Cassandra Baron is the star character of my NaNoWriMo novel, tentatively titled CASSANDRA.  In this second novel of a series Cassandra Baron, becomes infatuated with a human named David Kilpatrick.

David happens to be the right hand man for Dominic Locke, the interim leader of the ancient race of predecessors to werewolves, known as the Rath. She becomes embroiled in the internal conflicts of the Rath and soon find herself facing off  with Dominic’s daughter, who is destined to be another new Power in the world.

Origin & Circumstances

Cassandra’s mother was the progeny of an amphibious civilization, long gone. Her father is the human musician, Jonathan Baron who discovered that his mother was a sea-dwelling, aboriginal remnant of that ancient race. Her genetic makeup was determined by the avatars of an ancient race of sentient ships known as the Vorsha. She was designed to be their perfect creation.
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Writers are natural stalkers. Sure, it’s a little creepy but that’s what makes it fun–I mean, er… Educational. Productive. Absolutely not criminal. Think of it like being on a safari or bird-watching. See? Totally harmless.

It has been said that a story isn’t just an art. It’s a wild beast that we must hunt down, capture and make a meal of, if we must. Figuratively, of course. We’re not complete psychopaths, are we? Are we???

Most creative individuals are in the habit of observing the people and things around us. We’re not even usually conscious of what we’re doing. We study people, the way events unfold. We do this intently and unthinkingly. We become avid spectators in an arena that offers up infinite degrees of wonderment.

Humans make for irresistible subjects, to begin with. They’re mystifying and amusing. They are self-contradictory and xenophobic oddities. They say they’re wrong and they say that they’re right, believing both equally. They embody a multitude of mysteries that inspire an incredible array of possibilities.

Every unsuspecting passerby becomes fodder for our fictional machinations. They are our hapless accomplices in an endless parade of imaginary atrocities and epic deeds of heroism. We find a wealth of inspiration in the mundane. With no solid basis upon which to build our suppositions, we psychoanalyze complete strangers and invent convoluted histories and personalities for them.

Little does the kindly old lady walking her chihuahua down the street know, that she is destined to be– in some form or another–the dastardly culprit who devours the scrawny rebel zipping by on his skateboard. This will be at the behest of her four-legged Little Precious, who happens to be the Devil… who happens to be an extra-terrestrial entity that crash-landed on earth eight billion years ago.

No way am I going to write that. It’s just silly. Really. Except for the part about chihuahuas being the demonic incarnation of aliens. That, I have always suspected.

The Latin phrase “deus ex machina” has it’s origins in early Greek plays.  The literal translation of the phrase is “God out of a machine.”  It’s original definition referred to the means by which characters who played the role of deities were lowered down onto the stage during a performance – by use of a crane-like device.

As a literary term,  deus ex machina describes an improbable character, event, or situation introduced suddenly in a story to resolve a problematic plot dilemma.

If you’ve seen the 2005 movie portrayal of  HG Well’s “War of the Worlds” – you will have an inkling of how this usually works.  After the terrible ordeal, the desperate flight and epic fight for survival – what saves us all is the sudden revelation that the invading aliens are allergic (for lack of a better world) to our planet.  Of course there is something clever in the subtle implications of the use of this plot device in this instance.
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Suspension of Disbelief is a remarkable ability that people have to allow themselves to be drawn into a into the construct of a story that they are experiencing. Largely considered a phenomenon, Suspension of Disbelief is a partly conscious and tacit decision made on the part of an individual to set aside his/her perception of reality and his or her understanding of the mechanics of the universe in order to maximize his/her enjoyment for the duration of a story.

The problem is, Suspension of Disbelief can only go so far. There are limits to the degree to which one can make this allowance. A story, however improbable and fantastic – must maintain a certain a certain thread of believability. Pushing too far past that limit is guaranteed to taint the experience for your reader/audience.

More often than not, we come across a story that simply demands too much on the part of the reader/audience. You cannot simply say,
“Well, it’s a fantasy story. You just have to be able to think like that.”
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