This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #510, on the subject of Versers Debate.
With permission of Valdron Inc I have previously completed publishing my first ten Multiverser novels,
- Verse Three, Chapter One: The First Multiverser Novel,
- Old Verses New,
- For Better or Verse,
- Spy Verses,
- Garden of Versers,
- Versers Versus Versers,
- Re Verse All,
- In Verse Proportion,
- Con Verse Lea, and
- In Version, in collaboration with Eric R. Ashley,
in serialized form on the web (those links will take you to the table of contents for each book). Along with each book there was also a series of web log posts looking at the writing process, the decisions and choices that delivered the final product; those posts are indexed with the chapters in the tables of contents pages. Now as I am posting the eleventh, Con Version, again written in collaboration with Eric R. Ashley, I am again offering a set of “behind the writings” insights. This “behind the writings” look may contain spoilers because it sometimes talks about my expectations for the futures of the characters and stories–although it sometimes raises ideas that were never pursued, as being written partially concurrently with the story it sometimes discusses where I thought it was headed. You might want to read the referenced chapters before reading this look at them. Links below (the section headings) will take you to the specific individual chapters being discussed, and there are (or will soon be) links on those pages to bring you back hopefully to the same point here.
This is the eighth post for this novel, covering chapters 85 through 96. Previous mark Joseph “young” behind-the-writings web log posts for this book include:
- #498: Characters Restart covering chapters 1 through 12;
- #501: Characters Orienting, covering chapters 13 through 24;
- #502: Verser Setbacks, chapters 25 through 36;
- #503: Versers Progress, chapters 37 through 48;
- #505: Versers Advance, chapters 49 through 60;
- #506: Characters Involved, chapters 61 through 72; and
- #509: Character Challenges, chapters 73 through 84.
There is also a section of the site, Multiverser Novel Support Pages, in which I have begun to place materials related to the novels beginning with character papers for the major characters, giving them at different stages as they move through the books. This is also the longest book to date, and has quite a few long chapters in it, so there will be quite a few of these background articles.
History of the series, including the reason it started, the origins of character names and details, and many of the ideas, are in earlier posts, and won’t be repeated here.
Quick links to discussions in this page:
Chapter 85, Takano 111
Chapter 86, Brown 312
Chapter 87, Cooper 28
Chapter 88, Takano 112
Chapter 89, Brown 313
Chapter 90, Cooper 29
Chapter 91, Takano 113
Chapter 92, Brown 314
Chapter 93, Cooper 30
Chapter 94, Takano 114
Chapter 95, Brown 315
Chapter 96, Cooper 31
I wasn’t sure what to do with Tommy at this point, and suggested either that we skip her chapter and push into spring in the next, or that we shift to a substory I had proposed in which Boronir is badly injured in a hunting accident. Eric, though, wanted the story to do more with food shortages and then go to the Boronir substory, so he wrote this chapter.
I had suggested that some clergyman would come to investigate the report of an angel appearing at Yule, and suggested possibly a Bishop. Eric confirmed that he liked the idea of it being a Bishop, and suggested that he would be mostly upset that God would choose the Baptist Mister Hunter and then a couple who didn’t even attend church on Christmas to be protectors of New Orleans. I stitched it together into this chapter.
Eric had written the notion that Cooper should go to Lance’s Gold Emporium, so I started this chapter with that. I also realized that Cooper was going to need a place to stay for a while, so I included the decision to rent the hotel room for a week. Then still unsure what to do, I decided to introduce William Tell Junior, who it had already been said was in the phone book. We had agreed that Tell’s secret identity was William Keller (and his wife Belle Tell, or Belle Keller, also has a secret identity), and that the William Tell Junior listing in the phone book was kind of like the bat phone, a number people could call if they needed a superhero. Keller was the name of a recently deceased friend of ours with whom we both played Multiverser, and was also the fifth most common surname in modern Switzerland.
Eric wanted me to handle the idea of Boronir being killed by a wild animal when he tried to make himself as highly regarded as Davey Wolfkiller, so he skipped this chapter and let me come back and draft it.
Eric drafted this, bringing a lot of New Orleans flavor into it. He moved it into a discussion of segregation, in which Derek was losing the argument, being classed a “Yankee” who wants to control how they live, and that they should be allowed to keep their separatist world. I thought not only should Derek not lose the argument because a separatist world leads to things like Apartheid and World War II, but because if he loses here he loses New Orleans, because the battle against the devil in New Orleans requires that the people be united despite their differences, and if he can’t get that in the band, he’ll never get it in the city. We spent a lot of time expanding the text of that argument, each of us trying to get the last word, then Eric sliced it all and put it in storage for possible use in the climactic confrontation.
Wanting to have Cooper recognize that Tell is Keller, and work in the joke that Belle Keller is actually Belle Tell, I drafted this meeting. I left it hanging at the point at which Cooper says he’s open to suggestions, and Eric picked it up, suggesting powers and training.
Eric drafted this death and burial of Boronir, and I left it as it was.
I titled and numbered this chapter shortly before going into the hospital, with a note that before I wrote anything there I wanted to see what expansions we were going to make to the Brown story in earlier chapters. Those expansions pushed this forward two chapters to 92, Brown 314.
While I was hospitalized, Eric wrote this chapter in the notes at the end of the text. I slotted it here upon my return, as it was an excellent part of the theme I wanted to follow about uniting the people. Eric said it was based on a true story that had happened to his own parents.
Eric drafted this just before I went into the hospital. The notion of Cooper learning to swordfight from a supervillain was Eric’s.
This was the last thing I wrote before going into the hospital; I read a bit of Eric’s additional work, but had become focused on expanding previous material in the Brown story so wasn’t moving forward. In my absence Eric wrote several Brown chapters to be slotted into what we had.
The issue of how to fill seats on the council was going to matter, and I wanted to use the Boronir incident to resolve it.
It was at this point that I went back and wrote Brown 308, in which the integrated nature of the band becomes the point making possible more integrated bands.
While I was hospitalized, Eric wrote several chapters for the Brown story which I was sorting through and trying to work into the existing framework. This inter-racial police standoff was one of them, which I slotted here when I was editing and organizing material after his release.
Eric included this in the notes: “In 1900, the Robert Charles race riots occurred. Much of this is from that or partly inspired by that. He did kill something like four policemen after being rousted and getting shot. The Thomy Lafon schoolhouse, ‘the best Negro schoolhouse in Lousiana’ was burned. A number of blacks were killed as well as some whites. The Assistant Mayor did put two gatling guns in the streets to try to calm down the white rioters. I just moved it a few years later, and had Derek intervene before it got completely terrible. And yes, I put something about Yankees in there. It seems to me that the greater problem of racial unity is that of Yankees a.k.a. ‘Good’ Whites vs. Southerners a.k.a. ‘Bad Whites’. Your views are complicated, but Derek is very Yankee. And if we don’t want a pro segregation piece, well we also certainly don’t want the one-hundred-millionth version of banal, trite ‘if only whites would be nicer the world would be perfect.’ The truth of the situation is that it’s complicated which is something the Yankee notions ignore. I think that the New Orleans solution, like that of a brutally abused wife who just wants some peace and quiet, may not be perfect, but it has its points.”
Eric wrote this while I was hospitalized. He left the names of the villains blank, and we discussed them a bit before I proposed the ones used.
This has been the eighth behind-the-writings look at Con Version. If there is interest and continued support from readers we will endeavor to continue with more behind-the-writings posts and another novel.
