{"id":6233,"date":"2026-08-01T03:46:52","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T03:46:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mjyoung.net\/weblog\/?p=6233"},"modified":"2026-08-01T03:46:52","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T03:46:52","slug":"539-adventures-begin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.mjyoung.net\/weblog\/539-adventures-begin\/","title":{"rendered":"#539: Adventures Begin"},"content":{"rendered":"

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This is mark Joseph “young”<\/i> blog entry #539, on the subject of Adventures Begin<\/i>.<\/p>\n

With permission of Valdron Inc I have previously completed publishing my first twelve Multiverser<\/i> novels, <\/p>\n

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  1. Verse Three, Chapter One:  The First Multiverser Novel<\/a><\/i>,\n<\/li>\n
  2. Old Verses New<\/a><\/i>,\n<\/li>\n
  3. For Better or Verse<\/a><\/i>,\n<\/li>\n
  4. Spy Verses<\/a><\/i>,\n<\/li>\n
  5. Garden of Versers<\/a><\/i>,\n<\/li>\n
  6. Versers Versus Versers<\/a><\/i>,\n<\/li>\n
  7. Re Verse All<\/a><\/i>,\n<\/li>\n
  8. In Verse Proportion<\/a><\/i>,\n<\/li>\n
  9. Con Verse Lea<\/a><\/i>,\n<\/li>\n
  10. In Version<\/a><\/i>, in collaboration with Eric R. Ashley, and\n<\/li>\n
  11. Con Version<\/a><\/i>, in collaboration with Eric R. Ashley,\n<\/li>\n
  12. A Dozen Verses<\/a><\/i>, in collaboration with Eric R. Ashley,\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    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<\/a><\/i>,  again written in collaboration with Eric R. Ashley<\/b>, I am again offering a set of “behind the writings” insights.  This “behind the writings” look may contain spoilers<\/b> 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.<\/p>\n

    This is the second post for this novel, covering chapters 12 through 22.  The first post, covering chapters 1 through 11, was web log post #538:  New Adventures<\/a><\/i>.  There is also a section of the site, Multiverser Novel Support Pages<\/a><\/i>, 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.<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    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.<\/p>\n

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    Quick links to discussions in this page:<\/p>\n

    Chapter 12, Brown 368<\/a>
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    Chapter 13, Beam 200<\/a>
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    Chapter 14, Takano 161<\/a>
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    Chapter 15, Brown 369<\/a>
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    Chapter 16, Beam 201
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    Chapter 17, Takano 162<\/a>
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    Chapter 18, Brown 370<\/a>
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    Chapter 19, Beam 202<\/a>
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    Chapter 20, Takano 163<\/a>
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    Chapter 21, Brown 361<\/a>
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    Chapter 22, Beam 203<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    Chapter 12, Brown 368<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

    Eric wrote this, but it bothered me that he had them leaving Chicago and following dirt roads first, because I had already established that there were quite a few paved highways around Chicago, and second because it seemed to me obvious that Derek would recognize a paved highway as going somewhere and so would follow it.  I changed the beginning to have them travel some distance from the city on the highway and then give them a reason to take the dirt roads, after which I connected it to what Eric wrote, with only a few minor edits and suggestions on my part.<\/p>\n

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    Chapter 13, Beam 200<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

    Eric wrote this also, and my edits were even less significant, as I m still getting a feel for this world.\n<\/p>\n

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    Chapter 14, Takano 161<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

    I wrote this.  I had originally intended to go directly to the restaurant, but I had asked myself whether Belle sat in front or back on the drive, and decided that she would want to sit in the back and get to know Tommy, so I did that and stalled the dinner conversation to the next Takano chapter.<\/p>\n

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    Chapter 15, Brown 369<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

    We played a bit of tag team on this, as Eric started it, and I took over to have them count their money.  I also put an hour or so into trying to track down rail and steamboat fares from Chicago to New Orleans, with only limited success.  I then left it for him.<\/p>\n

    I was going for a world as much like our own as I could get, so I specifically researched the availability of maps and determined that Rand McNally didn’t publish its first road atlas–the first available complete roadmaps of the US–until 1924; we had established that this was 1923.  I knew that gas stations routinely gave away free maps in the 1950s into the early 1960s, but internet sources suggest that free gas station roadmaps were launched in the 1930s, although there were available road maps before that.  Eric was not persuaded of this, and decided that whatever the truth of the matter, he wanted Derek to get a free roadmap from the gas station, so he wrote it, and after we discussed it a bit we let it stand.<\/p>\n

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    Chapter 16, Beam 201<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

    I started this, taking it as far as reporting to maintenance, entirely because Eric had left things with Beam following Sharon in the direction of maintenance to report the broken door.  I then was uncertain what to do next.<\/p>\n

    Eric had presented this to me as a boffer weapons world, and so he was looking for an excuse for a confrontation.  Part of the problem was that he had created an emotion control aspect, so the indigs wouldn’t get upset, but he decided that there would be a class of autistic people immune to this who would do meaningful work.  At this point he introduced this, using Turbirb’durpa as the excuse for the man to become upset.<\/p>\n

    I changed the sword from wooden to styrofoam.  For one thing, this world makes everything from some kind of plastics (I don’t know whether it will enter the story, but I envision the technicians carrying a toolbox filled with plastic tools).  For another, a wooden sword can be a very effective weapon, and this needs to be obviously harmless.<\/p>\n

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    Chapter 17, Takano 162<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

    I finally got to the dinner, and started working out details about the robbery.<\/p>\n

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    Chapter 18, Brown 370<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

    Since we had agreed to use the map, I tackled the issue of figuring out where they were going.  I had considered whether he had any string or any other device he could use to measure, and even thought about using a long stem of grass, which I decided would not be long enough.  I even considered that his oversized belt would be too large and awkward, particularly as it had scabbards on it for the knives.  The toothpick-sized arrows were a last ditch solution.<\/p>\n

    It had always been the plan that Derek was going to New Orleans.  In fact, the only reason he was in Chicago is that it was a recognizable place roughly the same distance from New Orleans as Yellowstone is from Berkeley, so we could put his equipment near New Orleans and land him somewhere that had potential transportation options that would be the right distance away (versers are always in the same position relative to their possessions when they enter a new world), and it would give them reason to go where we wanted them to be.<\/p>\n

    More on why New Orleans later.<\/p>\n

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    Chapter 19, Beam 202<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

    I skipped this chapter, not certain exactly how Eric was going to handle things–he was talking about a confrontation between Beam and the maintenance administrator, whom he had decided would be mildly autistic and would challenge Beam to a fight to the death, by which he would expect boffer weapons.  But I had thoughts on the other two characters and wanted to move their stories forward.<\/p>\n

    Having provided the setup at the end of Beam 201, Eric wrote the first paragraph here and tossed it back to me.  I had a bit of fun with the conversation, and decided that the fight itself should be in the next chapter.<\/p>\n

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    Chapter 20, Takano 163<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

    I wrote a few paragraphs of this mostly to get it started, and because I wanted to write a bit of Brown 288 before the story went much further.  I returned to it and figured out more of the robber’s plan, and added the ideas of the decoy truck and the garbage truck blockade.  I decided to end the chapter just before the direct encounter.<\/p>\n

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    Chapter 21, Brown 361<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

    I wrote the first paragraph of this to set the idea that they could catch a riverboat.  I noticed that it appeared there might have been steamboats running up the Mississippi and up the Illinois River to very near Chicago, and based on fares for other trips thought that it might be $8 for a berth and meals for one, but since they could share the room it would be $12 for the pair of them, which I left for Eric to consider, as I was not sure if he had other plans for their travels at this point.  But then before he got to it I realized that Derek could ask a police officer for directions, and with a bit more research I put them in the direction of a steamboat.  The chapter was short, but it did what it needed to do, so I left it that way.<\/p>\n

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    Chapter 22, Beam 203<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

    I had pushed the fight to this chapter, even though I expected it to be very short.  I padded it a bit, and when the inevitable breaking of the sword occurred I remembered children complaining that it wasn’t fair because they weren’t ready, so I went with that.<\/p>\n

    I realized that Eric had made the sword wooden in Beam 201, but that everything in this world seemed to be made of plastic, so I changed it to styrofoam.  I had intended to have the claymore break a wooden sword, which would not have been any more difficult to my mind, but it seemed to me that these people don’t make anything out of wood, everything is plastic.<\/p>\n

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    This has been the second behind-the-writings look at Multiverser:  The Thirteenth Story<\/i>.  If there is interest and continued support from readers we will endeavor to continue with more behind-the-writings posts and another novel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #539, on the subject of Adventures Begin. 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, … Continue reading #539: Adventures Begin<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[28,3,29,18],"class_list":["post-6233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books-by-the-author","tag-fiction","tag-games","tag-multiverser","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mjyoung.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mjyoung.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mjyoung.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mjyoung.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mjyoung.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6233"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.mjyoung.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6235,"href":"http:\/\/www.mjyoung.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6233\/revisions\/6235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mjyoung.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mjyoung.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mjyoung.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}