This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #355, on the subject of Versers Reorienting.
With permission of Valdron Inc I have previously completed publishing my first six novels, Verse Three, Chapter One: The First Multiverser Novel, Old Verses New, For Better or Verse, Spy Verses, Garden of Versers, and Versers Versus 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 am posting the seventh, Re Verse All, 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 7 through 12. It was suggested that more shorter posts were a better choice than fewer longer ones, so there will be posts every six chapters, that is, every other week, for this book. The previous entry was web log post #354: Versers Reorienting.
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 7, Hastings 188
Chapter 8, Takano 15
Chapter 9, Beam 58
Chapter 10, Hastings 189
Chapter 11, Takano 16
Chapter 12, Beam 59
I needed Lauren to do something impressive, so that the Tiras party would warily accept her; however, it would be out of character for her to do something specifically to impress someone. I had first thought that her gear would be in a side room or passage to which the access would be too small for the cart, and she would use the disintegrator to make a larger doorway. However, she needed light to travel, and as I reviewed her light spells (very much as in the book) I recognized that the only one likely to be particularly helpful was also far above anything any of these spellcasters had ever seen. Thus the light spell was sufficient.
I brought in the stirges for several reasons. One was that a cave this big would almost certainly be populated; that meant that the light spell would almost certainly alert whatever was here. I had been working with stirges for a OAD&D game I was prepping, so they were readily recalled. It also made sense for the denizens to be bat-like but dangerous, and these fit the bill. Finally, I needed to maintain the action in this story because the other two promised to be quiet background builders for a while.
Sheegoka Noar Samurai was a player character of Bill Friant; Gojo Mupar was a non-player character, but because his name had become part of Tiras’ title I decided to keep it. Ed named him because we were playing in a garage and those were product labels on the shelves.
I am working toward establishing the Billings house as Tommy’s residence while here, at least for the present. I expect that Mrs. Billings has a part-time job or something outside the home and an elderly woman comes to care for Tommy, but she will become ill requiring the Billings to find daycare quite abruptly and ask Tommy to help. For the moment, though, I am establishing a rapport between Tommy and Tammy to move her more into the family.
The wooden blocks are very like a set with which I played as a child, but I always had the problem that there were never enough. (It would never have occurred to me to ask for more; my parents provided me with many different kinds of building toys, including plastic building blocks (precursors to Lego), Lincoln Logs, and Erector Sets.) For Tammy, I just assumed there were more.
Castles always seemed the obvious thing to build with the wooden blocks; I’m not sure why. Towers were always a challenge.
Knocking down what you built was part of the fun, at least sometimes. I don’t remember ever doing anything else with my castles, but it was quite a long time ago.
When I created the location designation number, I knew what it meant; when I returned to it maybe a month or two later, it took me a bit of thought to unravel. L027-NA-S0357-RU0063-A01 stands for Level 27, North America, Section 357, Residential Unit 63, Apartment 1.
The room registration process was something I invented here to be consistent with the scenario. I don’t recall anyone trying to claim a room in that world in play.
After I had written chapter 20 I decided to do a review of what I had written, and while reading chapter 6 I realized that I had stated the cupboards were bare, but that later I had Beam go through the dishes and pots and such. I decided to remedy that by adding a paragraph in which he ordered those things, and included other necessities at the same time. I was going to include bath products, but decided instead to add these to the welcome wagon.
I am still introducing Lauren to new readers, as well as slowly building the group that surrounds her.
Taz was a monk played by William Lyons.
A lot of the dinner details come from my childhood. My father got home somewhat late and spent a bit of time with us, but ate dinner with my mother and without us, we having been fed and prepped for bed.
The welcome wagon idea was an abrupt thought, but I let it simmer for a couple days while I wrote the other stories to try to get the details. Even so, I was winging it on what would be in such a package in this kind of world.
I kept trying to think of a name for the pizza place that wasn’t already used, and settled on Papa Pietro for the alliteration. It wasn’t until sometime later that I remembered that Pietro’s was one of the two pizza places in town when I was in high school.
Again I had forgotten that the cupboards had been bare, so here I added that the supplies Beam ordered in his previous chapter arrived on the heels of the welcome wagon cart, and that he sorted them and put them away in place of that he inventoried what he had.
This has been the second behind the writings look at Re Verse All. If there is interest and continued support from readers we will endeavor to continue with another novel and more behind the writings posts for it.