Deconstructing the Novel, Part 4 – Fearful Symmetry

BRIAN SAYS:

“So, where do we go from here?”

That was what Chris and I said to each other, probably at the same time, probably at a bar, when we sat down to talk about Fearful Symmetry, book 2 of the “Shattered World” series. Okay, it was very likely we said it at the same time, because the person who asks the question first doesn’t have to bear the burden of answering it, and we were most definitely at a bar, because that’s where we do our best thinking. Yes, I said thinking. The good news is we already had a bit of a blue print going into this. Believe it or not, we planned ahead while we were working on book 1, The Shattered Visage Lies.

Chris and I knew we wanted this to be a book series. Waking up with super powers is something that should be explored in depth. Comic books have been exploring super powers for over eight decades now, and we wanted to spend more time than just one book looking at what regular people would do if they were gifted these extraordinary abilities. Book 1 was a journey of discovery where we looked at a diverse group of people with different backgrounds at various stages in their lives. We wanted to factor in different religious beliefs and socioeconomic lifestyles and how those forces would impact an individual’s motivations. Without creating too many spoilers, we came to the conclusion that people would use these abilities to be self-serving. We’re not saying that everyone would be selfish, and we certainly know that there are many selfless people willing to risk their lives for others on a regular basis, but we believe there are very few people who would immediately change their morality or emotional status quo if they were suddenly bequeathed with superhuman abilities. Yes, people change, but that usually happens at a much slower pace, and that was how we wanted to handle things with book 2.

All too often, stories rush to get to a certain point and sometimes that point gets lost along the way. I’ve discussed how this happens in comic books “back in the day” when there was a new villain every month, one whose origin story takes place within one page. The hero didn’t care about the villain’s motivations, because they were never really fleshed out. Instead, it was just a different super power that the hero had to overcome. The hero was the focus of the story and the villain was just a conduit to get to the hero. The downside to that is desensitization. The hero experiences the same two-dimensional villain over and over again. We wanted to make sure that didn’t happen in “The Shattered World” series. Some of the super powers our characters have may be powers that other characters from comic books, television, and movies have, but we wanted to make sure we explored how our characters perceive these abilities, what they do with them, and how their lives change as a result.

With Fearful Symmetry, we wanted to take our time to really examine the toll these abilities would take on people. Not just the powers, but the experiences the characters had to go through. In The Shattered Visage Lies, we sent our characters on some pretty wild adventures to gain the knowledge of how they got these abilities. Many of them kept secrets, some even had to lie, and a few had to make substantial sacrifices. In Fearful Symmetry we wanted to explore the consequences of those secrets and lies, especially when those characters unravel the secrets of others. Don’t forget, if you’re keeping secrets and telling lies to other, then others are probably keeping secrets and telling lies to you.

In an effort to really maintain the “start small and then expand” idea throughout the series, we set book 1 in Pennsylvania. Even if the reader doesn’t know that it’s 5-6 hours of driving time from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia, they will at least recognize that all of the settings are within the same state and, relatively speaking, close to each other. In book 2, we start to expand from that, taking our characters out of state, having them question how truly big of an area is affected by what’s happening, and wonder how many people have these new, powerful abilities. Another way we wanted to tackle the idea of growing from a single point is with our “big bad” of book 2, Ethan. With him we … You know what? Let’s talk about him later….

CHRIS SAYS:

            One of the things that Brian and I agreed on early in the planning stages of the book was that we wanted this to book to be a horror novel. From that starting point we began to truly delve into the realm of horror and examine some of the key elements of the genre, some of which are rather subjective, so we both sat and thought about what horror really meant to both of us. While my mind often touches on Lovecraftian ideas at times like these, I was reminded of something far more unsettling than fantastic places and alien forces – reality. In college I read Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl and have often thought of a singular phrase from that book: man’s inhumanity to man. Over the years I have revisited that phrase many times and it has led me to explore works by Robert Burns and Samuel von Pufendorf. The more that Brian and I discussed the notes that I had written about these pieces the more excited we got about trying to incorporate them into the novel.

            Man’s inhumanity to man infests every period in history and manifests itself in so many ways and we wanted to try to incorporate the notion in several ways. The easiest and most recognizable form is violence. I’m not much of one for spoilers, but I don’t think there is any damage done by me saying that this is a book of violence. And why not? It’s easy to work with. It’s as real as every day. It’s identifiable. And quite frankly, when people want to be seen as powerful it seems to come quite naturally.

            Greed and obsession also come to mind. Manipulation and control. Excess and denial. All of these can be exploited for the background that Brian and I were looking to create. And all of them followed with our desire to create horror through man’s inhumanity to man, sometimes these kinds of thoughts don’t even start out as intentionally cruel, but observation of the cause and effect leads one to realize just how devastating the effects can be. Perfectly horrory.

            And then there’s fear – always unreasonable and irrational, a voice whispering words of doubt and insecurity. For instance, there’s the fear of change. Sometimes it’s mild and we simply ignore any possible benefits that might come our way, because we are secure in doing what we know. Sometimes it’s much more self-destructive. And the fear of losing comfort. We take for granted our convenience and our technology. But how irritating and unnerving it is to go back to doing things the old fashioned way or the absolute umbrage of being denied comfortable shoes, running water, premade meals … things that are small and inconsequential, perhaps, but things that we have enjoyed for so long that we take for granted their availability. Now perhaps neither of those two fears lead directly to doling out misery upon others, but fear is a powerful motivator and it often leads to anger – the key ingredients to brew up a powerfully horrific concoction. Until next time…

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Deconstructing the Sci-Fi Novel, Part 1 – The Biggest Bounty

BRIAN SAYS:

Have you read The Biggest Bounty yet? If you would like to, you can grab a copy via this link here and then the rest of the blog entry will make sense. Now that you’ve read it I’m sure you noticed that it’s a swashbuckling science fiction with action, adventure, intrigue, milk, and a little bit of comedy thrown in for good measure. This is book 1 of the “Zeus and the Pink Flower” saga where the two protagonists had just recently met and started working together. Chris and I wanted to start at the beginning and follow these two throughout their careers. As such, there were two things he and I wanted to touch upon with this book.

One thing that always makes me roll my eyes is the “I know a guy” story-telling device. This plot device transcends genre, and can be found in television, movies, books, plays, comic books, and haiku. The protagonist has a minor mystery that needs to be solved to help further him or her along with the larger mystery. This minor mystery is solved by going to a character never mentioned before and then never mentioned again. I think what aggravates me the most about this device is how these characters know each other. Let’s say Character Protagonist has an item that he knows nothing about, so he takes it to I-Know-A-Guy for information about it. This kind of implies that two characters have different backgrounds, because if they had similar backgrounds then Character Protagonist would have a pretty good idea of what the item in question is. That also implies that I-Know-A-Guy has a different background than everyone in the supporting cast around Character Protagonist, or else one of the supporting characters would know what the item is. The story has now introduced another mystery of how Character Protagonist knows I-Know-A-Guy, a character with a completely different background than Character Protagonist and the supporting characters. They obviously have a past together, but something must have happened or else I-Know-A-Guy would be a member of the supporting cast. Suddenly, I find myself wanting to know that story far more than the story that has been presented to me. With the “Zeus and the Pink Flower” saga, Chris and I wanted to start at the beginning with Zeus and Fiore so we can tell the stories of how they met these helpful I-Know-A-Guys when they meet them later on as well as follow our protagonists through a much bigger story.

Over explaining. I just finished reading a techno-thriller about a virus capable of rewriting the genetic code of men. The author spent waaaaay too long explaining how viruses work, how those who study viruses work with them, and how his theories could work in the real world. It was so much information. I was born right around the Age of Aquarius and spent all of my teen years in the 80s with a remote control in my hand and a love of microwaves – instant gratification isn’t fast enough. I appreciated that the author had clearly done his homework, but with so many info dumps, I found it very easy to put the book down. I’m not saying that I would have been satisfied with a technowizard waving a magic keyboard and saying, “Because science,” as the only form of explanation, but I thought that over explaining was detrimental to the overall work. For The Biggest Bounty, Chris and I used technologies that we’ve all seen plenty of times before so we didn’t have to explain anything, let alone over explain. None of our technologies are new. We have laser guns and cybernetic body parts and handheld computers and jump-ports and flying cars. We know that science is an integral part of science-fiction, but we just didn’t want it to get in the way of the story.

CHRIS SAYS:

So, have we established that you have read The Biggest Bounty yet? The book was something of a departure from the comfortable feel of writing fantasy or horror for us. Clearly, this is not hard science fiction (quite on purpose). There’s often a clunkiness involved with starting a new project. It sets in somewhere between the half-conceived plot of the story and the outlining of the chapters. Brian and I were both nervous about the project, but decided that we wanted to push ourselves. Ultimately, we opted to add some swashbuckling to our science fiction, some humor to our seriousness, and some current world issues to our off-world adventure. And we can state our reasons in one word: familiarity.

We decided to add in elements with which we were familiar. Sure, it resulted in a hybrid genre of sorts, but our goal was to come up with something entertaining, not something that adhered to the rules … except that we both know one big detraction from a science fiction story, whether it’s hard science fiction or not – the writer may not know the science involved in a daring getaway or how to apply the Pythogorean Theorem to an alien spaceship for the purpose of maximum propulsion, but there’s always at least one reader who does! Moreover, there’s always at least one reader who knows the scientific failure and is more than willing to share it with thousands (ok! Since you are that reader with a mathematically gifted background, then read that word as “dozens”) of other readers. That is the imaginary line that neither Brian, nor I, wanted to cross. We both knew that no matter where this adventure took place and no matter where our characters roamed, it wasn’t going to happen because of our poorly constructed theory or space travel or time continuums or anything else of that nature. Simple. Straight forward. Easy does it. Like flipping a page. Until you get to The End…

Deconstructing the Second Novel, Part 2 – The Devil’s Grasp

BRIAN SAYS:

I have four Red Sonja statues and two posters in my house. I once knew the real names of all the female American Gladiators. Don’t bring up Tonya Knight or Cory Everson around Chris unless you have a few hours to listen to exultation. He and I would watch Xena while wearing giant foam fingers that read: “#1 Warrior Princess.” We both like strong women – physically strong women – so there was no way we would write a high fantasy novel without having one. In The Devil’s Grasp, we have Dearborn Stillheart. 

Dearborn is the Sergeant in the king’s special band of soldiers called the Elite Troop. As the daughter of a blacksmith who lost his wife, Dearborn gained muscle very early in life, and after an accident in her father’s shop left him struggling for money, she decided to join the army where she could use her size to her advantage. Being taller and more muscular than many of the men, she climbed through the ranks until she found herself second in command of the Elite Troop. She’s great at what she does, and that makes her feel uncomfortable.

With Dearborn, we wanted to explore some more modern issues that many of us, especially women, feel in our day-to-day lives. We all have our talents, special skills that come to us a little easier than to others, and sometimes we feel uncomfortable about that, maybe even a little guilty. Dearborn has great success as both a fighter and a tactician, skills that she seems to be blessed with. As a modest individual, she doesn’t like to better the men in her Elite Troop, but she will if she has to.

Another modern concept that we explore with her is career versus family. Most modern adults face this dilemma, one particularly affecting many women. All of us try to balance the two, but inevitably there are times when we feel like we have to sacrifice one for the other. With Dearborn, career is thrust upon her, because she feels she has no other option, no chance at family. She’s beautiful, but she is physically larger than most potential suitors. Even though she has the ability to better any man she meets, she lacks the confidence that a man would be able to look beyond warrior façade and see her for who she is.

Dearborn may be a warrior woman in a high fantasy novel, but she has plenty of qualities to make her many readers favorite character. How does it turn out for her by the end of the book? Well, we certainly aren’t going to tell you that here!

CHRIS SAYS:

I love to read. In fact, I have always loved to read. My educational background is a hodge-podge of various literary styles and traditions, timeframes and points of origin, but my earliest and longest running love of reading is rooted in fantasy and science fiction. By sixth grade I had discovered role playing games, a burgeoning love affair that continued to blossom long after college had ended. It should probably come as no surprise then that the paths of my early life led me to discover Robert E Howard, Fritz Leiber, Ursula K LeGuin, and Michael Moorcock, with the later additions of Raymond E Feist and David Eddings. All of these writers drew upon the strength of a central core of strong characters (usually human characters), but they also created wonderful support with their use of non-human characters.

Bale Pinkeye is an ogre. He is also a bumbler of great proportions, not just in terms of his physical size, but in relation to his bumblings, as well. He and his band of compatriots provide an excellent foil (and sometimes motivational point) to a group of ne’er-do-well thieves even as they provide us with some comic relief, not all of which is intentional on their part.

Bale isn’t exactly the brightest of fellows, so we needed to find a suitable motivation for him to stay involved with the proceedings of the book. Nevin and his friends provide that. Bale can’t stand to see the group of thieves “one up” the ogre and his little group, so he is constantly trying to think up ways to get one over on the elf, Nevin, and his human friends. Brian and I wanted their spatting back and forth to be fun and light-hearted, but as the thieves become more embroiled in the happenings of the book, then Bale, too, had to remain integral to the plot for more than just a mispronunciation of a word here and a stepped in road apple disaster there.

In order to do that, we created a character that was, at his core, meant to be likeable. He’s not formally educated, but does have some gems of “a priori” ogrishly wisdom that he occasionally shares with us anecdotally. He’s not a kind hearted sap, but he’s very content to keep his competitiveness non-lethal. If anything, he admires Nevin and his group and yearns to be more like them. And, as we learn throughout the book, despite his often gruff manner, he cares very deeply for his friends and displays an unwavering loyalty to them.

When it comes to throwing around his weight, Bale isn’t opposed to dishing out a backhand slap or breaking a limb or two. Intimidation is ultimately not his strong suit, though, and so he usually abandons the strong arm tactic in favor of something less suited to his physical attributes, which we hope lends itself to more fun for the readers. Occasionally he finds himself in the right place at the right time, though he’s usually standing on the wrong foot when he does. How does this all work out for him? Well, as the ogrish philosopher, Liber Praelectio, was fond of saying, “If you want to know how a book starts, read the beginning. If you want to know how a book ends, skip to the end. Those who actually want to learn something between the beginning and the end of the book read the middle.”

Deconstructing the Novel, Part 3 – The Shattered Visage Lies

BRIAN SAYS:

Chris and I always tout The Shattered Visage Lies as an ensemble piece. Yes, the last time we discussed this book, we agreed that it had a protagonist and antagonist in the forms of Michael and Marvin. But we could also argue that they aren’t the only ones. There are more characters than just Michael going through life trying to accomplish individual goals, and Marvin isn’t the only one trying to stop them.

In The Shattered Visage Lies, people are waking up with super powers. We really wanted to examine what different people would do when bequeathed with these new abilities. We also knew that we were tackling some concepts that have been done many times before in comic books over many decades. We wanted to put our own unique spin on it, so we decided to give super powers to a woman in her mid-sixties and a girl who was still in elementary school.

In Emma, we have an active widow with strong Christian values. Her husband died as a firefighter and she never felt the need to remarry, always content with helping her community. Then one day she woke up with the skills to become a perfect killing machine.

We found Emma to be an interesting character because she wanted to view these new abilities (enhanced speed and reflexes with precision accuracy) as a gift from God, but she was unsure how to use them. She quickly learned that there were other people out there who would be more than willing to take advantage of her and her abilities. Her faith was being challenged. Sometimes in speculative fiction, especially stories with horror elements, a religious character is, or is quick to become, a zealot. Emma was not a zealot, but a person who was steeped deeply in her religion, and found it challenging when her faith wasn’t providing quite the answers she was looking for. Sure, Michael viewed her as a zealot, but that was mostly his viewpoint, one where organized religion was not a priority in his life. And, obviously, Chris and I had a fun time writing any scene where Michael and Emma had to interact. It’s always fun to annoy Michael!

Haley was definitely the most tragic character of the book. Sure there were other characters who had to deal with physique altering mutations, but Haley was too young to truly understand what was happening, let alone have any concept of how to control it. Especially since she could turn people to dust with a mere thought, making her one of the most powerful characters in the book. She was different things to different people. A cautionary tale to most. An advantage to others. A humanizing factor for Michael.

As we discussed last entry for The Shattered Visage Lies, Michael was the reluctant hero. For most of the book, the emphasis was on “reluctant,” but when he learned about Haley, he shifted to “hero.” As a family man, he loves his daughter more than anyone or anything, and Haley was about the same age. He knew very well how Haley must have felt, because he knew how his daughter would have felt had she gone through the same thing. It was because of that Michael went toe-to-toe with Marvin, and why he had to deal with the outcome of the situation despite doing all he could trying to avoid it all together.

CHRIS SAYS:

All of the characters in the book go through a period of growing pains, as they learn about their abilities and decide how these newly found powers change or don’t change who they are as people, but one stands out to me: Derrick.

None of the other characters go through a learning curve quite like Derrick does. His power is less definable than the rest and he’s not really sure what he is actually doing through most of the book. It’s true that he does learn how to harness it, but in the back of his mind he always has some doubt that things will work out the way that he expects them to resolve. This is a character that Brian and I agree is both fun and necessary, especially if there were going to be future books. We wanted to set a “power precedent” that makes possible the introduction of some less classical, more fluid abilities to intrigue the readers and for characterization aspects, as they certainly keep the characters themselves a little uncertain.

Derrick also struggles with others. Not just because he’s a slightly awkward young man, but he seems very sure of the role that he needs to fulfill. He wants to achieve the greatest good possible and he’s both dismayed and perplexed by characters like Michael who are very reluctant to take an active role in improving society. Derrick is a very outward thinker who simply refuses to allow Michael to shrink back into the crowd, making him a useful motivational tool.

Brian and I were also intrigued by the thought of a low-level thug using new talents to topple the hierarchy, which led us to create Stone. A big guy who was destined to run into a bigger guy sooner or later, Stone got as far as his brawn could take him. But what if the brawn gets amplified? Unbreakable skin shields his nerve endings, rendering him nearly impervious to pain.

Unfortunately for him, it doesn’t make him any smarter, but now he can walk out of a sticky wicket with the best of them… and unscarred to boot. The heightened fear factor alone makes him an attractive underground boss. It also makes him a force to be reckoned with as a character. Our heroes certainly have their hands full with this juggernaut. And how does his special power affect his personality, you might ask? It amplifies his thirst for a fight, naturally. And it leaves even me wondering if anyone can quench it.

Deconstructing the Second Novel, Part 1 – The Devil’s Grasp

BRIAN SAYS:

Tom looked at me, nodded his head toward Chris, and said, “You know he writes, right?”

I replied with, “Ummmmm… no.”

Turning to Chris, Tom pointed to me, and asked, “You know he writes, right?”

Coincidently enough, the reply Chris gave sounded oddly familiar. “Ummmmm… no.”

Tom then summed up the future partnership that Chris and I would form with one word: “Idiots.”

That little tale about the endeavoring spirit of human nature took place almost fifteen years ago, about ten years after we first met. Yes, I just said that it took ten years for each of us to figure out that the other wished to be a professional writer, which only happened by the assistance of a third party. Not only is it a testament to how well men actually communicate with each other, but even if the conversation somehow came close to the subject, then inevitably something would distract us from it. One time Chris and I accidentally forgot to go to the local bar to pick up women [The Ferrell/Kattan skits you’re envisioning now really aren’t too far from the truth], because we got past a difficult level in the latest Star Wars video game and wanted to keep playing. Why is any of this relevant? Because the first thing Chris and I worked on together was The Devil’s Grasp. 

Of course, before we put the proverbial pen to paper, we sat down and compared notes: How long we’d been writing, where we’d gotten published, what we liked to write, how many more levels there were in that damn Star Wars game, why the beer pitcher was always empty. We discovered that we were in the same stage of our writing careers – a few things published in small magazines. So, the next obvious step was to write a novel together.

By this point in time, I had already written two novels; one solo, one with another writer. Neither amounted to anything more than experience, beer drinking, and good times. Luckily, I was able to bring all of that to the table when Chris and I FINALLY stopped playing Star Wars and started talking about the novel.

CHRIS SAYS:

Testing! Testing! Is this thing on? It is? Well, hi, folks! Let’s see here… video game… beer pitcher empty… be right back! I’m not so sure this thing truly holds 64 ounces!

While we were walking around the used car of our writing aspirations, randomly kicking tires and jumping through open windows, we discussed genre and found that we both have a keen interest in fantasy, though we had largely gotten there via different paths. As a kid I had read the “classics” and many of my days had been wholly consumed by them. Tolkien, Le Guin, Leiber, Howard… they made me want to swing a sword, to hurl spells of magical creation, to be the size of a mouse running from dark wizards, or to be seeking the advice of an alien seer. Brian was familiar with more modern, but not less important, works found on the cinema screen or comic book pages.

As we were discussing tropes and quests and magic, we also confessed to each other that we both had an interest in horror and here seemed to be a way to differentiate our piece from other more mainstream fantasy. As all of this involved far more discussion and learning about another dude that either of us had done in quite likely our entire collective lives, we took a break and went to our respective homes to do more thinking. We both typed up a short page or two – essentially of list of “do’s” and “don’ts”.  This is really how we began the process of collaborative writing. Passing chapters back and forth, each trying to outdo the other by putting characters into perilous situations and challenging the other to save them.

Over the next few weeks, we established goals and outlined chapters. Afterwards, we each picked a chapter that we wanted to work on and set monthly word count goals. On the designated day, we would meet up and go over what we had done and where we envisioned the characters going next. We always outlined a good 5-6 chapters in advance and worked on different chapters, writing towards the day of the inevitable passing off of a chapter to the other person, back and forth until revision time...<shiver> I still get chills thinking about revisions… slimy, putrid… out of what miasma they crawl, I know not, but they are certainly welcome to go back whence they came! <shudder> I think I got some miasma on me….

Deconstructing the Novel, Part 2 – The Shattered Visage Lies

BRIAN SAYS:

Okay, now that we’ve gotten into some form of rhythm with this blog thing, let’s revisit a concept we introduced a few posts ago – Deconstructing the Novel, where go behind the scenes of our first published novel, The Shattered Visage Lies, to answer questions, give novel writing advice, and discuss some of the concepts within the book. Last installment, we discussed what the title means, or at least what it means to us. For this installment, we’ll shed some light on what we’ve been hearing about the protagonist and antagonist – Michael and Marvin. Don’t know who they are because you haven’t read the book yet? Don’t worry, feel free to take a moment to grab yourself a copy, in print or eVersion to peruse. It’s okay. We’ll wait. Have it? Read it? Good. Let’s move on.

First of all, as you have now learned from reading the book in one sitting, the novel is an ensemble piece. In it, nine different people discover they have super powers. For the most part, we go over the discovery, exploration, and development of these abilities in detail for most of these characters, so it’s not entirely accurate to say that we have a definitive protagonist or antagonist. However, Michael and Marvin stand out as those concepts, respectively. Interestingly enough, these two are also usually the least favorite character and most favorite character, respectively. And we did that on purpose.

“What? You purposely made your protagonist the reader’s least favorite character?” Yes, we did. I want to remind you, though, that he’s not a detestable character. He’s just someone who can be likeable one moment, and then a jerk the next. Just like all of us. We are all the protagonists in our own individual stories. None of us are liked by every secondary character in our own individual stories. That is what we want to reflect with Michael. He’s a regular person, just like all of us, doing his own thing, just like all of us. He can be nice, he can be a jerk; he can be likeable, he can be not likeable. Just like all of us. When we follow up the “Who is the least likeable character?” question with “Who is the most relatable character?” the answer to that is usually Michael.

Michael is the reluctant hero of the story. Most reluctant heroes of popular stories are so because they lack confidence, usually because of doubt that is bred by the inexperience of youth. I’m looking at you, Luke Skywalker. That is certainly relatable to anyone. However, we wanted to explore a different, yet relatable, reason for Michael’s reluctance – comfort. We all get frothing-at-the-mouth fussy when the cable company changes the channels on us. We’re red-raging and ready to turn to Yelp, Facebook, Reddit, the Better Business Bureau, and/or a voodoo witch doctor because The Food Network is now channel 48 when it was channel 47 just yesterday. None of us want to change our routine because of forces beyond our control, and we certainly don’t want to take on added responsibility if we don’t think it’s at least congruous with what we’re sacrificing. Neither does Michael. He’s a man in his mid-thirties who has everything he wants in life. Sure, he’s a bit spoiled in regards to certain things, and he sometimes doesn’t filter the words between his brain and his mouth, but he loves his family; his wife and his daughter are his world. Gaining a new, very powerful new ability means he now has to learn how to use it, and be involved with a whole new community of people he’d rather not associate with. This new ability means change. It means a disruption in his routine. A sacrifice he doesn’t want to make. These burdens make him fussy.  Just like the rest of us.

CHRIS SAYS:

            When we talked about the direction that we wanted this book to take it was clear very early on that Brian and I were both interested in creating a likeable antagonist…it’s just fun. We had a few ideas about how we could accomplish that, but as we hashed through them, tossing them aside like dandelions from a spring bouquet, a very obvious solution surfaced. If we simply make the character relatable to the reader, then even when the necessary philosophical issues arise, the character can remain true to himself, which also keeps him believable.

            Quite simply, then, Marvin was born. Overworked, underappreciated Marvin who is surpassed by those half his age for one inconsequential reason or another. A dreary routine has taken the pep from his step and a stagnant lifestyle has taken a stranglehold on his view of the future. Marvin in a nutshell. Possibly he has the power to improve himself, but not to affect all of the forces around him that would need to be bent to his will in order to create real change. Until one day…

            As Marvin develops his powers, he uses them to improve his lot in life, enhance his interest in things, most notably his marriage, and wreak a little bit of revenge on a few people who, quite frankly, don’t necessarily do much to warrant sympathy at their plight. All the while still walking that tightrope of relatability to the empathetic reader. While Michael is whining and bemoaning and remaining passive, Marvin becomes an all action kind of guy…sort of a fantasy fulfiller…or that is our hope anyway.

            Gradually, of course, he becomes more and more despicable and the dichotomy between good and evil replaces some of his relatability with the reader, but the roots are still there because the character can remain true to himself even as he becomes less “human.”

            It was an interesting experiment in characterization and Brian and I are often intrigued by reader’s comments about Marvin and what the future holds for him. Do you need a Marvin fix or are you hoping to explore new villainy? For now, it’s still shrouded in mystery, but later this year all will be revealed.

Deconstructing the Novel, Part 1 – The Shattered Visage Lies

BRIAN SAYS:

 

Okay, after an intermission, we’re back. Let’s just blame the small hiatus on vacations, shall we? Anyway, if you can’t tell by this installment’s title, we’re going to start going behind the scenes of our first published novel, The Shattered Visage Lies, including answering the most asked question we’ve been receiving about the book – what does the title mean? Don’t worry, we’ll tell you what it means. Well, what we think it means, anyway. In case you haven’t read it yet, feel free to take a moment to grab yourself a copy, or an eVersion to peruse. It’s okay. We’ll wait. Have it? Read it? Good. Let’s move on.

 

When it comes to the great debate of Marvel vs. DC, I find myself on the Marvel side. I won’t bore you with ALL of the details as to why, just one: how the denizens of their respective universes react to super-heroes. Up until recently, the citizens of DC’s United States love their super heroes. The general populace of Marvel’s United States does not. How do you think we, as a nation, would really react to those with super powers? How would you react to a real life Super Man?

 

One of the ideas we wanted to explore was the classic, “What would you do if you had super powers?” Don’t forget – you can’t choose which one(s) you get. You get them, now deal with it! You might even be a half-animal / half-human mutation. Would you tell anyone that you have them? Heck no! Would you put on a mask and fight crime? Doubtful. I think most people would be afraid of them at first, then try to figure out how to use them to their advantage.

 

I’d like to think of myself as a good person. (Okay, I’ll give you a moment to laugh.) I certainly don’t think I’d become villainous or create an evil lair or have henchmen if I had some kind of super power. But I do know I would try to find ways to make money from it! Telekinesis? Vegas, baby! I’d get that roulette ball to make me a millionaire! Telepathy? Still Vegas, just at the poker tables. Mind Control? Yep, same place – the Vegas poker tables. Super speed? Lucrative sports contract! Super strength? Same lucrative sports contract, just different sport. But, that’s just me.

 

I’ve always found origin stories fascinating, because it’s usually an ordinary person in an extraordinary circumstance. And it would always make me mad when, in the comic books, a character’s origin story is told within a few pages. Inevitably, they would always jump into a set of tights and don a coordinated mask and either fight crime or cause it. But why? The motivation behind their actions was what I was more interested in. That was one of the themes we wanted to explore in this book. We didn’t limit the demographic of power receivers to pretty faced teenagers, either. We gave them to the young, the old, the rich, the poor, the religious, the apathetic. Of course, it wouldn’t be a super-powers book without bringing these characters together!

 

Okay, we decided to write the book to see what happens to a person’s id, ego and super-ego when given super abilities. So, where did we get the title, The Shattered Visage Lies? Well, I’ll let Chris explain that one….

 

CHRIS SAYS:

 

Hello! So Brian covered the topic of super powers and in so doing put his on display: an unconscionable belief in Freud. Sad. But that’s not why you’re here, is it? Of course not. Where did we come up with the title of the book? What was the underlying theme that we hoped readers would pick up on? Well, I’m glad I asked….

 

In the case of The Shattered Visage Lies, many of you are likely familiar with Percy Bysshe Shelley’s sonnet, “Ozymandias” and have correctly guessed that this is the origin of our novel’s title. It’s a favorite of both Brian and I and we wanted to pay a little bit of a tribute to some historical literature, but that’s the boring part of the story. “Ozymandias” has a sister poem. Shelley and his friend, Horace Smith, wrote dueling sonnets with the same title, both incorporating similar base themes. Smith’s poem is a bit more circular, suggesting that the future and the past are related and never as far from each other’s view as we might hope. A horribly understudied poem, Smith later renamed it and, alas, many have forgotten the poem’s origin.

 

In the case of Shelley’s sonnet, however, not much need be said about the poem’s power of longevity. Whimsically enough, this is the poem’s central point – that the endurance of art outshines the works of leaders and empires. It is here that we find the true reason for the name of our book. It is a message Brian and I agree is crucial to our continuance as a functional society…a message we would be wise to share with politicians and kings alike for it is the nature of rulers to be granted power, which causes them to seek more. According to John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, first Baron Acton, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” Hubris is the stepping stone to inhumanity and we all benefit from its departure.

 

Now that we’ve discussed the title, let’s move on to the major theme of the book and how that relates to the title. In essence, it’s about deconstructing personality. Science can map every person’s physical being, breaking a body up into its most basic components. But what about personality? Is there a way to unravel a person’s personality and examine it in a fractured state to understand our thoughts and emotions or are we simply too filled with interwoven pieces to allow for our personality to be untangled and examined? “The mirror never lies” unless it’s broken, so if you’re looking at a shattered visage in a mirror, are you really looking at yourself? If we add this component or remove that one, do we stay the “same person” or is a new persona created? It’s intriguing…intriguing enough that it inspired us to write a book about it.

 

Until next time!