This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #339, on the subject of Verser Tensions.

With permission of Valdron Inc I have previously completed publishing my first five novels, Verse Three, Chapter One:  The First Multiverser Novel, Old Verses New, For Better or Verse, Spy Verses, and Garden of Versers, 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 have posted the sixth, Versers Versus Versers,  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.

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 the sixth mark Joseph “young” web log post covering this book, covering chapters 56 through 66.  Previous entries in this series include:

• #319:  Quiet Worlds, convering chapters 1 through 11.
• #323:  Verser Crises, covering chapters 12 through 22.
• #327:  Verser Separations, covering chapters 23 through 33.
• #333:  Uncertain Worlds, covering chapters 34 through 44.
• #338:  Verser Missteps, covering chapters 45 through 55.

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.

Chapter 56, Slade 163

It took a while for me to work out what would happen in this chapter because my mind was constructing the upcoming Beam chapter, but I needed to have Slade’s part first.  It was that aspect of needing to know what Slade thought that gave the opening about whether he was too suspicious, which was going to contrast against the Beam material already in my head.

This was chapter 47 prior to the inclusion of the Takano chapters.

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Chapter 57, Brown 190

Although I knew I had been delaying Beam for quite a while, and I had a lot of ideas for his next chapter rattling in my head, I also knew that I had to keep that story from accelerating too rapidly, and I had to get Derek’s story moving somewhere useful.  I wasn’t entirely certain where that would be, of course, but as usual I decided to have my character think about it and see if he could give me any ideas.

Before the inclusion of the Takano chapters this was chapter 48.

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Chapter 58, Beam 52

One point that I have often made is that “evil” characters always assume that other characters have the same motivation they have, and so can’t understand “good” characters.  Beam is to some degree becoming my illustration of that.  He creates a story of what nefarious scheme the other versers have executed, and believes his story because it’s what he would do if he could.

This had been chapter 49 before the addition of the Takano chapters.

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Chapter 59, Hastings 181

At this point in the first edit I discovered that I had numbered two chapters “Brown 174” and had to correct all Brown chapter numbers from there forward.

I was several days pondering what to write here.  I discussed it with Kyler, but the best he could suggest was that she could send flowers to the emissary (which for practical reasons I figured she couldn’t actually do).  Yet that was the right direction:  she is considering how much blame for the accident falls on her, and whether she should do something about it.

Before the addition of the Takano chapters this was chapter 50.

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Chapter 60, Brown 191

I struggled with this for a while.  For one thing, the story wasn’t moving fast enough, but I couldn’t see an easy way to accelerate it.  Also, I had two ideas in mind, and the first was to have Derek lock the door and then the second was for them to go find the kitchen–but my mind seemed to think that locking the door would potentially lead to consequences I couldn’t anticipate, and might severely delay the walk to the kitchen, making an already slow story slower.  I finally decided to turn the two around, and see where that got me.

The disarming move was something else I thought I should introduce.

This had been chapter 51 before the inclusion of the Takano chapters.

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Chapter 61, Kondor 164

I looked up annual vehicular fatalities, and they’ve been in the tens of thousands for decades.

When I finished writing this chapter, my brain seemed to think I was going to begin with something else and then go to the stuff about psionics being dangerous, but in the couple days over which I’d considered the chapter I seemed to have forgotten what it might have been.

This had been chapter 52 before the Takano chapters were added.

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Chapter 62, Slade 164

I almost put the Beam chapter in which the message is received before the Slade chapter in which it was sent, but decided that I should give the readers the message before I let Beam examine it.

This was chapter 53 before the inclusion of the Takano chapters.

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Chapter 63, Takano 10

At this point I decided that I would be writing two more chapters for Tomiko, one in which she verses out of this world into the next and tries to get oriented, the other in which she has her brief encounter with Lauren which pushed me over the edge to create the character.  That meant twelve chapters, which would have to be inserted into seventy-four chapters, and be neither the first nor the last.  Seventy-two divided by twelve is six, so I would have to insert her roughly every six chapters.

I put this one here mostly because I decided to put a delay between Slade sending the message and Beam receiving it; it also helped that it had been more than six chapters since the previous Takano one.

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Chapter 64, Beam 53

I had spent a lot of time thinking about Slade’s invitation to meet Beam, and knew that Beam would take it wrong.  Thus I had thought of at least some of the things his team would read into it.  However, it was after I had written the Slade chapter in which the letter was sent that I came up with Beam’s greater plot.

This had been chapter 54 before the Takano chapters were incorporated.

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Chapter 65, Hastings 182

At this point I expected the pace to accelerate, and I knew where it was going, but I had to move Lauren and Joe and Zeke back together with Bob and Shella, because the trio didn’t really have a way to get to the meeting (Lauren had never been to the site, so she couldn’t teleport there).

This was chapter 55 before Takano was added.

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Chapter 66, Brown 192

Still feeling my way through the new Brown world, I know what he has to do, but not quite whether I can make it credible when he does it.

I remember that Vashti doesn’t cook, but neither does Derek, so he’s learning to do so now, and she’s something of his guinea pig for that.

Before the Takano chapters were added this was chapter 56.

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This has been the sixth behind the writings look at Versers Versus Versers.  If there is interest and continued support from readers we will endeavor to continue with more behind the writings posts for it.

This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #323, on the subject of Verser Crises.

With permission of Valdron Inc I have previously completed publishing my first five novels, Verse Three, Chapter One:  The First Multiverser Novel, Old Verses New, For Better or Verse, Spy Verses, and Garden of Versers, 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 have posted the sixth, Versers Versus Versers,  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.

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 the second mark Joseph “young” web log post covering this book, covering chapters 12 through 22.  Previous entries in this series include:

• 319:  Quiet Worlds, convering chapters 1 through 11.

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.

Chapter 12, Beam 44

The notion that the Amir would feed them brains and eyeballs came from a vague recollection of a documentary mentioning that the Queen of England was often served such delicacies when she visited Commonwealth countries, and had not only to eat them but to appear to enjoy doing so.  The conversation drifted from that.  I almost forgot to mention the beer and wine, but had thought previously that these should be included in the first discussion of the meal.

This was chapter 10 before the Takano chapters were integrated.

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Chapter 13, Brown 180

Pieces of the story were beginning to coalesce.  I had already established that Derek, as Morach, would be doing aerial recon over Beam’s party and be shot out of the air by Dawn.  I also knew that somehow Beam would become involved in helping Amir Laban Fassad find a way to bring down the Caliph of the Twin Rivers.  Now I realized that the way to approach this would be to have Beam confront the Amir concerning what he wants, the Amir express his hope to overthrow the Caliph and his efforts through using bandits to harass the border, Beam mentioning the definition of insanity, and suggesting that the way to bring down the Caliph is first to take out those Amirs who are supporting him.  He would then decide to begin by doing recon of the most distant one, the downstream Amirate belonging to Vashti’s father.  This puts Beam’s team in position for Derek to investigate.

That, though, meant that quite a bit had to happen on Beam’s thread for very little on Derek’s, and I was going to have to find a way to move Derek forward slowly while accelerating Beam.  Thus the trip down the river was the right place to start.  I discussed all this with Kyler, and we agreed on that much.

This was chapter 11 before the Takano chapters were integrated.

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Chapter 14, Slade 157

Mostly I was moving time a bit so I could get back to Beam and set up the next move, but I also thought it would be interesting to show that Slade is worrying about the wrong end of the problem here.

This was chapter 12 before the Takano chapters were integrated.

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Chapter 15, Beam 45

I had now worked out the first significant bit of action, and was moving the characters into that confrontation.  The difficult part was figuring out how to motivate Beam into fighting for Laban, but Beam has his greed working for me.

This was chapter 13 before the Takano chapters were integrated.

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Chapter 16, Hastings 175

The idea that Derek could call home was mentioned when he was a sprite, but he didn’t do it then.  (He did do it later in that book.)  It seemed appropriate now, and I wanted to mention the idea that when he returned Lauren would teach him magic, because no one expects he’ll be versed out before he can return, and I wanted to set that idea in the reader’s mind, that he is expected back at the Caliphate.

This was chapter 14 before the Takano chapters were integrated.

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Chapter 17, Takano 3

I kept intending to include her effort to get signal on the cell phone and then forgetting it, so I used it to open this chapter, hoping that the fact that she had been otherwise occupied would distract the reader from the fact that this would probably have been the first thing she tried.

The decision to go find a centaur was partly inspired by the need to visit the Sorns in Out of the Silent Planet, probably partly by the notion of centaurs being wise in the Harry Potter books, and partly by the fact that being part horse they would travel more than satyrs and so would have to know geography better.

Again, although this was the right insertion point by count, it seemed good to break up the interacting chapters of the other characters by diverting to Tomiko here.

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Chapter 18, Kondor 157

When I finished writing Hastings 175, I glanced at the outline of chapters and put Kondor’s name at the top of this one.  I think when I wrote that I had a rough idea what was going to happen in it, but it was late and I went to bed.  I could not think of what I was going to write the entire next day, and finally settled on something different, a direction I had always hinted but hesitated to follow–letting Lauren teach everyone some psionics.  The hesitation is because the more similar the characters are to each other the harder it is to write good different stories for them.  Yet it is obvious that they would teach each other, and particularly Lauren, so it has to be made possible.

Before the Takano chapters were integrated this was chapter 15.

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Chapter 19, Brown 181

I faced a difficult construction problem at this point.  I needed to have interaction between Derek and Beam, and it was going to require that I bring both of them to the same place, have Beam take action that affects Derek, and have Derek describe the effect.  That, though, seemed to require two Brown chapters with a short Beam chapter between them, and I didn’t like that; it also didn’t make that much sense, and I was having trouble figuring out how to avoid several short chapters switching between Beam and Brown.  Finally I decided that whichever of them I moved first, the reader would realize that the other had already moved, so I would start with Brown and then do Beam.  It was already part of the concept that Derek would telepathically contact someone to give information about the situation, and in discussing it with Kyler he suggested that Lauren would be the person he most naturally contacted, and I realized he was right–in a panic situation, he would go for the contact that was easiest, and that would be her.

Most of the castle material was fill so the chapter wouldn’t seem to be overly focused on having Derek fly out for this investigation.  However, I knew that I was going to need to have Derek able to contact Vashti telepathically, and included that at this point.

Kyler thought this three-chapter stretch (19-20-21) was the best part of the book to date, although he confesses to being fond of Dawn.

Before the Takano chapters were integrated this was chapter 16.

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Chapter 20, Beam 46

I knew most of what was going to happen in this chapter for quite a while.  I did not know it was going to happen this soon.  I also expanded it a bit by compressing the events that brought Beam here instead of putting them in their own chapter.

Before the Takano chapters were integrated this was chapter 20.

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Chapter 21, Hastings 176

Originally I was going to narrate this from Derek’s perspective, but as mentioned I was having trouble figuring out how to integrate Derek with Beam here, and the notion that Derek was going to contact Lauren telepathically gave me an alternative and an opportunity for some dramatic uncertainty.

Before the Takano chapters were integrated this was chapter 18.

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Chapter 22, Takano 4

I was not sure where this was going, but was at this point experimenting with the milieu.  I was going to have to find out whether people can digest the oats eaten by horses.  The answer seems to be yes, provided that the oats are soaked, and a good warm mash is generally oats with molasses soaked in warm water.

This chapter was inserted here to disconnect the preparations for departure of the team in the previous chapter from the arrival in the next.  It was the first time I broke from the regular pattern of every six chapters.

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This has been the second behind the writings look at Versers Versus Versers.  If there is interest and continued support from readers we will endeavor to continue with more behind the writings posts for it.

This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #319, on the subject of Quiet Worlds.

With permission of Valdron Inc I have previously completed publishing my first five novels, Verse Three, Chapter One:  The First Multiverser Novel, Old Verses New, For Better or Verse, Spy Verses, and Garden of Versers, 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 have posted the sixth, Versers Versus Versers,  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.

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.

Readers might also take a look at web log post #318:  Toward a Seventh Multiverser Novel, which invites reader input regarding which characters ought to be continued immediately and which can be put on hold for later.

This is the first mark Joseph “young” web log post covering this book, covering chapters 1 through 11.  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.

Chapter 1, Hastings 173

I started writing the sixth novel as we were still editing the fifth.  I had set up a conflict between Beam’s team and the rest of the versers within the context of a war between the Caliph of the Twin River Valley and whoever it is to his east who was, in my mind, secretly supporting the bandit raids quelled by Slade and company.

There was a problem concerning where to begin this task.  A good book begins with something to grab the reader’s attention, usually an action scene of some sort.  However, most of my viewpoint characters–Joe Kondor, Lauren Hastings, Bob Slade, and Derek Brown–were gathered in a safe haven at the end of the previous book, and although the suggestion had been advanced that they would be involved in some serious conflict, there was much to do before that would happen.

That left the new character from the fifth book, James Beam.  However, these were being published in serialized form online, and consistently with each chapter the “viewpoint character” whose story is being told had changed.  Beam was the character, by force of story, whose chapter finished the fifth book, and I couldn’t see him opening the sixth because that would be the first time we had the same viewpoint character for two consecutive chapters.  It also felt to me as if any action scene for him would have at that point felt contrived.

Another alternative was to introduce a sixth viewpoint character on a separate adventure in another world.  This would make the book a bit heavy, particularly as I was already expecting that Derek would be killed fairly early in the story and move with his new wife Vashti to a different story.  On the other hand, part of the point of introducing Beam was to start Kyler writing a parallel set of books, and I thought he should have at least three characters to do this, and launching the second now would make sense.  Still, I didn’t want to open the book with a new character; every book after the first began with a known character, and in the third and fourth with the character who had sat out the previous book.  No character sat out the fifth book, but it made sense to introduce the sixth with a known character in an action scene.

My solution was to set up an intense sparring session between Lauren, Derek, and the princesses, although it was just a sketch of an idea at that point, and I wasn’t even entirely certain of two questions.  One was whether this was perceived from Lauren’s or Derek’s perspective (Lauren was preferred), the other whether it was Lauren and Derek against the girls or Lauren against Derek and the girls.  The former had problems, notably that Sch’hery would not be present and that Lauren was an incredible fighter; the latter that Derek was also a good fighter.  The answer turned out to be that Derek is the referee.

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Chapter 2, Beam 42

I discussed this chapter at length with Kyler before writing it, and when it was done he was very pleased with it.  Beam is still, in my mind, his character, and I still hope he will run with it once this book is complete.

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Chapter 3, Takano 1

I had reached the end of the book, with just a few chapters in my head that had to make it to paper, when I realized that I really did need this other character.

When I began doing the insertions, I had a dozen Takano chapters and seventy-four chapters of the main story, so I recognized that I should be inserting one of these roughly every sixth chapter.  I also did not want it to be the last chapter of the book, and I didn’t want to do the insertions mechanically, so I gave some thought to where to put each chapter.  Ultimately I decided that this was a good place to introduce the new character, as the opening of the book was a bit slow and it would introduce something different.

This character was probably the most difficult to set up to this point.  I had wanted a genuine modern Japanese teenaged girl, but could not really find the resources to do that, so I went with an American girl of Japanese extraction.  I consulted two friend/acquaintances, both of whom were helpful.  The one, Shun Takano, I had met in seventh or eighth grade, a fellow classmate and immigrant from Japan.  He suggested Tomiko/Tommy as the girl’s given name, with Tomio as the masculine cognate for her grandfather, and we both thought that the best choice; he also gave permission when I asked for me to use his surname, as I thought the alliteration of the name had a good sound and it was a genuine but not overly common Japanese name.  The other advisor was Thomas J. Mead, friend and peer of my sons who is a martial arts master immersed in Japanese culture, although I don’t know that he’s ever been to Japan.  He helped me with things like the dates and other bits.  My thanks go to both of them; Tommy would not have been possible without their aid.

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Chapter 4, Slade 155

One of the tough parts of writing a series of books is bringing in new readers who don’t know what has already happened.  Thus while during this chapter Slade ostensibly tells a story the long-time readers already know, the function of the chapter is to give a basic introduction to the main characters.

It actually took me three, maybe four, sittings to draft this short paragraph, because I kept hitting places where I was unsure what to say next or how to resolve it.

This was originally chapter 3 before the Takano chapters were inserted.

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Chapter 5, Kondor 155

I’m still attempting to introduce all the main characters, and it struck me that Kondor’s struggle over supernaturalism would be a significant factor in this world, and he has been trying to ignore it.

This was originally chapter 4 before the Takano chapters were inserted.

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Chapter 6, Brown 179

I sat on this chapter for several days without deciding on a heading.  It was obvious that Derek was the one character I had not engaged in the story yet (although he was part of the first chapter, that was Lauren’s viewpoint).  However, serious consideration was being given to launching another new character in another world (which had not yet been decided when I reached this point).

It was complicated.  A significant part of the impetus for launching the James Beam character was that I had long hoped Kyler would pick up the pen and write Multiverser stories independent of my own.  It was thought that a character would be launched in one of my books who would be his character, and then would split into a separate set of stories with other characters.  One thing that went “wrong” with that was that Garden of Versers was a great introduction of the character which brought him to a place where he would be an adversary for the other versers in this book, so we committed to continuing his story within that context.  That at least opened the opportunity to create one more character for Kyler to use when he spun off his own story arc–but Kyler was reluctant to attempt such an undertaking, and did not think he could do it despite my observation that he was probably the most creative member of the family (myself not excluded).  Although a new character would help break the story, now that all five viewpoint characters were confined to the same world, it might also burden the book now that we had so many viewpoint characters.  If Kyler was not going to split Beam and the new character into another book, I was going to be overburdened with viewpoint characters and probably going to find myself putting characters “on the bench” a lot more frequently to keep the books from becoming too heavy with multiple plots.

It was further complicated by the fact that I would want the character to be different.  I was thinking a girl, probably teens or maybe twenties, because Lauren was the only female viewpoint character I had–but I had Shella traveling with Slade, and had just added Vashti to Derek, so I had some female character development to do there; and Beam was accompanied by Sophia, and although her character is extremely flat there was also Dawn, and I knew that we had already set up Miralla as a future independent verser (although Kyler and I seemed uncertain whether she would become a viewpoint character or enter the world as more of a non-player-character verser).  Kyler also had a wonderful world that revolved around a young girl named Lilith that I was sure would eventually come into play probably in the Beam stories, and the Beam character sketch included the expectation that he was going to wind up married to a second wife, so there were already female characters in play and more anticipated–they just weren’t viewpoint characters.

In the end I decided that the decision could be delayed.  I had woven Beam into Garden of Versers after the book was a good quarter or so written, and if we decided to create another character after all, I could shift all the chapters here to make room for her, as we ultimately did.

The early chapters present the challenge of bringing new readers up to speed without boring previous readers with too much repeat information.  Derek got married at the end of the previous book, and this chapter hopefully gives us the feeling of his honeymoon and the changes in his life from being married, while communicating some of that to the reader.

This was chapter 5 before the Takano chapters were integrated.

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Chapter 7, Beam 43

My problem with the Beam story at this point was I knew where it was headed in the intermediate term, but I needed the short-term story.  I was feeling my way with this.

I decided that I needed to contrast the poorer Amirate against the more prosperous Caliphate to the east, without belaboring it.

This was chapter 6 before the Takano chapters were integrated.

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Chapter 8, Hastings 174

It was at this point that my mind started recognizing the challenges ahead.  I needed to create preliminary story, something interesting on both stages, and on the Caliphate stage something that would draw all my characters into itself.  This would delay a first minor confrontation between the two groups, which would have to come before the midpoint of the book, maybe a third of the way into it.  In that encounter I expected to verse out Derek and Vashti, and begin them in another world at this point completely unclear to me; I had the scenes related to that verse-out clearly mapped in my mind, in which Dawn tracks the tiny distant Morach doing recon and manages to put a bullet in him, and he tumbles toward the ground, trying to guide himself as close as possible to the rest of the party, and decides to transform into Derek before crashing so he won’t verse out as a sprite or gargoyle.  After that there would be the major confrontation, possibly in two parts (I recently read that a good tension builder in a story requires that the hero fail twice and then succeed), and I’ll take everyone out of the world.

It occurs to me that somewhere in there a battle between Slade and Dawn might be exciting.  I’ll also have to consider whether Lauren faces Dicalus, and who takes out Beam.  Kyler suggested a meeting, some sort of neutral ground conference, with a preliminary bit of sparring, but he thought that would follow after Derek was shot, and I thought it would have to be before that.

I decided that Lauren hadn’t yet assessed the world, and I needed to get that written here.

This was chapter 7 before the Takano chapters were integrated.

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Chapter 9, Slade 156

I was caught between the need to establish the setting and characters for any readers who began with this book, the need to keep it interesting and moving for readers who came from previous books, and the need to build toward a story that was still coalescing in my mind.  Talking about talking about the old stories helped accomplish some of that.

This was chapter 8 before the Takano chapters were integrated.

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Chapter 10, Takano 2

I didn’t know where this story was going, but I did figure that a sylvan forest would have overtones of Narnia, and I would play on those for the present and see where it took me.

I thought it would be best to separate the Slade and Kondor chapters, so the story would seem more like it was moving.

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Chapter 11, Kondor 156

Zeke’s interest in magic was bound to bring him to Lauren eventually.  The interaction about him being a Methodist had actually been written while I was writing the previous novel, and stuck in the notes until I got here.  It fit in the greater context of whether magic is real.

This was chapter 9 before the Takano chapters were integrated.

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This has been the first behind the writings look at Versers Versus Versers.  If there is interest and continued support from readers we will endeavor to continue with more behind the writings posts for it.

This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #316, on the subject of A Gather World.

With permission of Valdron Inc I have previously completed publishing my first four novels, Verse Three, Chapter One:  The First Multiverser Novel, Old Verses New, For Better or Verse, and Spy Verses, 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 have posted the fifth, Garden of Versers, 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.

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 the eleventh and final mark Joseph “young” web log post covering this book, covering chapters 121 through 132.  Previous web log posts covering this book include:

• Versers Reorient, the first twelve chapters of the book;
• Versers Resettle, chapters 13 through 24;
• Versers Reveal, chapters 25 through 36;
• Versers React, chapters 37 through 48;
• Versers in Action, chapters 49 through 60;
• Versers Relate, chapters 61 through 72;
• Versers Challenged, chapters 73 through 84;
• Versers Refocused, chapters 85 through 96;
• Versers Mobilize, chapters 97 through 108;
• Verser Solutions, chapters 109 through 120.

History of the series, including the reason it started, the origins of character names and details, and many of the ideas, are in those earlier posts, and won’t be repeated here.

Chapter 121, Slade 153

I had been juggling this in my mind for some time, but it was still jumbled when I did the first draft.  Part of it was I didn’t want the Caliph talking through the entire chapter, and part of it was I wanted to have some of it discussed quietly behind the scenes but didn’t really want two scenes from this.  I had put together the details quite a bit before reaching this point, but hadn’t really cemented the presentation.

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Chapter 122, Beam 36

I wanted another encounter with a smaller mechanical, and this seemed the best way to guarantee that I got it.  I decided that a shotgun probably wouldn’t be enough to damage it, and particularly that you couldn’t get close enough with a shotgun before it killed you, but I wanted Bron to shoot first.  I also figured that a grenade would probably be enough, given the accuracy of Dawn’s shooting.

The problem with opening the door was one I’d had in mind since their departure, and between there and here I worked out that Bron would be the solution, using his blacksmithing equipment.

I also decided that this was a good place to explain that Bob knew when attackers were coming because he heard their thoughts, and thus he did not know when machine attackers were coming.

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Chapter 123, Brown 178

I had played this in my head a couple times, but couldn’t quite get the detail right.  One of the big bits was what Derek should call the Amir; I also needed to explain why he hadn’t done this already, and thus the reason why the Amir was in the city now but had not been earlier.

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Chapter 124, Beam 37

I needed to put the marriage in place as at least sort of working, without disrupting the Beam character or making it all copacetic.  I also wanted to avoid sex scenes, which I had to this point avoided with Slade and Shella and would be avoiding with Derek and Vashti.  That didn’t mean they wouldn’t be mentioned.

At this point I had four more Beam chapters slated, thanks to the reorganization.  I had a rough draft of the fourth, in which they arrived in the next world, which meant that in the first they had to make a decision about which way to go which would result in the third in them being killed (I had an idea of what killed them, but it would require them to be in the open).

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Chapter 125, Hastings 171

I knew I had to find a credible way to kill Lauren, and I had some ideas, but none of them were workable until I thought of them drugging her.

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Chapter 126, Beam 38

At this point I was struggling with the story.  I had wanted Beam to lead the team outside, so that I could knock them out of this world into the next, but I had the same problem he had:  there wasn’t any good reason for them to do so.  Thus instead I was faced with the problem of trying to figure out what they would find if they searched the entire bunker.

I also hit a snag when I started to write about Sophia cooking for them, because of course Beam is a cook and likes to cook.  However, I saw Sophia trying to be “wifely”, and cooking is a natural part of that.  That led to the fact that she generally cooked on wood fires, and needed to be shown how to use more modern technology.

My upgraded outline now gave me the space of two chapters, which I could reduce to one but could not easily expand to three, in which to put Beam in a position to verse out for my final chapter in the new world.

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Chapter 127, Kondor 154

I had had Kondor muse briefly on marriage when Bob introduced Shella as his wife at the beginning of the previous book; now that Derek and Vashti were getting married, there was another opportunity to challenge the skeptical view he took of such matters.

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Chapter 128, Beam 39

Before I wrote this I knew I was headed into a battle, and that I had set up the notion that some of Sophia’s magic worked, so I was going to need to know what she actually could do in a flatlined mag world.  Not wanting to prejudice my selection of skills, I asked Kyler to compile a quick character sheet with emphasis on magic skills he believed she would have.  I learned a few things, including that she was what he called a “fire mage” who also dabbled in “shadow magic”.  I’m still not certain what that all means, but it’s good to have some kind of background framework.  Having copied the rough draft from him, I gave him the opportunity to make similar suggestions for the rest of the Beam party, but didn’t wait to get them because I already had some fairly good ideas of what was going to happen in connection with them.

I created the idea of a period of quiet that was longish but not too long, and the sorts of relationship and character bits that went with it.  This included that Dawn needed sunlight.  Kyler had mentioned that she obtained her energy from something like photosynthesis, much as the coral bushes in Nagaworld but without the shutdown in darkness they experience.  To this point there had been no suggestion of how she was energized, so I thought I should create the hint here.

Once I started writing this chapter, I ran into the material that was supposed to be the next, and had to find the place to break it and then leave the rest unfinished for the next day (it was late, and I was tired).

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Chapter 129, Hastings 172

I had begun to wonder how I was going to remove Lauren from this world.  After all, every time they attempted to execute her, she thwarted their efforts.  It struck me that they could drug her, and then kill her while she was unconscious; then it occurred to me that they probably would have difficulty giving her an injection, but they could give her drugged food.  Then I realized that they could simply give her drugged food containing a lethal dose, use that to kill her, and be done with the problem.

She immediately begins testing biases, figuring out what skills will work.  She began with psionic skills, that is, those were what she learned first, so she tests them first; the telekinetic flight is also the one that’s obviously useful.  Then she tries magic, but goes straight for the comfort bubble.

The notion of traveling the desert by night instead of by day always seemed a no-brainer to me, for so many reasons.  Thus I see no problem with her reaching the same conclusion as the others, and waiting for dark before finishing her journey.

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Chapter 130, Beam 40

I needed to have everyone involved in the battle, including Sophia, although her contribution was minor.  I never determined the number of pentapods attacking, or how much damage it would take to stop one, because I figured I could make it credible and a close-fought battle if I didn’t.

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Chapter 131, Slade 154

I needed to bring Lauren here before Beam arrived, so that there would be no question of the others sensing the scriff of the other versers.  It was something of a juggling game to get it right.  I also used the fact that everywhere Lauren goes there’s a job for her to do to create the tension that drives to the next book.

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Chapter 132, Beam 41

Probably the biggest challenge here was making it logical that Beam would be aware of the presence of other versers and make a specific effort not to meet them.  His anti-social tendencies served well in this regard, along with his touch of paranoia.

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This has been the eleventh and last behind the writings look at Garden of Versers.  If there is interest and continued support from readers we will endeavor to continue with the next novel and more behind the writings posts for it.