrifying angels into Branded?

Before I dive into explaining my take on the whole angel mythology, I’ll give you a little background on where the idea first formed. I was watching “The Phantom of the Opera” one night with my husband. This wasn’t the first time I’d seen the new version but I LOVE the music in it. For some reason this time as I watched it, the term “angel of music” really stuck with me. I’d first asked for the soundtrack for Christmas when I was 12, but for some reason I’d never given this term much thought. If you don’t know, Christine Daae’s (the main character) father used to tell her about the “angel of music” before he died so this was what she started calling the Phantom. But the Phantom wasn’t what you’d normally think of as an angel. He had this wretched face, he haunted the opera house, he took what he wanted. He gave no thought to doing all these terrible things. He was a terrifying man and yet Christine still called him an “angel”.

And then there is another line in one of Christine’s songs. “He’s there, the Phantom of the opera, inside my mind.” And here’s where I got the idea for a woman who had nightmares of terrifying angels. From here I branched away. It seemed only natural that the angels should be beautiful. But they were SO beautiful it was terrifying.

Ideas sometimes just form on their own and evolve as you start to write. Normally it would seem natural for the council of angels Jessica stands trial before to be all good angels but why shouldn’t the bad ones get representation too? And maybe not all of them were actually just? As they say, misery loves company.

The main evolution of my terrifying angels just came from my idea of looking at an accepted view and turning it to look different. Becoming a writer has made me look at everything I read in a completely new way. There’s nothing more satisfying than coming up with something no one else had thought of before!

Want to know more about Branded? Check out the Goodreads page.

Here is the cover of the second book in the Fall of Angels series, Forsaken. It will be published in January 2011 so make sure to check it out! Here you can find out more about Keary Taylor:

Her blog.

Her website.