This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #542, on the subject of Verser Initiatives.
With permission of Valdron Inc I have previously completed publishing my first twelve 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,
- A Dozen Verses, 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 thirteenth, Multiverser: The Thirteenth Story, 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 fourth post for this novel, covering chapters 34 through 44. Previous posts were:
- #538: New Adventures, covering chapters 1 through 11;
- #539: Adventures Begin, chapters 12 through 22;
- #541: Characters React, chapters 23 through 33.
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 34, Beam 207
Chapter 35, Takano 168
Chapter 36, Brown 376
Chapter 37, Beam 208
Chapter 38, Takano 169
Chapter 39, Brown 377
Chapter 40, Beam 209
Chapter 41, Takano 170
Chapter 42, Brown 378
Chapter 43, Beam 210
Chapter 44, Takano 171
Eric wrote this. There were a couple glitches which he had to address, such as that he confused Beam’s history with that of another character, but they were relatively minor.
I had been trying to get to this for several chapters, and finally managed it, despite that there were several things I had not thought through. I put it together in pieces though, and got everything I wanted.
It kept coming into my head that Aceydeecy’s secret identity name should be a member of the band. Unfortunately, they are actually after my time and I didn’t know who was in the band, so I had to look it up. I’d actually heard of Angus Young, and noted that he was one of the reported founders, so I went with him despite sharing a surname. Eric proved to be less informed than I, as he later said he had assumed Angus was one of my sons, and missed the joke entirely.
I’ve given her a new problem, because she knows exactly who Aceydeecy is, but none of her evidence is admissible in the courts of that world, even if she could testify without compromising her identity.
Eric wrote this, spending a bit more of the money and finishing the trip to Joliet.
Eric tossed the ball to me, to see what I would do with Beam. I consulted with Kyler, who created the original character modeled on a mutual friend and long-time player, and concluded that having defeated the top ruler of the facility Beam would declare himself emperor here, and start letting the underlings know. My intention was to take this back to security and start spreading the word there, but I decided that my last line here was a good ending for the chapter.
I’m not certain either what the villains are going to do next or what the heroes can do about it, but I knew that Tommy would have to explain what she knew to Keller.
I recognized that Derek’s current problem was a place to sleep for the night. I remembered, though, that my brother bicycled across the United States when he was eighteen or nineteen, and he said that when he was west of the Mississippi he often was permitted to sleep in churches. This being a good half century before that, I figured that hospitality would still be found among at least some churches east of the river. In any case, asking a pastor for advice on where to stay was certainly a reasonable course for Derek to take. Having the pastor’s wife provide meals for them was an afterthought.
It was at just about this point in our writing that we received word that John Mastick, who had requested we include him as the character Johnny Angel, had died. It was always our intention to include him in this book, and indeed much of the reason for taking Derek to New Orleans previously was so that he would have a trumpet and some practice on it so that he could come back to New Orleans now and join Johnny in what was John’s first Multiverser game world, but we now were the more determined to include him. Eric also made the suggestion that we should dedicate this book to him, which seemed quite reasonable.
My discussions with Kyler concerning what Beam does next brought up the notion that the atmosphere could actually be dangerous, and there would be worlds in which it was. Thus I had Beam consider that. I have not at this point decided, and left it at a cliffhanger.
Eric wrote this, finally introducing the previously mentioned hero Fisticuff and giving us a potential new supervillain, as yet unidentified. He expressed concern that it might be over-the-top, but I wasn’t unhappy with what he had so far.
Eric wrote this, with only minor editing on my part.
We discussed what would be outside, and this is what we came up with. I wrote it. Originally I had envisioned Beam sending people outside, but I decided instead he would create a place where the outside could come in.
Eric had introduced Hecate Tower, and suggested that it was magically constructed. I ran with that, suggesting that it might be a magical construct, and therefore that it could easily break a lot of the ordinary rules of reality. They decide to investigate anyway, because that’s where the story takes us.
The reference to the movie with the dwarf opening the door to two different places is Labyrinth.
This has been the fourth behind-the-writings look at Multiverser: The Thirteenth Story. If there is interest and continued support from readers we will endeavor to continue with more behind-the-writings posts and another novel.