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Books by the Author

#511: Characters Change

December 8, 2024 M.J. 4 Comments

This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #511, on the subject of Characters Change.

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,

2 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 ninth post for this novel, covering chapters 97 through 108. 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; and
#510: Versers Debate, chapters 85 through 96.

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 97 Takano 115
Chapter 98 Brown 316
Chapter 99 Cooper 32
Chapter 100, Brown 317
Chapter 101, Takano 116
Chapter 102, Brown 318
Chapter 103, Cooper 33
Chapter 104, Brown 319
Chapter 105, Cooper 34
Chapter 106, Brown 320
Chapter 107, Takano 117
Chapter 108, Brown 321

Chapter 97, Takano 115

Eric wrote this, covering a month and reducing Varlax’ absence to a single chapter.

Chapter 98, Brown 316

Eric wrote a massive chapter with a huge confusing dream or vision sequence here, and although I was uncomfortable with a lot of it, I decided to keep it, but to break it into shorter chapters and to make a few minor tweaks. I wound up with six chapters, not all of them actually short, but the first one covers all that precedes the vision.

Chapter 99, Cooper 32

Eric had set up the bank robbery, so I tackled the scene itself. We had discussed the powers to go with the names Major Pain and Private Problem. Having written as far as drawing the sword, I decided to make that the cliffhanger and return to the scene in the next Cooper chapter.

Chapter 100, Brown 317

Eric’s dream sequence begins here, and I made a chapter of what seemed the first natural chunk, an introduction to the vision within a vision.

Chapter 101, Takano 116

Eric drafted this as Tommy’s exit. We had agreed on the framework that she would be trying to rescue a child from copperheads and would be bitten, but we had some difficulty with the execution. Eric had envisioned a terrain that might exist in the mountains at the north end of the state, but not in the Cohansey Aquifer of this setting. I made a lot of tweaks to get it to fit the setting.

Chapter 102, Brown 318

Eric’s dream sequence at this point shifted into its first major scene, which I cut into its own chapter.

Chapter 103, Cooper 33

When I had left the scene hanging, I was not certain what I was going to do with it. I returned perhaps an hour later to finish the encounter. The Hebrews quote is in the language of Young’s Literal Translation, the preferred translation of the player on whom the character is based.

Chapter 104, Brown 319

The second major scene of Eric’s dream sequence was shorter, but still formed a coherent chapter.

Chapter 105, Cooper 34

This chapter was originally Takano 117, but when Eric wrote Takano 117 he brought it to a confrontation with Cooper, and when I was catching up I was unaware that this had been continued in Cooper 34 two chapters later, and thought Eric was asking me to finish it. I wrote the rest, and then when I got to Cooper 34 realized that there was overlap. Being uncomfortable with a chapter that took Cooper back to the bank preceding one that had him across town meeting Tommy, I swapped them and did a bit of editing to make them work.

Chapter 106, Brown 320

The vision shifts into a history lesson badly skewed toward what the south believed caused the war, and I included the suggestion that this was not necessarily the actual history of anything, and his vision was not something from the King but an explanation by the Spirit of New Orleans.

Chapter 107, Takano 117

This had been chapter 105, but there was some confusing temporal overlap between the Cooper 34 chapter Eric had written here and the Takano 117 chapter he had written there, so I swapped them, completed this one, and tweaked them to fit.

Chapter 108, Brown 321

This was the final chapter of the vision Eric had written, which I sliced into a conclusion with its denouement.

This has been the ninth 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.

#510: Verses Debate

November 19, 2024 M.J. 1 Comment

This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #510, on the subject of Versers Debate.

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 eighth post for this novel, covering chapters 85 through 96. 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; and
#509: Character Challenges, chapters 73 through 84.

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 85, Takano 111
Chapter 86, Brown 312
Chapter 87, Cooper 28
Chapter 88, Takano 112
Chapter 89, Brown 313
Chapter 90, Cooper 29
Chapter 91, Takano 113
Chapter 92, Brown 314
Chapter 93, Cooper 30
Chapter 94, Takano 114
Chapter 95, Brown 315
Chapter 96, Cooper 31

Chapter 85, Takano 111

I wasn’t sure what to do with Tommy at this point, and suggested either that we skip her chapter and push into spring in the next, or that we shift to a substory I had proposed in which Boronir is badly injured in a hunting accident. Eric, though, wanted the story to do more with food shortages and then go to the Boronir substory, so he wrote this chapter.

Chapter 86, Brown 312

I had suggested that some clergyman would come to investigate the report of an angel appearing at Yule, and suggested possibly a Bishop. Eric confirmed that he liked the idea of it being a Bishop, and suggested that he would be mostly upset that God would choose the Baptist Mister Hunter and then a couple who didn’t even attend church on Christmas to be protectors of New Orleans. I stitched it together into this chapter.

Chapter 87, Cooper 28

Eric had written the notion that Cooper should go to Lance’s Gold Emporium, so I started this chapter with that. I also realized that Cooper was going to need a place to stay for a while, so I included the decision to rent the hotel room for a week. Then still unsure what to do, I decided to introduce William Tell Junior, who it had already been said was in the phone book. We had agreed that Tell’s secret identity was William Keller (and his wife Belle Tell, or Belle Keller, also has a secret identity), and that the William Tell Junior listing in the phone book was kind of like the bat phone, a number people could call if they needed a superhero. Keller was the name of a recently deceased friend of ours with whom we both played Multiverser, and was also the fifth most common surname in modern Switzerland.

Chapter 88, Takano 112

Eric wanted me to handle the idea of Boronir being killed by a wild animal when he tried to make himself as highly regarded as Davey Wolfkiller, so he skipped this chapter and let me come back and draft it.

Chapter 89, Brown 313

Eric drafted this, bringing a lot of New Orleans flavor into it. He moved it into a discussion of segregation, in which Derek was losing the argument, being classed a “Yankee” who wants to control how they live, and that they should be allowed to keep their separatist world. I thought not only should Derek not lose the argument because a separatist world leads to things like Apartheid and World War II, but because if he loses here he loses New Orleans, because the battle against the devil in New Orleans requires that the people be united despite their differences, and if he can’t get that in the band, he’ll never get it in the city. We spent a lot of time expanding the text of that argument, each of us trying to get the last word, then Eric sliced it all and put it in storage for possible use in the climactic confrontation.

Chapter 90, Cooper 29

Wanting to have Cooper recognize that Tell is Keller, and work in the joke that Belle Keller is actually Belle Tell, I drafted this meeting. I left it hanging at the point at which Cooper says he’s open to suggestions, and Eric picked it up, suggesting powers and training.

Chapter 91, Takano 113

Eric drafted this death and burial of Boronir, and I left it as it was.

Chapter 92, Brown 314

I titled and numbered this chapter shortly before going into the hospital, with a note that before I wrote anything there I wanted to see what expansions we were going to make to the Brown story in earlier chapters. Those expansions pushed this forward two chapters to 92, Brown 314.

While I was hospitalized, Eric wrote this chapter in the notes at the end of the text. I slotted it here upon my return, as it was an excellent part of the theme I wanted to follow about uniting the people. Eric said it was based on a true story that had happened to his own parents.

Chapter 93, Cooper 30

Eric drafted this just before I went into the hospital. The notion of Cooper learning to swordfight from a supervillain was Eric’s.

Chapter 94, Takano 114

This was the last thing I wrote before going into the hospital; I read a bit of Eric’s additional work, but had become focused on expanding previous material in the Brown story so wasn’t moving forward. In my absence Eric wrote several Brown chapters to be slotted into what we had.

The issue of how to fill seats on the council was going to matter, and I wanted to use the Boronir incident to resolve it.

Chapter 95, Brown 315

It was at this point that I went back and wrote Brown 308, in which the integrated nature of the band becomes the point making possible more integrated bands.

While I was hospitalized, Eric wrote several chapters for the Brown story which I was sorting through and trying to work into the existing framework. This inter-racial police standoff was one of them, which I slotted here when I was editing and organizing material after his release.

Eric included this in the notes: “In 1900, the Robert Charles race riots occurred. Much of this is from that or partly inspired by that. He did kill something like four policemen after being rousted and getting shot. The Thomy Lafon schoolhouse, ‘the best Negro schoolhouse in Lousiana’ was burned. A number of blacks were killed as well as some whites. The Assistant Mayor did put two gatling guns in the streets to try to calm down the white rioters. I just moved it a few years later, and had Derek intervene before it got completely terrible. And yes, I put something about Yankees in there. It seems to me that the greater problem of racial unity is that of Yankees a.k.a. ‘Good’ Whites vs. Southerners a.k.a. ‘Bad Whites’. Your views are complicated, but Derek is very Yankee. And if we don’t want a pro segregation piece, well we also certainly don’t want the one-hundred-millionth version of banal, trite ‘if only whites would be nicer the world would be perfect.’ The truth of the situation is that it’s complicated which is something the Yankee notions ignore. I think that the New Orleans solution, like that of a brutally abused wife who just wants some peace and quiet, may not be perfect, but it has its points.”

Chapter 96, Cooper 31

Eric wrote this while I was hospitalized. He left the names of the villains blank, and we discussed them a bit before I proposed the ones used.

This has been the eighth 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.

Books by the Author

#509: Character Challenges

October 13, 2024 M.J. Leave a comment

This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #509, on the subject of Character Challenges.

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 seventh post for this novel, covering chapters 73 through 84. 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; and
#506: Characters Involved, chapters 61 through 72.

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 73, Brown 307
Chapter 74, Cooper 24
Chapter 75, Brown 308
Chapter 76, Takano 108
Chapter 77, Brown 309
Chapter 78, Cooper 25
Chapter 79, Takano 109
Chapter 80, Brown 310
Chapter 81, Cooper 26
Chapter 82, Takano 110
Chapter 83, Brown 311
Chapter 84, Cooper 27

Chapter 73, Brown 307

I suggested that we needed a chapter to fill in an ordinary December before we hit Yule, so Eric drafted this.

He left gaps for me to fill in music, and I picked I Heard the Bells because it comes from the Civil War.

There was also a question about the Rougarou, Eric having written that Emma Malcolm had mentioned it, and I not recalling that but thinking she had only suggested trouble coming at Yule. We discussed it, and went back to Brown 303, later bumped to 304, to add it.

Reading Eric’s section on the Biloxi hurricane, I suggested expanding to include questions of the mayor’s integrity, and eventually added several paragraphs for that.

Chapter 74, Cooper 24

We had a lot of discussion concerning the locale of our superhero setting. Eric wanted to avoid New York City mostly because everyone uses it. I wanted it to be close to the mountains because of the equipment problem. We agreed on somewhere in the Rockies, and by the time Eric wrote this we had agreed on southern Colorado, in the area currently labeled the Rio Grande National Forest. I suggested that John Muir and Theodore Roosevelt never met, and so the national parks and forests systems were never launched. Eric brought forward the possibility that some supervillain might plan to do something with the volcano under Yellowstone.

I rewrote much of this. Eric had overlooked the fact that there would be no light in the library until the power was restored, and when that happened there was at least every reason for Brian to believe the force field would reactivate. His take was that Brian would eventually find the force field generator, which would have been built of components he did not recognize but melted mostly to slag as a single-use device. My view was that it would have been built of components available in the 1950s, and so look very like the inside of a radio or old television with vacuum tubes and such, and would be plugged into the wall somewhere.

We were also uncertain whether he would get anything else from the house, or indeed whether the house would be left to him. Eric decided to give him a few things and leave everything else to family. That meant that he would have to leave the house, and couldn’t take the device with him.

I also am old enough to remember how you call the police in the 1950s.

Chapter 75, Brown 308

When it appeared that the Brown story was reaching the deadline date without having achieved sufficient backstory, I inserted this chapter as a space to be filled. I was brainstorming for story ideas, but for a time the only one was to have a white boy assault a black girl and apparently get away with it.

The insertion of course shifted all subsequent chapter numbers and Brown chapter numbers plus one, which made plus two.

Returning from the hospital, I began re-reading the entire book to get back into the sense of things, and saw that in what became Brown 309 Eric had mentioned that one of the bands at Yule was a mixed-race band. I immediately balked at this–mixed race bands were unknown before about the 1950s or 60s–but then thought this could work if 2) the existence of that band was emphasized and 1) if they could set up some kind of event which suggested that Living Colors was responsible for it. That was my objective here.

Chapter 76, Takano 108

Eric drafted this to give us more of a feeling of struggling through the winter, and to give Tommy bowhunting experience.

Chapter 77, Brown 309

We had agreed that Yule was coming, and the band would face the Rougarou, which would be rampaging through the city. Eric put it together with a bit of tweaking from me.

Chapter 78, Cooper 25

Trying to figure out what Cooper could do with his grocery bags, I considered a hotel room, which would require money, which meant selling one of the gold coins from the money belt. This put me on a search for the price of gold in the 1950s and the value of money at that time, and while I was working on that it occurred to me that a bus locker would be adequate to the purpose, for which he would still need money, but then I remembered that the equipment sheet Eric had provided included a few coins, and while they weren’t legal tender they were the right shape and weight for a coin machine, and particularly the nickel, which had not changed much. So by the time he had finished this chapter we knew what the gold coins were worth in the money of the time, and what that meant in terms of purchasing power, even though at that point we didn’t need it.

Eric picked up the story to create the Blackmask Gang encounter, which I tweaked a bit to eliminate a problem with reopening and relocking the locker.

Chapter 79, Takano 109

Eric had left the hunt in the middle, and after reading it I thought that the hunters were probably killing deer rather indiscriminately, and remembered that one of the rules of modern hunting is you prefer the bucks. If you kill enough does and fawns you reduce the deer population drastically, but as long as you have one or two surviving bucks you get another generation.

Picking up from this, Eric drafted this chapter, putting the problem directly in Tommy’s face.

Chapter 80, Brown 310

I commented about here that it often seemed we were playing Multiverser, that Eric would create a situation and wait for me to figure a way out of it. That, though, created interesting stories, so it was good.

Puzzling over the problem set up at the end of Brown 309 (previously 307), I considered and rejected the same solutions I wrote for Derek, and for the same reasons. However, when I thought about having Derek turn into a sprite, it struck me that a sprite looked like a tiny angel, and he could use that to his advantage, except that before he could become Morach he would have to become Ferris, who looks more like a gargoyle than anything else. That, though, got me thinking. The body skill Derek uses lets him reduce himself by up to half in every dimension, and increase himself by as much as doubling in every dimension, done by thinking of the person he is when that size. The only reason he couldn’t get larger or smaller ultimately is that he doesn’t have a named persona conceptualized for those sizes. Could he imagine such a persona, give it a name, and become that person? I posed it to Eric, and separately to John Walker (on whom the James Beam character is based, who has been playing since before the game was published), and while both were hesitant, both agreed it was possible, and so I drafted it into the story here.

Eric had to do a bit of editing at the end because I got the geography wrong, not realizing that Alphonso had left the stage.

Chapter 81, Cooper 26

I had left a note for Eric concerning the trip ahead, and in the process composed the meeting with The Eagle, including most of the conversation and the mention of William Tell Junior. He came back the next day and covered the hike very briefly, going directly to the meeting, and adding a few bits including the motorcycle and the offer of a ride to the city.

The comment about why it wasn’t a National Park is of course one of the differences between universes: in our world, this location is the Rio Grande National Forest, but we eliminated the National Parks system and put a city on the river here.

Chapter 82, Takano 110

I drafted this, and as soon as I finished it I realized that I had thought Davey would be at the meeting and forgot to include him, so I mentioned it to Eric who went back and tweaked it to include him.

Chapter 83, Brown 311

I thought it was important for Derek and Vashti to go back and thank the bull for his hospitality, and that it would only be meaningful if they had treats. I also thought that the restaurant would be closed on Christmas, recalling that so many people attended church on Christmas day back then that they had to make it a Federal holiday because of all the call-outs. That also meant that the members of the band would be in church. Pierre would be Catholic because it’s the leading religion in France, Maurice Baptist because that was strong among southern Blacks, and a lookup confirmed that Presbyterians were a strong group in China around 1900.

Chapter 84, Cooper 27

Eric drafted this, but I swept through and made a lot of suggestions for changes, because we had a different notion of when Cooper would change out of his uniform, Eric having it done at the bus station and so revealing his identity to The Eagle, I keeping him in costume until in the room so he could keep that secret. I also expanded the dialogue at the front desk, and this led to questions about later parts of the chapter. We agreed on a cooperative rewrite of portions to accommodate this.

This has been the seventh 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.

Bible and Theology

#508: Christians and the Law

October 11, 2024 M.J. Leave a comment

This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #508, on the subject of Christians and the Law.

Someone whom I hold dear, a gamer who met me at a convention and played Multiverser there and later online, sent me a complex question in a message. It should be stated that he was once a Christian youth minister but was disillusioned and became a devout pagan. I promised to address the question here.

We begin with the question, in its entirety.

I don’t remember what prompted me to think of this, but I had a thought I wanted your opinion on…as essentially the only Christian I know.

Specifically, I was thinking about Matthew 5:17, “I have come not to abolish the law but to fulfill it.” Etc. etc.

If the Law has been fulfilled…Does that not have…not the same meaning but the same end result?

Think of it like this. You go to a baseball game, and it gets rained out. The game has been “abolished.”

You go again the following week, and the Yankees get their asses handed to them in nine innings.

In both cases, the game ended, but in one case it was called off early and in the other case it ran its course and was finished in a natural way.

If Jesus fulfilled the law, if his “new and everlasting covenant” supplanted the older, not-everlasting ones…

Doesn’t that mean that Christians are no longer beholden to anything in the Old Testament?

I don’t just mean the Jewish dietary laws and stuff that modern people ignore routinely. I mean all of it.

Like.

Christians have no reason to ever quote the Ten Commandments; the covenant of Moses was fulfilled.

Leviticus, Deuteronomy, all historically interesting but no longer binding?

Those things haven’t “passed from the law,” or at least hadn’t as of Matthew 5:17-20, but if the covenant is fulfilled and a new one is written…isn’t the Law itself no longer the Law?

You’re under a new Constitution now.

I’m still happily Heathen; none of this stuff is incumbent upon me, but something got me thinking about this and you’re pretty much the only person I could imagine talking about this with. So. What do you think?

I am tempted simply to say he is at least very close to completely correct, and leave it at that. However, there are many Christians who would think me a heretic were I to do that, so I have to explain in more detail.

The awkward place to start is to say that almost everyone misunderstands the Law of Moses, and almost always has.

In Exodus 19 (and later in Deuteronomy 5) we have the introduction to that Law, and although it is effectively identical it is poorly understood. It begins, roughly, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the house of Egypt, out of the land of bondage. It then continues You will have no other gods before me. This, though, is the opening structure of what is called a suzerainty treaty, something very common in the ancient middle east but perhaps analogous to some of the politics of the twentieth century.

Here is the set-up: there were a lot of little countries in the world at that time who fought with each other, the winner taking slaves and treasure and ongoing tribute until there was another battle which turned the tide. However, they were surrounded by three giants–Egypt, Syria, and Assyria. Every once in a while one of those would make a move against one of the little countries, and face it, if The U.S. or Russia or China decided to conquer one of the adjacent little countries there wouldn’t be much hope of stopping them. So when this happened, the victim country would send an envoy to one of the other big countries and apprise them of the situation, and that other country launches its military scaring away the aggressor, who really didn’t want to fight one of the other big boys. Then the rescuer sends his envoy into the capital of the country he just saved, and becomes the suzerain. He presents the treaty. It begins, usually very elaborately, “I did all these wonderful things to rescue you.” That’s our opening verse here, I brought you out. It doesn’t have to be longer in Exodus, because the first eighteen chapters tell us about that, and probably a good part of Genesis supports it. The treaty then continues, “Because I did this, this is how you are going to show your gratitude to me,” and that’s the content of the Law of Moses: This is how you show your gratitude to Me for rescuing you and making you My people.

Two things should be evident from this. The first is that that Law never applied to anyone not descended from the people rescued from Egypt, unless they in essence grafted themselves into that people, becoming Jewish.

The second, though, is that the Pharisees had it wrong. Jesus’ message wasn’t really, “I’m throwing out the Law and doing something different.” It was “The way you understand the Law is entirely wrong. It was never something to do to get God to accept you. It was always what you do to show how grateful you are that God has already accepted you. And because it is so badly misunderstood, we’re going to get rid of it and let you show your gratitude however you think does that.”

So we look a bit deeper.

When asked for the most important commandment, Jesus answered it was to love God, and that the second was to love people. That was actually not a new thought; there were rabbis who thought that. But Jesus said that the entire Law was summed up in those two commandments–that is, the Law was a picture of how to show your love for God and for other people. Loving looks like this.

So you are mostly right that we don’t need to quote the Ten Commandments–but that’s because they are effectively descriptions of love. We as Christians don’t refrain from killing because there’s a rule that says don’t kill. We don’t kill because killing is a very unloving action, and we are supposed to express love even to those who hate us. So indeed the Law is irrelevant–except that if we are acting against it, we might need to check whether what we are doing is against the concept of love for God and others. Sometimes it won’t be. You mentioned the dietary laws, and although we know that at least some of them had important health benefits (trichinosis, food poisoning from spoiled shellfish) their point seems to have been that this was a way of showing gratitude, and we don’t have to show gratitude that particular way as long as we show it some way.

I should add a footnote. It is evident in the New Testament that the Jewish Christians continued to keep the Law. However, it is also evident (see Acts 15 and Galatians) that they did not expect the non-Jewish Christians to do so. This supports the argument that the Law doesn’t apply to most of us: the Jewish believers were still Jewish, descendants of those delivered by God from Egypt and so adherents to that treaty. They understood that it was a way to show their gratitude, not a way to win approval, but it was still an obligation upon them. Thus we have examples of Paul making sacrifices and Peter observing the dietary laws, but at the same time we see that the non-Jewish converts did none of these things.

I know I’ve discussed this somewhere else, but am not certain where. I do know that this notion is not my own unique heresy–just to cite one other person, Augustine, who when asked about the rules of conduct demanded by the Gospel described them as “Love God, and do as you please.”

Thus my pagan friend is completely correct that the Law of Moses does not really apply to Christians, and exists more as a reference book for understanding how to love God and others.

I’m going to link to three of my books which I think elucidate different aspects of this.

Do You Trust Me? demonstrates that all through the Bible from Adam through Moses through David to the New Testament the way of salvation was always by grace through faith.
About the Fruit explicates a significant amount of Galatians showing that Christianity is not about rules but about love and grace.
What Does God Expect? A Gospel-based Approach to Christian Conduct shows how to live a Christian life without reference to rules.

I do hope this has been helpful, and to my heathen friend, thanks for asking.

Elections, Law and Politics

#507: Something About New Jersey’s 2024 Election

September 24, 2024 M.J. 2 Comments

This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #507, on the subject of Something About New Jersey’s 2024 Election.

As the political fighting escalated I thought I really should write something about New Jersey’s 2024 election. This is that, for what it’s worth.

It is difficult to comment on the Presidential race without raising the ire of readers. For many this election is once again about which candidate you fear more. Former President Donald Trump is perceived by many as a lying buffoon and an embarrassment to the country, but by others as a bold leader unaffected by public opinion. Vice President Kamala Harris, meanwhile, is perceived by opponents as an extreme liberal leading America into socialism but by supporters as a defender of the rights of minorities. I cannot say what perceptions are more true, only that I fear both of them and think everyone is being misrepresented both positively and negatively, and the truth might not be out there.

Of more consequence perhaps is the United States Senate race. We wrote about the indictment of Senator Menendez a few years ago, but it has finally resulted in him stepping down from the Senate. Ballotpedia marks this as one of the battleground elections in this year’s Senate race, and it could help tip the balance in the Senate one way or the other.

In this regard, it is significant that the current breakdown of the Senate has 49 Republicans and 45 Democrats, with 4 independents who usually side with the Democrats. (Two seats are currently vacant.) Of the 33 seats slated for election this year, 19 are Democrats, 10 Republican, and 4 independent. More significantly, only one of the dozen elections identified as battleground states by Ballotpedia is currently Republican, and one Independent, the other ten all being currently held by Democrats. The election could easily give either party control of the Senate, with the Republicans favored in that.

It seems unlikely that New Jersey will be one of the states that does that, though. Democrat Andrew Kim has easily outspent Republican rival Curtis Bashaw, five million against one and a half million dollars with more left in his coffer than Bashaw has raised total. He also has the political experience, having served as our third district U. S. Congressman since 2019; Bashaw is a businessman with no reported political experience, but who believes he can help put the country on a sound financial footing. Further, the increasing urbanization of the Garden State has given Democrats the edge in state-wide races. It would be nice for New Jersey to once again have a split Senatorial represenation (one Democrat and one Republican), but it does not appear to be likely.

There are four “third party” candidates on the ballot, Green Party Christina Khalil, Libertarian Kenneth Kaplan, Socialist Workers Party Joanne Kuniansky, and Independent Patricia Mooneyham, but it is unlikely these will have much impact on the outcome.

It should be mentioned that all twelve of our Congressmen, that is, those in The U. S. House of Representatives, are up for re-election or replacement. The current breakdown is 7 Democrats and 3 Republicans, with two vacant seats. Currently the House is fairly closely split, with 220 Republicans and 212 Democrats plus three vacancies; the entire House is up for election, but Ballotpedia identifies 53 as battleground races, of which 28 are currently Democrats and 25 Republicans. In New Jersey, political analysts see only the 7th district in doubt, where Republican incumbent Thomas Kean, Jr., is running against Democrat Susan Altman, and Kean is generally thought to have a slight edge. Other districts are expected to stay with the party currently holding the seat, most of whom are incumbents.

There are, surprisingly, no questions on the ballot this year.

Books by the Author, Uncategorized

#506: Characters Involved

September 22, 2024 M.J. Leave a comment

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

Chapter 61, Brown 303

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.

Chapter 62, Cooper 20

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.

Chapter 63, Takano 104

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.

Chapter 64, Brown 304

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.

Chapter 65, Cooper 21

We had discussed this at length, but Eric went a bit off script with the miracle crossbow shot.

Chapter 66, Takano 105

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.

Chapter 67, Brown 305

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.

Chapter 68, Cooper 22

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.

Chapter 69, Takano 106

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.

Chapter 70, Brown 306

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.

Chapter 71, Cooper 23

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.

Chapter 72, Takano 107

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.

Bible and Theology, Books by the Author

#505: Versers Advance

September 1, 2024 M.J. Leave a comment

This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #505, on the subject of Versers Advance.

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 fifth post for this novel, covering chapters 49 through 60. 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; and
#503: Versers Progress, chapters 37 through 48.

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 49, Brown 299
Chapter 50, Cooper 16
Chapter 51, Takano 100
Chapter 52, Brown 300
Chapter 53, Cooper 17
Chapter 54, Takano 101
Chapter 55, Brown 301
Chapter 56, Cooper 18
Chapter 57, Takano 102
Chapter 58, Brown 302
Chapter 59, Cooper 19
Chapter 60, Takano 103

Chapter 49, Brown 299

We had discussed this at length, and Eric had penned most of the encounter with the Devil which, as mentioned, got moved here to the music hall and after Halloween. We had also agreed that as they were leaving they would meet the Chinese drummer; Eric came up with the name Lei He.

The trick with the cards has often been used to mark someone as a card sharp in film. There’s a joke in my family that one night my father-in-law ran a deck up to his arm that way, asked if anyone wanted to play cards, and flipped them all over in one smooth move. No one volunteered to play.

Chapter 50, Cooper 16

Eric drafted this, following the outline we had discussed. It had to be a tightly plotted story at this point, because there were several scenes that had to have Cooper, Wilhelm, and Hans in the right places.

Chapter 51, Takano 100

Picking up my musings about all the women from whom Davey might choose, Eric drafted this to move toward integrating him into the tribe.

Chapter 52, Brown 300

Because this involved music, I drafted it. I had a pretty good idea of how Chinese Waist Drums were used, and I thought I may actually have seen a performance once.

Chapter 53, Cooper 17

This was part of the outline, that Wilhelm and Cooper would be on a transport downriver to separate trials but the water would be rougher than the soldiers could manage, so they would untie Cooper who would get them to safety and then escape. Because I have over a thousand miles of canoeing experience we agreed that I would draft it.

We could see Cooper’s exit coming, and began discussing worlds to which we could send him.

Chapter 54, Takano 101

Eric drafted this, along the general lines of the story we had been discussing. He had by this point decided who Davey had chosen to marry, but hadn’t told me.

Chapter 55, Brown 301

Since I was the primary writer on the music sections, I drafted this chapter. The mention of Thanksgiving reflected something we had begun discussing behind the scenes, that we needed a Louisiana variant of Thanksgiving dinner to be served at the restaurant.

Chapter 56, Cooper 18

Since I was writing and we had an agreed outline for this, I drafted this chapter to move the story forward to the next connection.

Chapter 57, Takano 102

Eric drafted this, bringing in the idea of a verser rabbit and discussing what happens to animals when they die. I pointed out, privately, that the Bible doesn’t actually tell us what happens to animals when they die, probably because we don’t need to know.

The intelligent verser rabbit with the cybernetic eye is a motif in some of Eric’s stories, a sort of reminder of the ridiculous things that could exist in the multiverse as conceived.

Chapter 58, Brown 302

I drafted this, but the Thanksgiving menu was concocted by Eric (I added the salad, whipped cream, and coffee).

Chapter 59, Cooper 19

Again this fell to me for the theological aspect, as Cooper had to be convicted of heresy by a twelfth century Inquisitor based on some nuance of theology on which people were convicted at the time, while holding to the core of orthodox theology. The statement of faith is essentially the Nicene Creed in the Western version, somewhat paraphrased in spots and from memory.

We had by this point chosen the next world for him, and also decided that we would make it a gather world.

Chapter 60, Takano 103

Eric started writing this before I started on the previous Cooper chapter, and finished it about simultaneously with it. It was roughly following the script.

This has been the fifth 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.

Bible and Theology, Books by the Author, Games, Law and Politics, Memories, Temporal Anomalies/Time Travel

#504: Why I Started Writing

August 29, 2024 M.J. Leave a comment

This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #504, on the subject of Why I Started Writing.

Someone named Jay Oluwabukunmi contacted me (via LinkedIn) and wrote:

I recently came across your profile and was highly impressed by the quality of your content. Could you kindly share what motivated you to begin writing?

That’s an interesting question with a complicated answer, so I decided it would be better to share it here.

Scratch a writer and you’ll almost always find a reader. I read quite a bit from a very young age, including a fair amount of science fiction and fantasy, but also mysteries, and the Bible, and quite a bit more. I especially enjoyed C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams, and had a vague notion of writing the next great fantasy novel. I suspect, though, that I was one of thousands who had that notion, and I wasn’t all that devoted to it–I was a musician, and envisioned my immediate future as heading into Christian contemporary records.

Still, I took a class in college entitled Creative Writing: Fiction, partly because I needed to fill a slot and it fit my schedule, partly because I had this notion that when I retired I might write that novel. I even started working on a novel while I was still in school, although it wasn’t all that good and I abandoned it. However, for quite a few years I maintained, intermittently, the practice of keeping a literary journal. My friend C. J. Henderson says don’t do that because you’re never going to sell such a thing, and you shouldn’t waste time writing something for which no one is going to pay you. However, it is not only good practice, I have more than once remembered something I wrote in those journals and used it to write something new.

Pursuing my music career I got a job on the air of a small but significant contemporary Christian radio station, and eventually became the program director. At some point we compiled a mailing list, and management decided we should send out a monthly newsletter. It became my job to create this, so I wrote a fair amount of the content (my degrees in Biblical Studies helped immensely at this point) assisted by our overnight DJ for a time. I also was introduced to the associate editor of a local newspaper, who liked my style and invited me to write some satire for his paper; two columns were published under the name M. Joseph Young, to avoid confusion with the Mark Young who was on the local radio station (also me).

Along the way I discovered role playing games, specifically beginning with Dungeons & Dragons™ but also playing several others in a variety of genres and settings. Largely through this I was introduced to E. R. Jones, who needed someone who could write (and by this time I had finished a juris doctore, so I could certainly handle the technical aspect of writing) to help create a role playing game on which he had been working for half a decade. We put a lot of work into that, he dropped out of the process before the final edit, but I’d made promises and so I pushed through and published Multiverser: The Game: Referee’s Rules along with Multiverser: The First Book of Worlds. I continued on that line, with Multiverser: The Second Book of Worlds, and along with some people working with me on that (artists, supporters, gamers) we tried to make a go of that.

Then someone came up with the idea of creating a Multiverser comic, and as the in-house writer it fell to me to do the text. I created three characters with two stories for each of them to be the basis for three issues, but then the artists said no, it couldn’t be done with our resources. That fell into the back burner, and then emerged as Verse Three, Chapter One: The First Multiverser Novel. I learned quite a bit about structuring a novel by doing that, and have followed it with more than a dozen additional novels continuing those stories.

I was also writing web pages on a wide variety of subjects, mostly to get attention to sell the game. I wrote about Bible and law, in which I had my degrees, and time travel, which had been discussed extensively in writing the game, and several other subjects, and suddenly one day I felt that I needed to put together a book, What Does God Expect? A Gospel-based Approach to Christian Conduct, because it seemed to me that a lot of people didn’t understand the basics of Christian living. After this, my wife suggested that one of my web pages should be expanded, and that resulted in About the Fruit, and I was now writing Christian non-fiction books. Most of those came from a sort of compulsion, that this needed to be said and I was going to have to say it.

Along the way someone asked me to write a series for a new web site, Game Ideas Unlimited. The site never materialized, but Gaming Outpost grabbed the series for a redesigned site. At the same time I decided that since I had been elected Chaplain of the Christian Gamers Guild I should do something, and so I launched the Faith and Gaming series. That subsequently got published in book form, and then a publisher approached me to release an expanded edition. I was established as a writer in the role playing community.

More recently a publisher contacted me and asked if I would write a book for him, and we agreed that I would create The Essential Guide to Time Travel based on my internet writings on that subject if he would publish my at that time just finished apologetics book Why I Believe, and that established a continuing relationship which got several books back in print and introduced my New Testament analytical commentaries.

I’ve linked several of the books that are still in print. The Multiverser books should be back in print soon; we’ve created a LinkTree which will be expanded as the new material goes online. Other books both in and out of print are listed here.

That’s probably more than Jay wanted to know, but I’ve often said in my mouth all stories are long, and this was obviously going to be a long story. I hope it helps.

Books by the Author

#503: Versers Progress

August 10, 2024 M.J. Leave a comment

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

Chapter 37, Cooper 12

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.

Chapter 38, Takano 96

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.

Chapter 39, Brown 295

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.

Chapter 40, Cooper 13

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.

Chapter 41, Takano 97

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.

Chapter 42, Brown 296

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.

Chapter 43, Cooper 14

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.

Chapter 44, Brown 297

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.

Chapter 45, Takano 98

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.

Chapter 46, Brown 298

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.

Chapter 47, Cooper 15

Following the rough outline, I wrote this short chapter establishing that Wilhelm had been arrested, and suggesting that Hans was bound to be caught.

Chapter 48, Takano 99

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.

Books by the Author

#502: Verser Setbacks

July 21, 2024 M.J. Leave a comment

This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #502, on the subject of Verser Setbacks.

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 third post for this novel, covering chapters 25 through 36. The previous mark Joseph “young” behind-the-writings web log posts are #498: Characters Restart and #501: Characters Orienting. 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 25, Takano 92
Chapter 26, Brown 290
Chapter 27, Cooper 9
Chapter 28, Takano 93
Chapter 29, Brown 291
Chapter 30, Cooper 10
Chapter 31, Brown 292
Chapter 32, Takano 94
Chapter 33, Brown 293
Chapter 34, Cooper 11
Chapter 35, Takano 95
Chapter 36, Brown 294

Chapter 25, Takano 92

This was originally about trying to find a way to catch a giant fish, but it was difficult because Eric had forgotten how they did their fishing. Faced with the complications, he changed it to needing better weapons for confrontations with wild animals. To some degree, this was because we needed to have Tommy develop more survival skills and had no source for her to learn them.

Chapter 26, Brown 290

In our discussion for this chapter I had put forward the notion that Hannah would lowball Maurice on pay, and Derek would object to a black boy being paid less than a white boy, particularly by a black employer. This actually fits into our long-term notion of a racially integrated battle against injustice.

Chapter 27, Cooper 9

I made some suggestions for the outline, including the fact that Eric wanted a miracle connected to Cooper being arrested and escaping. Making a few notes on all of that, I then wrote the arrest.

The four official languages of Switzerland are French, Italian, German, and something called Romansh. I decided that the scene would be complicated if the soldier was less fluent in German and so tried to communicate in the other three languages first.

Chapter 28, Takano 93

I had been thinking that it would be good to have someone else take over the sermons, so that we wouldn’t have to keep thinking about what Tommy was going to teach each week. Sylwi seemed a good choice.

Chapter 29, Brown 291

Our outline for Derek included that there would be a confrontation with something called a Grunch (pictured) on Halloween, and that Maurice would be there. Eric had done the research on the New Orleans monsters for three confrontations we were planning, and he wrote this.

In Brown 302 Eric made reference to Derek and Vashti having explained who they were to Maurice. At that point, I came back here and expanded a one-sentence statement to the effect that they explained who they were to him into the several paragraphs which actually did explain it.

Chapter 30, Cooper 10

There had been significant discussion of the Cooper story, and I essentially pulled together pieces of it to which we had previously agreed, anticipating the next event, which would be the first miracle of Cooper’s experience.

Chapter 31, Brown 292

I suggested that the Brown story should be accelerated here, and that the entire Halloween event should take three chapters. Eric thought it would be completed in two, but as we reached the beginning of the second it was unclear exactly how it would resolve despite having an outline.

Eric wrote this, expanding on some of the ideas he had presented previously, and taking it to a cliffhanger as I had suggested.

Chapter 32, Takano 94

I saw this as follow-up to Tommy giving Sylwi control over the weekly services. I decided on Boronir because he had been one of the Tennans and therefore a noted fighter and probably a burly guy and less social.

I wrote this while waiting for Eric to catch up the Brown story.

Chapter 33, Brown 293

Finishing the Halloween confrontation, Eric wrote most of this, but was faced with the problem of killing a monster immune to bullets. I had suggested a “spiritual weapon” which was unclear, so Eric passed the writing to me to finish, and I brought in the notion of quoting something from the sprite scriptures which disempowered the Grunch and let them kill it with their weapons.

Chapter 34, Cooper 11

Eric had suggested a miracle, and we had discussed the options, so I took to writing this chapter. I had left two Brown chapters for Eric, because he understood the monster better, but filled in the Takano and Cooper chapters between them.

Chapter 35, Takano 295

Eric had written this quite a few chapters back, but I said it was too soon, and there were a lot of little mistakes, “continuity errors”, about her situation. It wouldn’t be until later in the year that there might be food shortages, but it was a good chapter. Having reached early December in her story, Eric resurrected the chapter from the notes and made significant revisions; I had trouble with only a small part of it, which he revised.

Chapter 36, Brown 294

We had several loose futures dangling. One was that I had said the band would pick up the Sousaphone player shortly after Halloween. We had also collaboratively written a portion in which the Devil is playing poker at a dance hall Derek visits for some reason, and I had decided that it should belong to an uncle of the Sousaphone player. Eric wrote the beginning of this, with the owner of a music hall, Pascal Beaufoy, asking Derek to come play there, and then segued into the devil playing cards in the restaurant. I moved that part back to the notes, because I couldn’t imagine Hannah Johnson allowing anyone to play cards in her restaurant, least of all the devil, and it would work much better at the music hall. I then penned the section introducing Pierre Beaufoy, grand-nephew of Pascal, as a wealthy Sousaphone player who wants an opportunity to play in a band.

This has been the third 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.

A generalist: learning less and less about more and more, one day to know nothing about everything.