This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #535, on the subject of Character Plots.
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 twelfth post for this novel, covering chapters 133 through 144. Previous posts are:
- #524: Twisting Worlds, covering the first twelve chapters;
- #525: Character Battles, covering chapters 13 through 24;
- #526: Versers Adjust, chapters 25 through 36;
- #527: Characters Reorient, chapters 37 through 48;
- #528: Versers Investigate, chapters 49 through 60;
- #529: Characters in Action, chapters 61 through 72;
- #530: Versers Move, chapters 73 through 84;
- #531: Versers Roam, chapters 85 through 96;
- #532: Versers Chilled, chapters 97 through 108;
- #533: Characters Traveling, chapters 109 through 120; and
- #534: Characters Transition, chapters 121 through 132.
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 133, Slade 294
Chapter 134, Kondor 302
Chapter 135, Cooper 116
Chapter 136, Kondor 303
Chapter 137, Slade 295
Chapter 138, Kondor 304
Chapter 139, Cooper 117
Chapter 140, Kondor 305
Chapter 141, Slade 296
Chapter 142, Cooper 118
Chapter 143, Kondor 306
Chapter 144, Cooper 119
I drafted this to reunite Slade and Shella and begin introducing the new world.
Eric writes, “One of our differences is that I consider evolution to be laughable, unscientific nonsense (hey, I wrote a comedy novel about it!), and MJ disagrees. But in the Multiverser setting, all stories are true somewhere, so, here we are. It’s cool, or it will be once all the rains fall on the hot rocks of this wasteland.”
Eric left this chapter for me to write the discussion of plans, and skipped ahead.
Having no idea how they could succeed in this mission Eric had created, I did what I usually do when I don t know what the characters are going to do: I had them discuss it. I still don t know how it s going to work, but we ll get there.
Eric drafted this, having Cooper create cuneiform. I couldn t follow a significant part of it, and thought it rather elaborate and somewhat implausible, but ultimately we both did a fair amount of rewriting and modifying to get it into a shape we both found acceptable. I created the two constellations , and established the cardinal directions from that.
Eric drafted this trip to Riyadh. I made a minor edit to suggest that they were traveling under their New Zealand identities, and then recognized that there was a time frame problem–Eric had had them leave Heathrow at 10 A.M. London time, take eight and a half hours, and arrive at 8:00 A.M. Riyadh time. I pointed out the discrepancy.
Eric drafted this, giving the Slades something to do in this strange world.
Sometimes in running Multiverser, a referee will begin with an idea for a starting point, and see where it goes. Several of our worlds had a lot of that in this book, but this one particularly so.
I still didn t have a plan for this, but had previously said they would have to do recon, so I considered how they could do that and came up with this.
I drafted this mostly to get rid of the planets problem and move the calendar forward significantly.
Eric originally drafted this chapter, but I did substantial rewriting and commenting, because I did not want it to appear that Amanda had been driven by a chauffeur to the palace, but needed her to appear an ordinary British Muslim tourist.
Eric wanted to make something happen in this world, so he had Omigger appear (and far more powerful than he had been in previous iterations) with the intention of trapping a powerful psionic monster on a planet with plenty of magic but no psionics. I presented a few issues with this, and we quickly resolved them. Because it was setting up a bit of an extended fight, and Eric was accelerating Kondor’s story but Cooper had to spend at least a couple chapters in another universe, I slowed the Kondor stories down.
Eric originally set this as chapter 143, but left it for me to draft; I decided to slow the Kondor story, and so moved this to 142, and did my best to verse out Cooper on a free climb without making the chapter too short.
Eric had written this as chapter 142, but I moved it to slow the Kondor story. I had put forward the notion of getting the King to move the offending sheik out of the United Nations, an idea I had gotten from son Kyler, and Eric wanted to find a reason why that wouldn’t work. He was moving this toward a violent confrontation that would result in versing out our versers and bringing them to the final world. He says he wanted to find a way to use Kyler’s and Adam’s and my ideas without making it too easy and non-adventurous, and he supports having input from “Clan Young”, hoping more is incoming in the next book.
Eric had originally identified this as a camel race, but I had recently learned that adults don’t ride camels, because the camels’ backs can’t support the weight. Jockeys in camel races are usually children, although in modern races they have experimented with lightweight robotic controls.
Eric launched Cooper in a new world which was going to take more chapters than we thought we had left, so I accelerated the Cooper story at the same time that I decelerated the Kondor one. I made a few edits and asked some questions. At this point we had a rough outline of the remainder of the book.
This has been the twelfth 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.
