Happy OATHBOUND teaser day 👀

The type of bonus content that checks all of my personal boxes is quite challenging to write. I don’t generally write with restrictive “guardrails” but when it comes to bonus chapters, I do. These are the four guidelines that I keep in mind:

One: Make bonus content optional not required.

While a reader must have read the preceding book(s) in the series to fully understand and enjoy any bonus content, a reader cannot be required to read any bonus content in order to fully understand and enjoy the books. In other words, the prerequisite reading requirement only flows from book series to bonus content, not the other way around. This is a logistics issue, not just a creative one. Requiring that all LBC readers read bonus material wouldn’t be fair to readers in the US who can’t access the bonus material or to readers who live abroad, where the bonus material may not be licensed or translated in their language. 

Two: Avoid spoilers.

It’s not very fun or advisable to write a bonus chapter that spoils the main plots (or the character arcs!) of the main books. This guideline might appear simple or obvious, but in practice it means I have to limit my scope and be careful covering any truly “new” plot or character territory. This is a primary reason you may see “bonus POV” chapters starring supporting characters returning to scenes you’ve already read. But therein lies the rub: While I can’t spoil new developments, I also can’t give you the exact same list of scenes you’ve read from Bree’s POV. So the solution is to revisit those repeated scenes in nuanced, compelling ways while also mixing in new, hidden moments that you didn’t (or couldn’t) experience the first time around. 

Three: Keep bonus scenes “canon, but deeper.” 

I want bonus content to fully dovetail or bridge the established story and plot of the main book(s). While I imagine there may come a time when I write bonus material that is not technically canon (coffee shop AU, anyone?), if I take that route I will explicitly state that the chapter is non-canon to avoid any confusion. But generally, I much prefer that the bonus material fits in with what you’ve already read while also offering richer understandings and subtle hints that point toward where we’re heading next in the series. Y’all know how I love Easter eggs and clues…believe me when I say I plant them everywhere. 🙂

Four: Be careful with impactful reveals.

In my mind, “reveals” are not always the same thing as “spoilers.” I can’t speak for other authors, but I think of reveals as part of writing craft. They are bits of information uncovered or provided by the characters after being (craftily!) withheld by the author. Spoilers, on the other hand, are often plot elements that get prematurely shared outside of the context of the story. If Nick divulges his birthday to Bree, that’s a reveal. If you’re reading Chapter 3 of Legendborn and I tell you Nick saves Bree from a hellhound in Chapter 6, that’s a spoiler. This isn’t cut and dry and your mileage may vary! As we all know, someone can “spoil” a reveal, especially when that reveal is big enough to change the plot. (ex: Bree is the true ___ of ___.) In bonus content, I avoid impactful reveals—information that changes things or people—entirely where I can, but ultimately, my intention is that any impactful information revealed in bonus content that also contributes to a character arc or future plotline will also be revealed in the main books. In fact, I’m often able to have a different kind of fun with the book version of an impactful revelation than I’m able to in the bonus content. This keeps things interesting for the both of us!

Now for some examples!

• For the Sel POV at the end of the Legendborn paperback US standard edition, I knew immediately that I wanted to revisit the hellfox attack scene with Bree and Sel in the Chapel Hill Cemetery. I really wanted to show y’all what I’ve always known—that that is the moment that Sel’s perception of Bree cracked open in a new way. But I also wanted to show you scenes that Bree wasn’t present for, like the interaction between Nick and Sel where Nick warns (and pleads) with Sel to leave Bree alone. As the author, I knew this moment had always happened in the timeline of LB, but because Bree isn’t present for it and she doesn’t know enough to dig into Nick and Sel’s dynamic at this point in the story, I’ve had to sit on that knowledge as my own mental headcanon until I could write it down for you. This POV chapter, among other things, deepens your understanding about the boys’ history, but it doesn’t change their confrontation in Legendborn proper.

• In the William POV chapter in the Bloodmarked paperback US standard edition, you’ll see some key moments from Legendborn that Bree was never privy to. You’ll also see a moment from Bloodmarked. The LB scenes include William’s interactions with Sel, Nick, and Alice. In these moments Bree is literally unconscious, but I’d always “heard” the interactions with the others around her in my mind, and I’ve been so eager to fill you all in. However, I’m also (slyly) setting up William’s character arc in Bloodmarked and Oathbound here, in ways that I can’t reveal until after Oathbound is published. The questions I wrestled with while writing William’s POV are: How much of these moments does Bree need to know about? and  How much might she already know from a conversation ‘offscreen’?  and  How can I use her ignorance of these moments in her own arc? 

One of the challenges of writing these books from Bree’s POV is that she can’t be everywhere at once, so the other characters’ arcs are taking place out of sight…but this also means I have a seriously deep well of extra scenes to pull from when it comes to bonus chapters! You can find a list of all published bonus content here. Expect more of these in the future!