This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #525, on the subject of Character Battles.

With permission of Valdron Inc I have previously completed publishing my first eleven Multiverser novels,

1. Verse Three, Chapter One:  The First Multiverser Novel,
2. Old Verses New,
3. For Better or Verse,
4. Spy Verses,
5. Garden of Versers,
6. Versers Versus Versers,
7. Re Verse All,
8. In Verse Proportion,
9. Con Verse Lea,
10. In Version, in collaboration with Eric R. Ashley, and
11. 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 second post for this novel, covering chapters 13 through 24; the first post was #524:  Twisting Worlds.  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.

Chapter 13, Kondor 260

Eric continued, making the coup personal for Kondor and suggesting an uncharacteristic uncontrolled rage.

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Chapter 14, Slade 255

Eric continued the attacks on Slade.

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Chapter 15, Cooper 77

Eric devised Cooper’s escape route, using the sword but causing it to sap Cooper’s strength.

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Chapter 16, Kondor 261

Eric continued developing the resistance against the coup, bringing the previously captured spy called Big Boy into the effort to prevent war and restore the original government.

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Chapter 17, Slade 256

Eric put this together, but there were some problems including a serious continuity error in his original draft.

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Chapter 18, Cooper 78

Eric continued writing with me trying to keep up on editing and comments while I was still working on character sheets for book 10 and formatting my An Analytical Commentary on The Book of Romans for publication.

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Chapter 19, Kondor 262

This was still Eric’s work.  He had included that the enemy used one of the saucers, but I pointed out that the tech level involved in so much as piloting such a thing was beyond them by an impossible margin, so that was deleted.  There was also an issue of how the Gatling gun was being moved and why Kondor and Zeke didn t capture it, which I resolved without fully explaining.

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Chapter 20, Slade 257

Eric had outlined a sequence of chapters that included the syndicate attacking Shella.  I added her use of her missile turning spell.

I felt that Eric was trying to rush Slade and Kondor through their current stories and into the next world, so I suggested that this had to be slowed a bit, that they had to do more to make their actions in these new stories credible.  He expanded both a bit.

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Chapter 21, Cooper 79

Eric continued creating his space world here.

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Chapter 22, Kondor 263

Eric continued with a suggested meeting and an anticipation of treachery.

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Chapter 23, Slade 258

Expanding his syndicate story, Eric created this scene.

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Chapter 24, Cooper 80

Eric continues creating his space world.

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This has been the second 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.

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,

1. Verse Three, Chapter One:  The First Multiverser Novel,
2. Old Verses New,
3. For Better or Verse,
4. Spy Verses,
5. Garden of Versers,
6. Versers Versus Versers,
7. Re Verse All,
8. In Verse Proportion,
9. Con Verse Lea,
10. In Version, in collaboration with Eric R. Ashley, and
11. 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.

Chapter 1, Kondor 256

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.

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Chapter 2, Slade 251

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.

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Chapter 3, Cooper 73

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.

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Chapter 4, Kondor 257

Eric continued writing here, building the confrontation between Kondor and the birds who overthrew the government.

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Chapter 5, Slade 252

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.

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Chapter 6, Cooper 74

Eric continued, setting up the attack on the pirate ship.

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Chapter 7, Kondor 258

I was working on character papers for In Verse Proportion while Eric was plowing ahead with this.

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Chapter 8, Slade 253

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.

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Chapter 9, Cooper 75

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.

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Chapter 10, Kondor 259

Eric continued the story of Kondor and Zeke’s escape and work with the swordbirds.

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Chapter 11, Slade 254

Eric resolved the car sabotage problem by combining Slade’s combat skills with his background as an automechanic.

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Chapter 12, Cooper 76

Eric continued writing, reuniting Brian with his gear but also introducing the Lunarian Angle as someone needing help.

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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.