This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #524, on the subject of Twisting Worlds.
With permission of Valdron Inc I have previously completed publishing my first eleven Multiverser novels,
- Verse Three, Chapter One: The First Multiverser Novel,
- Old Verses New,
- For Better or Verse,
- Spy Verses,
- Garden of Versers,
- Versers Versus Versers,
- Re Verse All,
- In Verse Proportion,
- Con Verse Lea,
- In Version, in collaboration with Eric R. Ashley, and
- Con Version, in collaboration with Eric R. Ashley,
in serialized form on the web (those links will take you to the table of contents for each book). Along with each book there was also a series of web log posts looking at the writing process, the decisions and choices that delivered the final product; those posts are indexed with the chapters in the tables of contents pages. Now as I am posting the twelfth, A Dozen Verses, again written in collaboration with Eric R. Ashley, I am again offering a set of “behind the writings” insights. This “behind the writings” look may contain spoilers because it sometimes talks about my expectations for the futures of the characters and stories–although it sometimes raises ideas that were never pursued, as being written partially concurrently with the story it sometimes discusses where I thought it was headed. You might want to read the referenced chapters before reading this look at them. Links below (the section headings) will take you to the specific individual chapters being discussed, and there are (or will soon be) links on those pages to bring you back hopefully to the same point here.
This is the first post for this novel, covering chapters 1 through 12. There is also a section of the site, Multiverser Novel Support Pages, in which I have begun to place materials related to the novels beginning with character papers for the major characters, giving them at different stages as they move through the books.
History of the series, including the reason it started, the origins of character names and details, and many of the ideas, are in earlier posts, and won’t be repeated here.
Quick links to discussions in this page:
Chapter 1, Kondor 256
Chapter 2, Slade 251
Chapter 3, Cooper 73
Chapter 4, Kondor 257
Chapter 5, Slade 252
Chapter 6, Cooper 74
Chapter 7, Kondor 258
Chapter 8, Slade 253
Chapter 9, Cooper 75
Chapter 10, Kondor 259
Chapter 11, Slade 254
Chapter 12, Cooper 76
I set up working documents for this novel and the next, mostly so that we would have a place to keep our thoughts organized, and Eric was off and running before the dust settled. We had agreed that Joe and Zeke were drugged and imprisoned, but the rest was his work.
Eric had suggested a title, but I had already named this book and the next, so I made it the title of book 14. He commented that this title was better than the one he suggested; I’m not sure it is, but this was the only book that could have this title, and the title of the next book is similarly specific to its place in the sequence, so his good title was delayed.
We had agreed on a plot line for Slade, but Eric took this in a new direction to create more story than just a linear plot. The idea of a wealthy verser establishing a safehouse for versers is something I did in play at least once, actually in a universe Eric had designed.
The world is Eric’s design, and a welcome opportunity for Brian to obtain some high tech.
The first of two problems we recognized was the question of whether the sword worked, what it did, and under what circumstances it might botch. I put a lot of time into establishing the world mag bias, and the odds of the sword performing its various functions, which gave us a framework for the inclusion of a few odd things Eric hoped might appear.
The other problem was Cooper’s equipment. I saw this as a problem when we were writing the final battle in Con Version: the characters versed out over eight hundred miles from their property. That’s much too far to be on the ship–Seeker and Wanderer were about one sixth that distance at their longest axis. However, with interplanetary space travel it would take seconds for those few hundred miles to become thousands. Eric felt it would be fine for him to lose his equipment as a lesson for the future, but I couldn’t really accept that, and particularly since that meant his Bible, on the computer, was gone. At first I envisioned him leaping from the ship in a space suit, but then I came up with the idea that the equipment landed on the pirate ship, and Cooper could recover it by boarding that ship and fighting his way to it. Eric picked up the idea in the next chapter.
Eric continued writing here, building the confrontation between Kondor and the birds who overthrew the government.
Eric wanted Slade to practice and enhance his skills, so he wrote this. He kept forgetting who Shella was, and I had to remind him that she did not learn combat skills of any sort beyond her ability to hold a dagger to the throat of a sleeping soldier, but used magic and now psionics in everything.
Eric continued, setting up the attack on the pirate ship.
I was working on character papers for In Verse Proportion while Eric was plowing ahead with this.
Eric was continuing to move forward. I had suggested the plotline that the syndicate was angry with Slade for killing one of their best enforcers, and so there was going to be a war between Slade and the syndicate, and this was Eric’s idea of their first strike.
At this point in order for Eric to continue we had to discuss the mag bias of the present world and how that would affect the sword. It was problematic because some of its most basic functions were likely to botch if the bias wasn’t high enough, but Eric wanted there to be enough magic here to support some “weird stuff” in the form of ancient artifacts. In the end we went with a moderately high curve which would allow the sword to function, but with a moderate chance of failure and a chance to botch.
Eric continued the story of Kondor and Zeke’s escape and work with the swordbirds.
Eric resolved the car sabotage problem by combining Slade’s combat skills with his background as an automechanic.
Eric continued writing, reuniting Brian with his gear but also introducing the Lunarian Angle as someone needing help.
This has been the first behind-the-writings look at A Dozen Verses. If there is interest and continued support from readers we will endeavor to continue with more behind-the-writings posts and another novel.