This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #503, on the subject of Versers Progress.
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 fourth post for this novel, covering chapters 37 through 48. 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; and
- #502: Verser Setbacks, chapters 25 through 36.
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 37, Cooper 12
Chapter 38, Takano 96
Chapter 39, Brown 295
Chapter 40, Cooper 13
Chapter 41, Takano 97
Chapter 42, Brown 296
Chapter 43, Cooper 14
Chapter 44, Brown 297
Chapter 45, Takano 98
Chapter 46, Brown 298
Chapter 47, Cooper 15
Chapter 48, Takano 99
Our conversations had a major event ahead for Wilhelm, but we agreed that there should be something less dramatic in the Cooper story before that happened, and Eric had set up the idea that he was going to climb the northeast face of North Hill, so that was the focus of this chapter. I had specifically said I wanted to write this internal dialogue thing in the middle of the climb.
After I had written the beginning through the internal dialogue, I encouraged Eric to expand the climb, which he did.
Before we started writing this book we had discussed bringing someone to Tommy to help her survive. Our top ideas then were to bring Johnny Angel back into the story and give him a wealth of survival skills, or to create a new viewpoint character and bring him there. We chose to create Cooper; but Cooper wasn’t really turning into the survival expert we needed and was very much involved in a very interesting storyline, so we came back to whether to bring Angel here. Instead, I proposed a new indig. Discussion included whether he was big like Grizzly Adams, or tall and thin, or just an unimpressive looking guy, and what his name should be, and Davey is what emerged.
I had pictured the meeting, and so I drafted this chapter.
As the musician, it was up to me to do a lot of the more musical end of things. I also had the advantage that I had played the Sousaphone, and also dabbled on the trumpet, and had been in a wide variety of musical combos including a Dixieland band and a marching band. I wrote this chapter.
Eric drafted this, covering quite a bit of the story outline. We are moving toward the famous apple story, but in our researches encountered a few other William Tell adventures worth adapting into our story.
Eric drafted this, but we went back to make a lot of changes, partly because there were things Tommy already knew and partly because I wanted to take her out of the middle and have Davey teach the tribe directly.
Eric drafted the beginning of this, including bringing forward the southern reaction to the “Yankee” opposition to apartheid in the south, and the initial arrival at the restaurant. We had discussed the issue of whether the owner would pay them for playing, and his solution, that Pierre would insist on it, resolved that.
Once Eric started writing about the music, he passed the baton to me to continue it. I provided music for Alphonso and created a couple of other acts, then ended with Derek’s band starting their set. However, we eventually realized we had not done enough to push the racial tensions and devil involved in politics concepts forward, so I came back and cut the chapter short, adding the introduction of the mayor and moving the rest to a new chapter to expand the Brown stories.
We were each waiting for the other to write this, but I realized that and drafted it. I had some concerns about how to continue that story with Cooper as the viewpoint character, but it seemed still to be unfolding well, and I sketched some ideas for it.
Brown 296 was already long when I decided to use it to introduce the mayor, so when we were around chapter 80 I came back and split 296, expanding the second part as this chapter. This increased all the chapter numbers below this point by one, and all the Brown chapter numbers also by one.
We needed Davey to teach survival skills to a large group of people without belaboring the story. Also, I observed that Davey lived with his family but had never met a girl who wasn’t less closely related to him than a first cousin, so this would be his opportunity to find a wife. I had suggested that Varlax and Sylwi would be candidates but problematic, but if we introduced someone else we’d also have to develop another character. Eric ran with those ideas and drafted this, with only a few minor edits from me.
I was inclined to skip Derek’s set, but Eric said he enjoyed reading the music sections so I tackled it. I combed the book to this point and found eight songs confirmed as in their repertoire; I wanted ten, but couldn’t think of more. Peace in the Valley had been mentioned a couple times in our discussions, but it turned out to be written by Tommy Dorsey a quarter century in the future, so I put that on the back shelf. While I was writing I thought of At the Cross, the words to the verses from Isaac Watts, and although I wasn’t sure about the music I thought it was probably nineteenth century and went with it. I want to add Also Sprach Zarathustra, but want to have a session where the band learns it.
The setup with the devil at the card table was written by Eric quite a while back, originally set at the restaurant, but I objected that Hannah would not allow anyone to play cards at her restaurant, least of all the devil. We agreed to move it here, and to split it so that the meeting was a cliffhanger. The song reference is actually to one of my songs, entitled Never Alone, so it is unlikely that many readers will recognize it.
The original segment about the devil had ended with the restaurant mostly empty, and I simply copied that here; but the lead-in was very short, and it didn’t seem as if the hall would have cleared, so Eric expanded it with more music after the band, pies, and a bit more before moving to their departure and that encounter.
Following the rough outline, I wrote this short chapter establishing that Wilhelm had been arrested, and suggesting that Hans was bound to be caught.
I wrote this mostly so I could continue the Brown story in the next chapter, but also because I wanted to lay the foundation for the idea that Tommy was not going to marry Davey.
This has been the fourth 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.