This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #501, on the subject of Characters Orienting.
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 second post for this novel, covering chapters 13 through 24. The previous behind-the-writings post is mark Joseph “young” web log post #498: Characters Restart 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 13, Takano 88
Chapter 14, Brown 286
Chapter 15, Cooper 5
Chapter 16, Takano 89
Chapter 17, Brown 287
Chapter 18, Cooper 6
Chapter 19, Takano 90
Chapter 20, Brown 288
Chapter 21, Cooper 7
Chapter 22, Takano 91
Chapter 23, Brown 289
Chapter 24, Cooper 8
Eric wrote this to wrap up the mountain lion story. In discussion we found that we were both a bit stymied regarding what to do with Tomiko, but he had several suggestions.
We discussed a string of events from which we outlined about five or six chapters of Derek’s story, including hunting for food, meeting the as yet unnamed trombone player whom we had detailed some already and the owner of a local restaurant whom we had barely touched on the details. I started this chapter based on the first part of that outline. Eric took over with teaching Vashti to clean the rabbit.
We also began to discuss what time of year it was, and agreed that we wanted the climax to come at Mardi Gras but we weren’t sure how much lead time we needed before that.
We were struggling with having to do all the dialogue in German, which not only do neither of us speak, we don’t expect most readers to understand and we also have the difficulty that our viewpoint character doesn’t speak it well so sometimes we can’t explain what was said. I decided that there could be a reason why Hans could speak English, so I put it into the story.
I had asked Eric whether he wanted to do anything else with the reading from the Gospel of John before we chose a next book for the weekly service, and he produced this issue of praying for a net full of fish.
Adjusting the outline slightly, Eric had Derek and Vashti meet Hannah Johnson, who came by looking for Mister Hunter and Maurice Howland, the trombone player. She offers them fifty cents a day plus lunch to play at her restaurant at lunch time, and recommends that Maurice would be a good addition to their group.
Eric had designated Cooper’s first universe as “Earth One”, which I changed based on my own consideration of how that could be determined. Eric also included this note: Authors’ Note: Matterhorn was first ascended by a team led by Englishman Edward Whymper on July 14, 1865 on what Barrelmaster would call Prime Earth.
Much of this sprang from my suggestion that Cooper would insist on helping in some way, although Eric figured out what Cooper might be able to do to help.
Eric had raised the question at the end of the previous Takano chapter, and I meditated on it overnight. It happened that I had just completed teaching (at the Christian Gamers Guild Chaplain’s Bible Study) the last chapter of the Gospel of John, so the events were fresh in my mind. I put together this as a sermon rather than as her thoughts to communicate it more effectively.
I wrote this. I had to look up what andouille sausage was, and figure out how it went together with rice and beans, but hopefully I got it right.
Eric wrote this. In brief editorial discussion we agreed that on well-traveled paths and roads in the mountains Cooper would walk about four miles per hour, about thirty percent faster than average walkers. We also decided that Tell raised goats before the cheese press burned down, and still has a few from which he gets a bit of milk before breakfast, and then releases them to graze on the mountain slopes.
We were both a bit uncertain about Tommy’s story, but I recognized it was inevitable that she would begin teaching from another book, not unreasonable for her to hit Acts, and plausible that she would find lessons from their early efforts to form a community that she could apply to their community. It still was a bit of a struggle to pull those lessons out of the text.
We had copious notes on things that were going to happen to Derek, and just needed to get them in some kind of sequence. I wanted to write this to bring Maurice Howland into the band.
The handshake is a subtle indicator that it’s not normal in New Orleans at this time for whites to touch blacks, and that blacks are aware of the affront.
Working from a rough outline he had proposed, Eric put together this chapter in which Wilhelm sneaks into town to do business, and Cooper feels like there is something dishonest happening. He resolved it and sent Cooper into the neighborhood to do some sightseeing, but we had some uncertainties involving several possible directions.
This has been the second 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.