Research Tidbits by Laurie London

Thanks, Lee, for inviting me to Tote Bags ‘n Blogs. Today, the digital version of TEMPTED BY BLOOD, the third book in the Sweetblood series, comes out. The print version came out a little over a week ago, so it should be sitting on store shelves by now. To celebrate, I’m pouring myself a little bubbly. Please join me!

The Sweetblood series follows a group of vampire warriors in the Seattle area who are sworn to protect humans from Darkbloods—rogues who live like their ancestors did, feeding from and killing humans. Sweetbloods are humans whose blood is very rare and extremely addictive to vampires. Darkbloods sell Sweet on the vampire black market.

I want to tell you about some fun research I did for this book.

If you read EMBRACED BY BLOOD and/or the novella ‘Enchanted By Blood’ in the anthology A VAMPIRE FOR CHRISTMAS, you’ll remember Xtark Software and the game Hollow Grave. 

Darkbloods use the game to communicate with younger vampires, telling them about upcoming blood raves where they can buy Sweet.

Because Arianna and Jackson team up to thwart the game-maker, I had to figure out how to get Guardians into their offices. I considered having them sneak in, but that didn’t really excite me. I’m more excited to write about people who aren’t whom they seem to be, so I wanted it to happen right under the Darkbloods’ noses.

Then I remembered two friends who work for a local software company that makes a very popular first person shooter game.

One of them had invited my son to be a beta tester for an upcoming version release, so I knew companies opened their doors to lay-people during this part of the process. (I used to be a tester for a company, but we did all our testing in-house.)

Perfect, I thought. Xtark will be releasing a new version of Hollow Grave and they’ll be doing beta testing. Arianna, who is a graphic designer for the company, will get them into the offices this way. But then what?

My high school buddy is a game animator, so I called him up and told him my dilemma.

One thing you have to understand about me is that I am a reformed video game junkie. (My son’s friends were in awe of me when I played SSX Tricky.) It’s in my nature to become totally addicted to gaming, so I purposely don’t play much anymore—although I have Skyrim and am waiting till I don’t have a deadline in order to immerse myself.

Eric told me about Downloadable Content (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downloadable_content). If you own the game, you can download updates from the company’s website. Sometimes it’s free, sometimes you pay. It can be new tricks, powers, characters, bug fixes, etc. Basically, anything that updates the game between versions. As he explained how it worked, chills ran down my spine. It was exactly what I was looking for. 

Whereas most companies have new DLC every few months or so, it was his idea to have Xtark release DLC more often (weekly or twice a month), which would be unusual and a red-flag to Guardians. Players who knew where to look for clues could find out what Darkbloods where trying to tell them each week—party locations, where they’re selling Sweet, etc.  

All this techy stuff encompasses maybe a paragraph or two in the whole book, but it was important for me to make sure it was as accurate and plausible as possible.

The main focus of TEMPTED BY BLOOD is the love story between vampire Jackson Foss and human Arianna Wells. But as a reformed gamer, I had a great time researching these little details.

Are you a gamer? If so, what’s your favorite? Angry Birds, Skyrim, Minecraft? How about Words with Friends?

Did you know that the fastest growing segment of gamers is women over the age of 18? Eric told me that and then asked if I wanted to be a beta tester. Oh yeah, baby! Bring it on!

I’m giving away a signed copy of TEMPTED BY BLOOD to one random commenter in the US or Canada. I’ll pick a winner on Sunday, March 4.

You can find me online at:

www.LaurieLondonBooks.com, www.LaurieLondon.blogspot.com, www.facebook.com/LaurieLondonAuthor, www.twitter.com/LaurieBLondon, www.pinterest.com/LaurieLondon

***Laurie's winner is Sue Sattler!  Congratulations, Sue!! Please email totebag@authorsoundrelations.com with your mailing address so Laurie can get the prize in the mail to you.  Thanks!!***