Angelology: A Novel

Last night I finished reading ANGELOLOGY, a novel by Danielle Trussoni. In many ways her story reminds me of Dan Brown’s novels (The Da Vinchi Code, Angels & Demons, etc.).

Here is a “blurb” provided by the publisher:  “When 23 year old Sister Evangeline of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in upstate New York discovers a letter dated 1943 from Abigail Rockefeller, the famed philanthropist, to the late mother superior of Saint Rose Convent, she uncovers a millennia-old war between the Society of Angelologists and the Nephilim (descendants of fallen angels). As Evangeline shares her discovery with angeologists, she assists them in their efforts to halt the Nephilim from overpowering humankind.”

Basically the premise of ANGELOLOGY begins with the following Bible verse from the book of Genesis.

(Genesis 6): “When men began to multiply on earth and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of heaven saw how beautiful the daughters of man were, and so they took for their wives as many of them as they chose. 3 Then the LORD said: “My spirit shall not remain in man forever, since he is but flesh. His days shall comprise one hundred and twenty years.” 4 At that time the Nephilim appeared on earth (as well as later), after the sons of heaven had intercourse with the daughters of man, who bore them sons. They were the heroes of old, the men of renown. 5 When the LORD saw how great was man’s wickedness on earth, and how no desire that his heart conceived was ever anything but evil, 6 he regretted that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was grieved. So the LORD said: “I will wipe out from the earth the men whom I have created, and not only the men, but also the beasts and the creeping things and the birds of the air, for I am sorry that I made them.”

The protagonist, Sister Evangeline, finds herself in the middle of a secret history that is over a thousand years old, and she teams up with a historian to find an object that is precious and desired by the half-human half-angelic race.

The story includes a tenth century expedition in what is now Bulgaria and continues to current day. Much of the story takes place in New York City and a convent in New York’s Hudson Valley.

The author’s writing style is beautiful and includes exceptional descriptions, especially those of the angels. She has an enviable creative mind, and it is obvious she did a lot of research. However,  there were places that I felt the novel dragged, primarily because much of the story was told through diaries and letters, or character’s remembrance of lectures.

Still ANGELOLOGY is an original, intelligent, and invigorating read that certainly made me think about my beliefs in angels.

A Few Words on Characters…

As a novel or screenplay is written, writers need to be aware of their characters.

Duh…

No, really, give it some thought.

All stories have a protagonist and an antagonist so, as a minimum, stories have two characters. A story can be written with only two characters but, usually, there are more than two.

Many more.

Usually characters are human but sometimes they are not.

A character could be an animal, like the shark in JAWS or the pig in BABE.

Some characters are make believe such as vampires and zombies, Porky Pig, or Superman.

Weather has been used as an antagonist. Two good examples are hurricanes and tornadoes.

Even inanimate objects have been used as characters. Remember the strange car in Stephen King’s CHRISTINE, or the toys in the TOY STORY franchise?

One thing I learned from publishing my novel, WINDFALL, was to be cognizant of how many characters I introduce at any given time in the story. If too many characters are introduced at one time, the reader can’t keep them straight.

Try to introduce characters one at a time. This gives the reader time to get to know them. If this is not impossible, introduce characters in small groups.

One way to help readers remember characters is to differentiate them. The writer does this by making each and every main character come alive on paper.

If your characters are important to the story, give them a name and, if possible, make the name memorable. Give them physical attributes that are impossible to ignore, and habits that stand out, or an occupation that is so unusual it will never be forgotten.

But, if a character is secondary, such as a doorman or cab driver who only appears once in the story, don’t give them a name. In fact, don’t tell us they have fire red hair and weigh as much as an elephant. We don’t want to remember secondary characters. If a reader notices the secondary characters, the reader is distracted from the main characters. Writers should make secondary characters almost invisible.

So how many characters are too many? There is no answer to that question. Some stories only need two characters. Other stories will have hundreds. Just make sure your main characters are memorable because that makes it easier for the reader to remember them.

Need an Anagram?

I needed a couple sets  of character names for FINDING VERITY , however, the names needed to be anagrams of each other. I tried for over an hour to come up with two sets on my own but I finally figured out I was wasting my time!

Anyway, if you need some anagrams or just want to play around, I found a really neat Anagram Builder at WORDSMITH.com.  Click HERE to try it!

I put my name, Faith Nelson, into the ANAGRAM BUILDER and asked for Proper Names (2 words only). It came up with 311 possibilities.

Here are some of the 311 names it came up with:  Felisha Tonn, Fannie Holts, Stefani Lohn, Leaf Hintson, Shane Lifton, Ethan Filson, Sienna Floth, Aston Heflin and, of course, Faith Nelson!

By the way, have you ever wondered how many words you can make out of the word STOP? Well, I stuck the word STOP into the Anagram Builder and… it only came up with six possibilities: opts, post, stop, pots, tops, and spot.