This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #517, on the subject of Versers Moving.
With permission of Valdron Inc I have previously completed publishing my first ten 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, and
- In 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 eleventh, Con Version, 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 thirteenth post for this novel, covering chapters 145 through 156. Previous mark Joseph “young” behind-the-writings web log posts for this book include:
- #498: Characters Restart covering chapters 1 through 12;
- #501: Characters Orienting, covering chapters 13 through 24;
- #502: Verser Setbacks, chapters 25 through 36;
- #503: Versers Progress, chapters 37 through 48;
- #505: Versers Advance, chapters 49 through 60;
- #506: Characters Involved, chapters 61 through 72;
- #509: Character Challenges, chapters 73 through 84;
- #510: Versers Debate, chapters 85 through 96;
- #511: Characters Change, chapters 87 through 108;
- #512: Versers Work, chapters 109 through 120;
- #515: Verser Troubles, 121 through 132; and
- #516: Versers Stymied, 133 through 144.
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. This is also the longest book to date, and has quite a few long chapters in it, so there will be quite a few of these background articles.
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 145 Cooper 47
Chapter 146 Brown 334
Chapter 147 Takano 130
Chapter 148, Cooper 48
Chapter 149, Brown 335
Chapter 150, Takano 131
Chapter 151, Cooper 49
Chapter 152, Brown 336
Chapter 153, Takano 132
Chapter 154, Brown 337
Chapter 155, Cooper 50
Chapter 156, Brown 338
I decided that Brian could find a place to live if he prayed about it, and came up with the idea of renting the manse of a church no longer needing it. I also decided on a whim that it would be just outside what Brian was seeking, but better than he hoped, and that he could also work as choir director for a bit of extra cash.
Again I penned this, building toward the vampire confrontation.
Eric drafted the original of this. We had trouble with it because he overlooked the fact that Tommy’s costume and weapons were bulky, she had no way to carry them other than her backpack, and she wouldn’t be taking that to work with her, so we had to figure out how to have her change to being Truth on her lunch break several miles from her room. We were still working on the problem while several other chapters were written. It was reasonably simple to assume that Cooper brought his duffel bag with him and said it was his workout gear, but a lot more trouble to find a way to bring her protective leather coat, disguising mask and hat, and the kawanaga on a clip on the utility belt.
Eric also drafted this, finishing everything I had outlined as what they had to do during this lunch break before he decided that they also had to be interrupted by the need to catch a supervillain. I did a lot of edits to get it to fit with what had already been written about Brian’s earlier visit to the church, and Eric left the part about the choir director’s job for me to write.
Eric left this for me. I wanted the visit to the tomb to kill one vampire but not the other, but it was a task of working out the details as the text was crafted. Eric had recommended the holy water, and also suggested that Maurice had spent time praying over his knife, making it effective against the vampire.
I wanted an excited Tommy to move into the new house quickly, but having accomplished that decided both that the chapter wasn’t long enough and that she needed to eat something. I considered whether to have her encounter another crime along the way, but decided instead to have her chance upon Robinette again.
I drafted this mostly because I wanted to get back to the Brown story. At some point Eric had said something about me writing something about “the job”, which had stuck in my head even though it was about the choir director job, and it drove me to think about designing processor and memory circuits, so I put that here.
Eric and I discussed this, and Eric said I should draft it, so I did. The only remaining question, really, was how to top it at the climax–but there were several scenes that had to be included before we got there, and not a lot of time.
This fell to me, partly because Eric wanted to include several things in the very limited time left in the Brown story and partly because I wanted to have Tommy pass on the information about Mordenslice.
I decided that the accelerated Brown story warranted putting him every other chapter, and so slotted this one for that.
Immersing in running water is one of the traditional ways to kill a vampire, and so I had suggested burning the body and drowning the head in the river. Eric ran with that, and brought in Mossyback, the ancient giant alligator.
I had also suggested that Vashti would want her practice knife back, and that meant a trek to the crypt, which Eric also included here. It was his idea that pulling the knife would bring the creature back to life, sort of, and of feeding the entire monster, in two parts, to the alligator.
I had suggested questioning Gorillaxe, and after staring at Cooper’s name in the heading here for a while decided this was a good time to do that. I had intended at some point to have one of the questioners attempt to embarrass the villain by suggesting that Mordenslice might be smarter than he, but the flow of the conversation didn’t easily admit that.
Eric had drafted this. I made some notes, which Eric incorporated, and then I added the meeting with the Bishop and sliced the second half of the chapter to be Brown 339.
This has been the thirteenth behind-the-writings look at Con Version. If there is interest and continued support from readers we will endeavor to continue with more behind-the-writings posts and another novel.