This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #313, on the subject of Verser Solutions.

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 tenth mark Joseph “young” web log post covering this book, covering chapters 109 through 120.  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.

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 109, Hastings 167

At this point my brain was writing the chapters faster than I could manage to type them, and I was concerned about forgetting important bits.  When I would turn my mind to this chapter, I found myself thinking through the next one.

I had previously mentioned that Lauren healed people of injury and disease, and added the skills to my working character paper, but had never suggested how she did this beyond that it was magic.  At this point I needed to give her a healing spell that would cure wounds entirely by speech.  I spent a bit of time thumbing through my New Testament, and found two verses that would work, which was good because I needed two rituals, one for injury and the other for disease; I needed the injury one now.  I liked Acts 4:29f, because it spoke of adversaries.  I Peter 2:24 was better for the spell overall, but was also better for the disease cure, so I went with the Acts passage.

---

Chapter 110, Slade 152

I kept playing this scene from different viewpoints–first as Derek’s scene, but I realized that once he was out of the room I would need another chapter for him; then as Joe’s scene, but I had shifted the previous scene to Joe.  Bob was the only one left, but it worked as his scene, as he was ostensibly leading this raid.

The hardest part here was getting everything into it that needed to be there.  Ultimately, Derek had to jump out the window with the Princess, but everything before that had to happen without feeling rushed.  The landing and the battle in the room would both be delayed.

---

Chapter 111, Beam 31

It occurred to me that it wouldn’t really be credible for Beam simply to walk out of the bunker, particularly given that Kondor and Slade had needed a code to open the door of a different high tech bunker in the previous book.  I thus decided I had to have him face the locked door, and find yet another way for him to open it.

Kyler had suggested that Turbirb’durpa could psychokinetically force open the doors, and that he did so on the original space station; it had not been clear to me that he had done that, but that was more power than I wanted Bob to have at this point, so I decided he must have opened those doors by reading the codes in the minds of people who knew them and telekinetically pushing the buttons.  There being no people around, he could not do that here.

I thought of triggering the fire alarm as the way to get the door open, but decided there wouldn’t be familiar fire boxes on the walls.  I then thought of setting off the smoke detectors, but I needed a reason for Beam to think of that, so I had him light a cigarette.  I also decided that a cigarette would not be enough to trigger the alarm, because they were using gunpowder weapons which while producing relatively little smoke by comparison with early versions still produced some.  However, I had let Dawn load an undefined collection of objects including grenades, and figured that she would have smoke grenades in the batch; I also decided that the smoke grenades would be flash-bangs.

---

Chapter 112, Hastings 168

I had envisioned Lauren hearing the news over the radio, but I also wanted to work in the part about wanting a drink, and once I had the guards talking it was natural that they would talk about the events of the day, which neither of them witnessed (one on duty, the other sleeping).  I had debated whether the part with the pipe would be part of this chapter or another, and decided that it would have to be this chapter.

---

Chapter 113, Brown 177

I had been thinking for a while that I had to replace Princess with something more appropriate.  I discussed it with Kyler, noting that Calipha was technically the wife of a Caliph, but that the next rank down was Amir/Amira.  I could have pushed the Caliph to Shah, but then I wanted him to be impressed by the fact that Slade was allied to the Caliph of the West Wind, and I couldn’t change that.  At this point, I committed to making her Calipha, calling the gang Caliphae but recognizing that they were technically all Amirae.

In my musings about this chapter I recognized the problems with Derek’s descent, and used the opening paragraphs to focus them in my own mind as he recognized them himself.  I also worked out how he would solve them, putting together the pieces much as they appear in the chapter.

---

Chapter 114, Beam 32

I was running out of outlined chapters in which to accomplish everything, and not certain I was not going to tighten the whole thing, but I couldn’t not have Beam teach the others how to shoot.  I also needed to work out how the rail gun worked, which evolved in my mind through several stages before I put the batteries in the clips.

---

Chapter 115, Hastings 169

I thought this would be longer, but it did enough.  I wanted her to suggest to the jailer that God had provided the water, and that she was now asking for food, which He might somehow provide if the jailer didn’t.  I don’t know whether there’s going to be food for her.

---

Chapter 116, Beam 33

When I reached this point in the Beam story, I had finished everything else and created an outline which left me four chapters to finish his story.  I decided that probably was not enough, so I moved what was going to be 117 Beam 32 up to 116 Beam 32, pushing 116 Kondor 153 down to 117 Kondor 153, and expecting to put in more Beam chapters from there.  This was good, in part because I had 122 chapters in my outline and recognized that this was not going to divide well into sections for online publication (being 2*61, both prime numbers), so changing that number would be an added benefit.

I used something I learned from watching Ed Jones run games:  I didn’t need to know how many beasts were attacking, I only had to have them run out when the party had become vulnerable.

I wanted the cliffhanger here, even though I knew what happened next.

---

Chapter 117, Kondor 153

I had known for quite a while that the Amir was going to be shot, and had concluded that it would be Zeke who pulled the trigger.  Some of that had come into focus in my mind, but the part about how to get the people from there to the palace was still a bit weak, and was pasted together as I wrote it.

I also wanted to avoid having a chapter in which Slade reported the events of the raid, so I separated him from the group at this point.

---

Chapter 118, Beam 34

I was inserting chapters and renumbering to make room for a longer Beam story than anticipated, bumping everything.

The resolution of the wolf attack was written immediately after the attack itself, but I wanted the cliffhanger, and I wanted the resolution to go directly in to the crying scene, although it was late so I postponed writing the crying scene and went to bed instead.  I think I got what I wanted from it.

---

Chapter 119, Hastings 170

I was going to do this as a beheading on a chopping block, but the guillotine was an abrupt decision.  It was a better choice.

The joke about the engineer probably doesn’t work.

---

Chapter 120, Beam 35

I was still accelerating the Beam story to finish it against the others.  I needed them to recover the property that was not at the wedding, and wanted Bron to have some blacksmithing tools; besides, I had not had the Pyronics at the wedding and didn’t think there was any logical reason for it to be there despite the fact that Beam had nearly everything else he owned with him there.

I had realized that the hammer would provide a beacon back to the bunker almost as soon as I put it there, but I wasn’t completely certain I was going to use it.  I had tinkered with the idea that the power supplies in the crawlers could be tapped to charge weapons, but decided that would make the Pyronics too easy to use.

I had also already decided that the way to keep Beam’s equipment within weight limits was to give the food to Sophia and the Pyronics to Bob, neither of whom are anywhere near their weight limits otherwise.  Beam’s party is equipment-heavy, so they have to share the load, and since they don’t know that they have limits on what will go with them, they have to do so for reasons that make sense within their situations and knowledge.

---

This has been the tenth behind the writings look at Garden of Versers.  If there is interest and continued support from readers we will endeavor to continue publishing the novel and these behind the writings posts for it.

This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #300, on the subject of Versers Challenged.

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 seventh mark Joseph “young” web log post covering this book, covering chapters 73 through 84.  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.

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 73, Kondor 148

I pretty much gave the Derek-Princess relationship story its head, and this is where it was taking me.  I had decided before it started that the princess and her entourage were being trained in self-defense techniques, and that Derek would join the class.  I remembered his loneliness as I contemplated this chapter, and included that.  I have not decided whether one of the girls falls in love with him beyond the immediate flirtatious infatuation they all have, but I think it at least possible that he would leave this world with a young wife trained in martial arts.

---

Chapter 74, Hastings 156

The three paragraphs about reading Gavin’s mind and considering reading Doctor Conway’s mind were written a couple days in advance, and copied here.  The idea of reading the doctor’s mind was Kyler’s suggestion.  He also suggested that Derek would read the minds of the girls, and I’m contemplating that.

---

Chapter 75, Beam 19

According to the outline, this was supposed to be the beginning of a story in a new world; by this point I was thinking I would have to tighten up the Beam story to give it more chapters, so I could fit another world in this book, since I still had another story in this world.

It was Kyler’s idea that the creatures in this version of The Dancing Princess would be efriit, not demons, as a way of setting up a future connection for a world ahead.

I let Beam’s cynicism about marriage have full rein here.

The notion that not all demons are bad is probably mostly attributed in Beam’s thought to the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, although it was also heavily influenced in my mind by the Mythadventures books by Robert Asprin.  Both of them treat demons as intelligent creatures from other dimensions who might be either good or bad.

---

Chapter 76, Brown 172

I originally wrote that Derek blushed because he had thought of marrying her (the second time he thought that in the chapter), but I had barely printed it when I thought that was wrong, that he blushed because he had thought of sleeping with her.  It also occurred to me that he must have been resisting the temptation to use his clairvoyance to follow her to her room and watch her get changed.  However, I never incorporated that in the story.

The relationship with Button Nose was one of the decisions I made about the story; I made several others concerning that relationship at the same time, and started working in those directions.  Thus the Brown stories started to pick up.

---

Chapter 77, Hastings 157

I was going to have the doctor end the session by saying something like it was a good place to hold, but as a sort of inside joke I let him say that it was a good place for a chapter break.  He, of course, meant in the story Lauren is telling.

---

Chapter 78, Beam 20

I knew there would be a short chapter for an interlude before the next adventure; I did not really expect it to be as short as it originally was.  On the other hand, I didn’t see Beam mediating between the girls and their father, and I didn’t see him hanging around for the fireworks, so it was a simple matter to remove him swiftly.

In editing I realized that we were depending on this part of the story to create the foundation for the future claim that Beam had a friendship with the effriit, but that hadn’t actually been included.  This was expanded with the extended conversation between them to provide that.

---

Chapter 79, Brown 173

At this point, with a little help from Kyler, I put together my list of girls:

Rathi, called Rath = Bronzy, for her lighter reddish hair, is the Princess

Vashti, called Vash = Button Nose, the girl Derek loves

Scheherazade, called Sch’hery = Pink Cheeks, the dominant one in the group

Haddasah, called Haddy = Chin Dimple

Keturah, called Ketty = Elf Ears

Sarai, called Sar = Lashes

Leah, called Ley = last one to get a distinguishing feature from which to derive a Derek Name, Green Eyes.

I spent at least a day, maybe two, outlining this in my mind, and then when I typed it I still forgot the part about calling Joe and had to go back and insert it.  I struggled with the names, and then had to get them all involved in ways that would fit the ongoing story.

---

Chapter 80, Kondor 149

I wanted Joe to witness the healing, partly because I wanted to avoid writing what Derek prayed and what he experienced, and partly because I’m still giving Joe trouble over questions about magic.

I also wanted to make the medical situation seem real.  Joe should have seen to the sucking chest wound first, but he didn’t know the man’s condition, and since I wanted to cover everyone else first (and certainly he knew that the condition of the “civilian” princesses was going to be of more concern at the palace than that of the professional soldiers defending them) I arranged it such that he got to that man last and attended to him immediately.

Rathi is the name of an online friend of the family from Oman.  She doesn’t like her name, but I hope she doesn’t mind me using it for the Princess.

---

Chapter 81, Beam 21

This was originally slated to be a Slade chapter, but I suddenly felt that the Arabian story was moving too quickly and I was going to run out of story before the other characters were ready, so I shifted to insert a Beam chapter and a Hastings chapter before continuing.

Kyler had wanted to bring in the magic dragon control ring, which is a fun bit of the whole, and I had already drafted chapters related to it for the future, so at this point despite being behind my schedule I needed to start working on the dragon encounter.  It will take several chapters, as the acquisition of something from a dragon seems a necessary part.

---

Chapter 82, Hastings 158

I was constantly uncertain about how much to tell, as I am certain a significant part of the audience has already read the previous books; but mostly I am trying to connect the parts where Doctor Conway is likely to react.

---

Chapter 83, Slade 149

Joe was my mystery investigator; Slade certainly knew it.  However, Slade was the person connected to the Caliph, so he would be the one called upon to solve it.  I also knew that Derek was the one with the best information, so the ball kind of bounced from the Caliph to Slade to Kondor to Derek, and then back again.

I had worked out the solution before running the kidnapping, simply because I think that’s the way to do it:  know how the thing is done, then present how it appears, then work through the clues that drop along the way to reveal how it was done.

---

Chapter 84, Beam 22

This was stalled a couple days while I tried to figure out how to accomplish what needed to be done in a way that would be interesting but wouldn’t consume too many chapters.  Fragments of it came over time, but I was actually surprised to get it all into the one short chapter.

---

This has been the seventh behind the writings look at Garden of Versers.  If there is interest and continued support from readers we will endeavor to continue publishing the novel and these behind the writings posts for it.

This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #293, on the subject of Versers Relate.

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 sixth mark Joseph “young” web log post covering this book, covering chapters 61 through 72.  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.

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 61, Kondor 146

I couldn’t really see a chapter describing Slade’s slow walk through a fight in which he was only an observer with a few occasional contributions to be all that interesting.  The only interesting part would be confronting the fire beast, and that wasn’t going to be a big deal in the pattern I’d anticipated; we’ve seen Shella bury opponents before.  It would be more interesting, I thought, to have the reactions of the others in the team to the description of that, and I needed to go to Kondor’s arrival anyway, so I wrote it this way.

---

Chapter 62, Hastings 153

Lauren’s earliest memories surrounding the crib are mine, pretty much verbatim.  I also had the experience of my friend, who in my case was Ricky (I never could spell his last name) who lived two doors down across the street going to a different kindergarten session, only he was morning and I was afternoon.  The neighborhood kids are roughly modeled on my elementary school neighborhood, Maria replacing Anne Profumo, who was two years younger than me but did have two older brothers who babysat and an older sister with a birth defect.  The kids across the street from her were sisters, and I do not remember their names and never was sure whether one was older than the other; I moved away from that neighborhood after elementary school.  Ricky’s older brother called him Dinky; I asked why once, but he didn’t want to talk about it.  The rest is a pastiche of things I remember doing as a child.

The Ob-Gyn is my wife’s story; we traveled quite a distance so she could see her doctor there, and my kids were all born in that hospital because that’s where they had their practice.

---

Chapter 63, Beam 16

It would make no sense to give the original outline notes for this chapter, as they assume that much has already happened that has not happened yet.

I wrote myself into a corner here, and had to get Kyler to help me out.  The problem is that I had just recently realized that when you have complicated plans your characters are going to use, either you don’t tell them in advance but just let them unfold in action, or you tell them and then have something go wrong.  The particular details of this plan needed to be told in advance, complete with backups, but then I wasn’t sure what could wrong—or how to fix it.  Kyler gave me information I had not known about his character Dawn, and I put together the details of why they failed to get through the gate from there.

I decided on a ritual spiel in Spanish, of which I speak very little but Kyler a bit more, and used Google Translate to get exactly what I wanted.  I also recognized that listening at a door with a cup works well if your mind can work out the words, but you can’t really clearly hear all the consonants, so Beam wouldn’t get what they needed.  Neither, then, would Bob, who is listening not to words but to thoughts.  That means once the gate closes, they don’t know how to open it.

---

Chapter 64, Brown 170

I was mostly concerned with wrapping up the scenario and getting back to the palace.  I knew I was going to have them teleport back, but recognized that they had left the wagon and two men several miles away and had to retrieve them.  Derek was the logical choice for correcting that.

---

Chapter 65, Kondor 147

I pondered for at least a day or two just what the Caliph would give them to express gratitude.  Finally I recalled that the gift offered by my example middle eastern rulers in the Book of Daniel was promotion to an important position.  The Caliph wasn’t going to make anyone third ruler of the nation or anything so grand, but he would give some kind of title to Slade, and the logical one was Royal Advisor.  That left me with the question of whether he would just ignore the contributions of the others, which I decided I didn’t want, so I decided that since Royal Advisor would probably include some kind of badge of office, a gold chain with a medallion was a good choice, and the others could receive similar gold chains without the medallions.

---

Chapter 66, Hastings 154

I pulled a lot of this from my own memories of my own neighborhood and elementary school years, but made a lot of changes as well.

I had wanted to cover several sessions in this chapter and push toward the moment she versed out, but I realized when I substituted a Mexican dinner for the Hawaiian luau I remembered from my own elementary school days that Mexico probably would not exist in a world where they had never heard of New Jersey, and that diverted me into her talk of geography and how different her “imagined” world was from the real one.  Thus I wound up filling the session, and the chapter, with a lot of useless world detail and a still confused psychiatrist and a theory of the multiverse.  Hopefully I’ll be able to pick up the pace next time.

---

Chapter 67, Beam 17

I was really pleased with this.  I went into it with no clue how Beam was going to get the cloak and shoes, and came up with the answer while he was asking his team for suggestions.  I knew that Dawn could kill them both, but didn’t want that.  The original story had the hero distracting the two with the idea that they should race to decide who would get it, and then vanishing with the cloak and shoes while they were running, but not only did I not want to take that idea, I knew it wouldn’t work for four.  I needed a way for him to outsmart the pair, but they weren’t that bright, so I did it.

I’m several chapters behind the outline, but happy with how it’s going; if necessary, I see that I can move Beam chapters tighter within the story frame.

---

Chapter 68, Brown 171

I had originally labeled this a Slade chapter, but forgot, and thought of a good idea for Derek before I started writing it, so I changed direction.

---

Chapter 69, Slade 147

I decided that I could move more quickly through Derek becoming part of the entourage of the princess if I put it in Slade’s perspective, and decided that Slade has started worrying about things that aren’t necessarily problems.

---

Chapter 70, Hastings 155

I didn’t see a way to get around Lauren explaining the whole verser thing to Doctor Conway, but I hadn’t really covered it perhaps for a couple of books, so I decided it wasn’t going to bore readers badly.  It was important to have that as part of his perception of her delusions.

I was at this point printing the first draft of each chapter and delivering it to Kyler.  When he read this one, he immediately suggested that Lauren would read the mind of the psychiatrist, to know what he is thinking about her.  We discussed it, and I thought yes, this is something she will do, but at the end of this chapter she is lost in her thoughts of family and won’t do it until some time in the next session, or whenever I get to the place where she arrives in Philadelphia and reads Gavin’s mind.  That would cause her to decide to read the doctor’s mind.

---

Chapter 71, Beam 18

I saw the transit with the boat as something of a comic moment, as Bron grabs one of the thwarts inside the boat and tells the boots to take him to the other side, only to have the boat lift partly from the water, holding him down and tilting such that he can’t see where he’s going.  I’m afraid much of it is lost in the telling, but the appearance of the boat might convey it at least to some readers.

In the original fairy tale, of course, the hero gets the girls away from the princes, gets them under his cloak so that they can see that their suitors are demons, and returns them safely home after escaping.  The world as published in Multiverser:  The Second Book of Worlds has that as a plausible outcome.  However, one of our objectives here was to create a relationship between Beam and the efriit, having decided that these were actually efriit and not demons, and it seemed reasonable to bring the story to a quick resolution by having them arrive too late to stop the weddings.

---

Chapter 72, Slade 148

I was going to make this a Kondor chapter, but I kept coming back to a conversation between Slade and the Caliph about Derek and the Princess, so it had to be a Slade chapter.

---

This has been the sixth behind the writings look at Garden of Versers.  If there is interest and continued support from readers we will endeavor to continue publishing the novel and these behind the writings posts for it.

This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #291, on the subject of Versers in Action.

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 fifth mark Joseph “young” web log post covering this book, covering chapters 49 through 60.  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.

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 49, Brown 168

This idea kept coming back to me, and I kept thinking that there were problems with it–but I kept working on the problems, and thought I could make it work.  Part of it was because when the mission was over I sort of expected that they would all teleport back to the palace, and I didn’t want the readers wondering why they hadn’t used the ability prior to that.

---

Chapter 50, Hastings 150

As soon as I finished the Brown chapter, I realized that I probably should write about his flight, and that meant another Brown chapter.  I started to mark this as a Beam chapter, but then decided that there was some tension in Lauren’s story that I should pursue, and the Beam chapters weren’t coming so quickly as I hoped (I was waiting for Beam 6 introducing his second world), so I decided to do Hastings and then Beam and then return with Derek.

I had been thinking through this chapter before I’d written the previous rape attempt, and in fact did the previous attempt as part of setting up for this one–I needed a reason for her to be in four-point restraints, and for her attacker to be particularly nasty at this point.  Still, several parts of her response were devised with reference to her character paper while I was writing it, including the failed attempt to interrupt his thought, the realization that she could enhance her vision, and the failure to raise the shield resulting in the attacker’s collision with the other shield.

I had also originally envisioned people entering the room and finding Brack trapped against the wall by the shield, unable to escape.  I decided pretty much at the last minute that Lauren would have decided not to give them proof of her power here, but would remove the shield before anyone else had any evidence it was there beyond Brack’s fall to the ground.

I debated the photography part, and decided to push it into her next chapter and cover it quickly in retrospect.

---

Chapter 51, Slade 144

Before I wrote this chapter, Kyler delivered Beam 6 through 8, which were inserted in the text as chapters 23, 27, and 31.

I had started to envision this as an internal dialogue, but I realized it worked better as a conversation with Shella.

---

Chapter 52, Beam 13

The original outline for this chapter read “At this point we should have Beam trying to figure out what’s happening to the princesses.  He will argue that Dawn should be permitted to stay in the room with them, and that will delay their disappearance for a few days (they won’t open the portal if they think she’s watching).  At some point, though, we’ve got to have them open the portal and pass through, and have Beam and company follow–maybe Bron has a scrying spell that enables them to observe from the other side of the door, so they see what happens and also see the gate operation spell.”  I found myself a chapter behind, as I struggled to find a motivation for Beam to undertake the challenge.  It also occurred to me that a magician might be able to hear thoughts, although it is harder in magic than in psionics, and that would conceivably make it possible for Bob to communicate with Bron–but I also decided it couldn’t be something Bron already knew or did, because that would have changed things significantly for him already, so he was going to have to figure out how to learn the spell.

---

Chapter 53, Kondor 145

I had decided to describe the teleport from Kondor’s perspective, and as I considered it I suddenly thought of a possible new direction for his magic problem:  he would have been told that magic was from the devil, so if he is forced to accept the existence of magic he will have to confront the question of its source.  I started that here; I’m not sure whether he can resolve it.

I kept trying to end this chapter, and it kept avoiding a comfortable closing.  I didn’t want to get into the watches, but knew it would be raised, so I tried to escape the discussion gracefully before they got to it.

---

Chapter 54, Hastings 151

I wrote the paragraph with Lauren’s sarcastic response (detailing possible explanations of what happened) as soon as I had finished the chapter with the rape; I also thought through a lot of the photography stuff.

---

Chapter 55, Brown 169

This chapter grew from the question of how they should proceed from here, and why Derek didn’t see the camp when he overflew the wadi.  I put the first question in Slade’s mouth and addressed it to Joe, and went from there.

It was only after the chapter had been written that I realized it conveniently set me up for a Slade scouting mission.

---

Chapter 56, Beam 14

I had nearly caught up with the outline, and got a bit of an advantage when I realized that Bob could hear the thoughts of the princesses, and so would know about the secret door as soon as Beam got them to think about it.  It was still going to be tricky getting to the place where they went through the door, but I figured I could manage that.

---

Chapter 57, Slade 145

I really was not sure what I was doing at this point, other than that I needed to have the credible appearance that they were searching for the bandits, leading ultimately to a confrontation.  I had stumbled into Slade and Shella first, and remembered that they used that spell for stealth but that Slade was also trained as a thief.  I kept it short and left open exactly how all that would be accomplished.

---

Chapter 58, Hastings 152

I needed a way to move forward, and ultimately this world was supposed to be about the perfectly sane verser dealing with a world’s mental health system that believes her crazy.  The notion that Brack would be mistreated for believing something that actually was true would be a concern for her, so getting her to claim the ability to do that was not so improbable.  On the other hand, I talked with Kyler about whether or not she would actually demonstrate the ability (and whether to have it succeed or fail or botch at this point), and agreed that this was going to open the direction into the main point of the world.

---

Chapter 59, Beam 15

By this point I was well behind the original outline, which read “This is probably a quiet chapter, returning to the forge.”  However, it was moving nicely.

I had been trying to figure out how to handle the three nights in which Dawn was babysitting the princesses, but decided that the simplest way was to have Beam report to the King on the third morning what had happened.  In retrospect, I realized that this was the only solution that made sense, because Beam, my viewpoint character, wasn’t going to be present in the room, and Dawn, who was in the room, always gave terse to-the-point factual reports.

---

Chapter 60, Slade 146

This chapter took a fair amount of crafting.  I needed it to be credible that Joe would arrive with the others while there was still fighting, but that Slade would have done sufficient damage and survived.  I pondered for a couple days whether he should be captured accidentally or intentionally.  I also had a plan for the fire beast, but things kept taking turns that moved me in other directions, so I put that off for another chapter.

---

This has been the fifth behind the writings look at Garden of Versers.  If there is interest and continued support from readers we will endeavor to continue publishing the novel and these behind the writings posts for it.

This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #284, on the subject of Versers React.

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 fourth mark Joseph “young” web log post covering this book, covering chapters 37 through 48.  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.

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 37, Brown 166

This came together in my mind in several pieces.  I had created the notion that there were bandit raiders on the eastern border, and decided that the nation beyond the eastern wilderness supported them, hoping to wear down the Caliph’s defenses in preparation for conquest.  That would be the major event in the next book, and the new James Beam character would land on the other side of that war.  Kyler and I had also talked about having the efriit working with that country, and connecting Beam to the efriit before he arrived in this world.

In contemplating what would happen in this Brown chapter, I had begun with the idea that Derek would attend the briefing, but then I wanted something with a bit more tension, and I decided that the Caliph wasn’t going to tell Slade everything.  That meant I had to have something the Caliph wouldn’t tell, and I had to have some way for Slade’s people to learn it and know it had been known.  I recalled that Derek had clairaudience and could listen to a distant conversation, but then I remembered, too, that he had used the sensory presence ability to explore the human city in For Better or Verse, and that would give me more impact.

At some point I had also decided that the Caliph and his people would not expect any of Slade’s people to speak Arabic or Farsi, but that Derek had studied both as a spy in Spy Verses and had never used them.  I had decided he would overhear a conversation in one of those languages, and not reveal that he understood it, so I incorporated that here.  It also enabled me to limit what he understood.

The creature that is named that he does not understand is a dragon, but the point is that it is not as big as a dragon.  I have a number of elemental fire spirits listed somewhere, but it won’t be necessary to give them names at this point.

The burns are dreadful, and make for a compelling scene, and also perhaps explain why the Caliph wouldn’t mention them.

---

Chapter 38, Kondor 143

I had originally envisioned the briefing as being seen through Kondor’s eyes, but now I had a new wrinkle with Derek’s contribution, and brought Slade’s perspective into it.  They would be preparing for their mission in their next chapter.

---

Chapter 39, Beam 10

It had been two months since Kyler had written anything, and I was getting antsy.  I discussed it with him, and he said it wasn’t coalescing into chapters and he didn’t know when it would, so I should go ahead and write it.  I immediately produced this chapter.

Along the way we had discussed the plot ahead, and put together quite a bit of what he thought should happen, all of which I had puzzled into an outline.  Of this chapter, I had written “I see two threads here, one following the murder of the reeve, in which the king sends troops and the situation escalates as Beam and Dawn take out the troops, leading to an ongoing stalemate; the other in which Beam starts learning to be a blacksmith.”  I chose to follow the blacksmithing thread first, and was considering whether to stretch the response of the king another chapter.

---

Chapter 40, Hastings 147

I dreaded writing this chapter for a while, because I was moving into unfamiliar territory–not that I didn’t know how Lauren would react, but that I wasn’t certain how her female fans would feel about this.

---

Chapter 41, Slade 142

When I diverted from the last Kondor chapter to write the Hastings chapter, I made a note for myself that read “Next Slade chapter focus on his anticipation and excitement.”  As I came to the chapter, I realized I also had to move the story forward and get them on the edge of action.  That meant breezing through a lot of preparation, and not spending too much time on introspection.

---

Chapter 42, Brown 167

It took me several days and a consultation with Kyler to finish this chapter.  I early worked out that Derek had to see something, and that the best shot was that he would see charred patches from the fire beast; from there I needed him to talk with Kondor, and that reminded me that he had never contacted Kondor telepathically but had read his mind, so I could use that.  I was having trouble making it gel, though, until Kyler suggested that the burned patches were attacks on villages.  There wouldn’t be villages in the wilderness, I thought, but there would be herdsmen with goats, moving their camps around.  From there it was figuring out what kind of pattern Derek might see that would be informative to Joe, and that came together as I thought about it.

---

Chapter 43, Beam 11

The outline entry for this chapter originally read “At some point Beam has to become aware of Bron’s meager magical abilities.  We’ll need to give him a few useful skills.”  Since I had not launched the conflict with the king in Beam 10 I did so here.

I had some trouble thinking of what sort of spell Beam would see Bron using, and had given consideration to one that enabled him to put a sharper edge on an axe.  Kyler suggested that Bron would be blessing his hammer before use.  At first I thought this not a good choice, because he would have been doing it all along and Beam would have seen it quite early, but then I decided that just because Beam saw it didn’t mean he would have asked about it immediately.

---

Chapter 44, Hastings 148

I thought about this for a day or so.  I had intended it to focus on the question of putting Lauren in restraints, to set up the next scene, but it had to begin with the doctor asking about the attack.  It also seemed necessary to suggest Lauren was a bit rattled by the attack, despite her success at repelling it.  She should begin to see her vulnerability here.

---

Chapter 45, Kondor 144

The decision to break camp and follow Derek was abrupt, and cut the chapter short–so short, in fact, that I decided I needed more to happen, and brought in the second message from Derek.

---

Chapter 46, Slade 143

I pondered this chapter for a couple days.  Fairly early I decided that it should tell of the travel retrospectively, and that they should be camping about a mile from the wadi but still not know where the camp was.  Most of the strategic issues were developed as I ran the conversation, figuring out the issues as I went, and abruptly I hit upon a solution that Derek could suggest, but I didn’t want him to have it all together as quickly as I did or it would look too simple, so he’s thinking about it.

I also rather abruptly decided that Zeke should propose the watch arrangements, and constructed them on the fly.  However, I made a mistake in having him say everyone got six hours of sleep because he only got four, so I went back to fix it.

---

Chapter 47, Beam 12

The original outline for this chapter read “We have to move into the princess story, and it’s going to take a chapter to transition to the beginning of it.  Since Beam isn’t going to volunteer, the king is going to have to send a delegation seeking his help, probably offering pardon for all crimes.”  Unfortunately, I had not yet resolved the matter of the rebellion against the king, and I wasn’t sure how to handle it all.  I’m still not completely certain, but I think there won’t be a fight this time, because I need to get to the rescue of the princesses.

---

Chapter 48, Hastings 149

I came at this awkwardly, because the previous chapter meeting with the doctor was very good and I didn’t know what else I could do.  I invented the Philman Act to suggest that there were things Lauren didn’t know about this world.  I’ve a rough notion that it is a law giving rape victims some benefits or rights, but at present don’t need more information than that.

---

This has been the fourth behind the writings look at Garden of Versers.  If there is interest and continued support from readers we will endeavor to continue publishing the novel and these behind the writings posts for it.

This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #280, on the subject of Versers Reveal.

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 third mark Joseph “young” web log post covering this book, covering chapters 25 through 36.  Previous web log posts covering this book include:

• Versers Reorient, the first twelve chapters of the book;
• Versers Resettle, chapters 13 through 24.

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 25, Brown 164

The moment I launched the hawk, I knew this scene had become inevitable.  Therefore I had a couple of chapters of time to let the scene coalesce in the back of my mind.

This was chapter 19 before we added James Beam.

The grammatical error “a friend of Joe’s” was added in the edit to replace “a friend of Joe”, because I thought it was more like what Slade would actually say, and Kyler agreed.

---

Chapter 26, Kondor 141

This discussion of Clarke’s Third Law fell into place because I needed an aftermath from the meeting with the Caliph before I returned to Lauren.  Zeke is proving quite useful as a staging tool, as I can get Kondor’s thoughts into the open and challenge them to force him to explain them considerably more naturally.

I started this chapter and was interrupted by a twelve-day hospital stay, second in two months, so somewhere in the middle I had to pick up where I left it and finish it.

This was chapter 20 before we added James Beam.

---

Chapter 27, Beam 7

Originally Kyler wrote a chapter in which he introduced the idea that Beam was afraid of snakes.  He scrapped the idea and deleted the chapter, because he realized the character already had some challenging weaknesses with the addictions and substance use.

Bron was an important character in Kyler’s version of the scenario, the blacksmith who dabbled in magic who would create the ring.  The ring struck me as a very challenging piece for the story, but he had done it in play and thought he knew how to make it work.

Kyler had made the distance one hundred paces, not being aware that a pace was a double stride measuring about five feet and making the length around a hundred sixty-five yards.  We discussed the size of the interior at length, and agreed that one hundred steps long and half as wide could be two hundred by one hundred feet, a large two thousand square foot interior; internet research suggested that that much table space comfortably seats one hundred sixty patrons in a decent restaurant, which this is not, and so a couple hundred could crowd into it.

---

Chapter 28, Hastings 144

I was working my way up the skills I had listed for Lauren, mindful of several points.  One was that she wouldn’t clearly know what was easier and what was harder, what was more likely to be biased in or biased out, and so her track couldn’t perfectly match her paper.  Another was that she couldn’t always succeed at everything that was possible, despite the fact that for many of these skills she had put in decades of practice (not reflected in the numbers on the sheet from which I was working).  This chapter let me include a failure and explore other skills in an order in which they might occur to her without prejudicing what she might be able to do.

It keeps occurring to me that I’m working from character sheets updated to the end of the second novel, and need to push those forward through the end of the fourth, but I’m currently moving forward well with the storylines and don’t want to disrupt that.

This was chapter 21 before we added James Beam.

---

Chapter 29, Slade 140

Obviously credit goes to the first Star Wars prequel, The Phantom Menace, which used something very like this (the princess is surrounded by other girls one of whom is dressed as the princess while she poses as one of her own bodyguards).  My fourth son Evan brought to me the fact that this could make for some really complicated storylines connected to a kidnapping–do they grab the fake princess, and what does the palace do in response to this?  If they grab the real princess, did they know which one she was, or was it an accident?  Do they know who they really have?  I decided I wanted to do one of those scenarios in this book, but I honestly had not yet decided which one.

It is also the case that with this chapter I had adequately created the setup for that, but it was much too soon to launch it so I was going to have to develop a diversion, something for these characters to do that would be interesting and worthwhile, before we moved into that mystery.

This was chapter 22 before we added James Beam.

---

Chapter 30, Brown 165

This became mostly a way to slow the story a bit and focus on the idea that Derek was using the time to practice.  It started mostly because I’d established a pattern, and Derek was next in line, and as I considered what to write about him it occurred to me that between fighting vampires and being a spy he had not really had the opportunity just to be Morach since he had lived in Morach’s world, and that his aerobatics were not only useful but fun, so I started with him playing, and being noticed playing, and then stretched it into practice in his other bodies which needed to be explored a bit, and then extended it to the psionics.

This was chapter 23 before we added James Beam.

---

Chapter 31, Beam 8

Kyler warned me that this chapter was graphic before I saw it, and it is, but not I think over the line.  We already know that Turbirb’durpa cracks open skulls and eats the brains, so it’s not a shock when he does it.

---

Chapter 32, Hastings 145

I had by this point decided that Lauren was going to be assaulted by the large orderly, and would injure him defending herself; but because she will have already been tentatively diagnosed as delusional she would wind up in restraints.  He would return for another attempt, and she would have to use her limited psionics to stop him, primarily her force shield, probably also the telekinetic pulse.  I’ll have to consider what else she might be able to do.

This was chapter 24, and as far as I had written; I was looking at a heading for Kondor 142, chapter 25, and had several things cooking in my head, and finally managed to do something I had been wanting to do for more than a decade:  I got my number two son, Kyler, to agree to collaborate with me.  As part of that, I proposed creating a character under the name James Beam and modeling him significantly after player John Walker.  Kyler liked the idea of creating a verser character who would wind up an antagonist, and so we put together the notion of beginning the character in this book with his own solo worlds and then bringing him into the Twin Rivers in the next book, along with Lauren, for a significant confrontation of some sort.  We agreed that he would draft a first chapter introducing the character, and we’d go over it and integrate it into this book so that the character would be established by the beginning of the next one.

This was chapter 24, and the last chapter written before we added the James Beam character.

We debated whether to leave the mangled Hamlet quote as is or correct it, but the connection to heaven and hell was significant in the dialogue, and she did admit she didn’t know the quote well, so we left it as it was.

---

Chapter 33, Kondor 142

While I was trying to figure out what to write in this chapter, Kyler produced five chapters of the James Beam story–the entire first world.

I knew I was heading into an adventure that would take the characters out of the city, but wasn’t certain how I would get there–but that it would have to be Slade who led that transition, because the Sheik viewed him as the leader of the group, whatever they thought of themselves.  Ultimately, I decided that Kondor had to think about their situation and recognize that they were threatening to abuse the extended hospitality.

---

Chapter 34, Slade 141

I had decided that there would be a short adventure involving a battle against bandit raiders before my main story here, and this was the launch point.

I made something of a hierarchy mistake, casually using the word “sheik” with reference to the Caliph, and almost immediately knew that was wrong.  I had some Dungeons & Dragons™ reference materials on hierarchies, and looked up how “caliph” fit.  It was at this point that I came up with the other titles, notably Amir and Amira and Calipha, for the other characters, but we retained “Princess” for convenience on the theory that it was a reasonable translation for the English-speaking guests.

---

Chapter 35, Beam 9

By the time this chapter was written and in place, all the other characters had been drafted through the end of the book.  I was pressing Kyler to produce written versions of the stories he had spun verbally.

The introduction of Miralla threw me, because I was anticipating something else that this was going to complicate.  Kyler explained that Miralla was not going to be part of Beam’s troop in the present book, but would be scriff-infected as an independent verser, borrowing a trope from another player character who has women stalking him through the verse to exact vengeance for infecting them.

The player on whom Beam is based at some point decided to introduce himself by the name of a character in a movie, who masterfully demonstrates that people only know what you reveal about yourself.  The character used the name “Kaiser”.  In this chapter, the shire reeve entered and said he was looking for someone called “Chiser”, and it took me several minutes to make the connection.  We discussed whether to backwrite the story to include the name, but in the end just dropped it.

---

Chapter 36, Hastings 146

I had been so busy with the Beam chapters that I lost track of where I was in the other stories.  I had a mental note that this was the chapter in which Lauren would be attacked, but when I went to write it I thought there wasn’t enough foundation for the subsequent claim that she was delusional.  I had completely forgotten that she had brought up the multiple worlds theory in her previous chapter, and so felt that I had to bring that to the fore.  Then when I’d finished writing the chapter, I went to put the summary in the book outline I keep to help me find things, and saw the entry for the other chapter and realized I’d just duplicated my effort.  However, I was very pleased with what I’d written, and it only took a few tweaks to make it seem as if it were more on the same subject.  From that position, I decided that it would strengthen the case for the doctor concluding she was delusional, and give me the narrative basis I needed for what was to come.

---

This has been the third behind the writings look at Garden of Versers.  If there is interest and continued support from readers we will endeavor to continue publishing the novel and these behind the writings posts for it.