This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #506, on the subject of Characters Involved.
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 sixth post for this novel, covering chapters 61 through 72. 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; and
- #505: Versers Advance, chapters 49 through 60.
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 61, Brown 303
Chapter 62, Cooper 20
Chapter 63, Takano 104
Chapter 64, Brown 304
Chapter 65, Cooper 21
Chapter 66, Takano 105
Chapter 67, Brown 305
Chapter 68, Cooper 22
Chapter 69, Takano 106
Chapter 70, Brown 306
Chapter 71, Cooper 23
Chapter 72, Takano 107
Eric tackled this, with a surprise twist in the story.
Eric had mentioned here that Derek and Vashti had explained being versers to Maurice before, and I had not remembered that, so I went back to Brown 291 and expanded it to make the reference more credible.
Continuing our agreed script, Eric drafted this. There were a few edits to deal with our language problems, but it brought us to where we wanted to be.
Eric drafted all of this, with the washing and the cold water, the proposal and the gifts, and the reaction of the crowd. He had intended to include the wedding, but the passage was long enough.
Eric had suggested that Derek’s group should lose this fight, but I couldn’t see how Derek, with his history and all his powers, could credibly lose a fight in these circumstances even if the entire neighborhood came down on them. It wasn’t exactly a bluff, but having Derek demonstrate what he could do enabled him to win without either hurting anyone or being hurt.
I had formed most of this in my head before Eric had written Takano 103, so I jumped ahead and wrote it.
We had been trying to think of a name for the band, and I was toying with the idea of brown and white, and thought of The Brown White and Yellow Band, but realized I was omitting Vashti, so I rethought it as The Living Colors Dixieland Gospel Band, which Eric agreed was good and fit the subtheme of interracial relations.
Drafting what was Brown 306 bumped to 307, Eric said that Emma Malcolm had mentioned the Rougarou, but in the original draft of this chapter she hadn’t. We agreed to go back and find a way to include it without making her appear prescient.
We had discussed this at length, but Eric went a bit off script with the miracle crossbow shot.
I drafted this, wanting to have Tomiko conduct the wedding and put a bit more backstory into the text so it was explained that they had marriages and wedding ceremonies of a sort back in the caves.
Both of us recognized that there would be questions after the display at the Malcolm house, so I tackled that here. I also wanted to bring one of the younger Malcolm brothers over to their side.
We were discussing possible next worlds for several weeks as we recognized the approaching end of Cooper’s William Tell story, and one of Eric’s suggestions was a low-power supers world. He wrote this to demonstrate how it would work, and when we reached the point at which Cooper versed out we moved it from the notes to the text as the next chapter.
Having written several previous fictional weddings, I was hesitant to tackle another; but I wanted to write the next Cooper chapter and preferred not to leap ahead when it’s not necessary, so I pulled together a few thoughts to create this chapter.
Eric started this. I had suggested names for the Malcolm family, and Eric took them in the order I had given and chose the penultimate brother as the one at the door. I added the last few paragraphs when the subject changes to discussing the band; we had agreed on the name of the band, and that the Malcolm boy would suggest it.
I had been worried about how Cooper would get out of the forcefield trap for several days, but then hit upon a solution and said I wanted to write this chapter.
Trying to move the story forward, I decided to cover the construction of the log cabin. The idea of having Tommy come to dinner was quite honestly filling out the chapter.
The joke about the United States of Amiska was Eric’s idea, although I actually framed it within the text.
This has been the sixth 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.