PNW Affliction 1: Recycled - The Retrospective
Alright. This's been a long time coming, and there's probably no real better place to start than at the beginning. Spoilers abound, although this's mostly "behind the story" type stuff.
This book isn't actually the beginning of the story by any means. It's the beginning of the main character though, and it's how this whole "universe" got started.
Basically I had a dream one night of walking and it getting progressively darker until there was no light left. Just like nearly every single one of my books, this started out with a basic premise. Really no more than a "first act" if you will.
I wrote the first act, peppered in with some things that were real, like me having a cat that played with a plastic bag while I tried to sleep. I can't exactly remembered where the premise came from for act two, except that I've always been fascinated by recycling and the recycling logo. At some point I'd thought of a cool idea where if a recyclery could run almost entirely on its own power by some how processing and drawing energy from recycled material.
So basically I wrote the first act to where the main character was going to walk through the pursuing darkness, get a snack (because he needed sort of a place to go once he was out), then come home. I'd got the idea for the corner store because they are always beacons in the night between fuel, bathrooms, someone to talk to for a minute, and all the snacks. Sort of like a "save point" or whatever if it was a game.
You'll notice there are lots of videogame elements to my stories, as well as thematic movie elements. It's all organic. My webcomic was the same way, randomly changing artistic and writing styles to fit the moment. It's a little chaotic but its always been what's comfortable for me.
So, unfortunately, this's where I got my very first bad troll review. Someone who thought being pursued by darkness was idiotic, and thought my character was all-powerful and should have turned right around and gone home. It was covered in the story but I'd guessed he'd glossed over it. I'd always supposed everyone suspended their disbelief, got immersed, and just went for it, but apparently not everyone does.
Despite him only reading a few pages and completely misrepresenting the premise in the review, Amazon refused to do anything about it. So his 1-star review plagues me to this day because apparently immediately hating a premise is legit to write a bogus review and get it approved under Amazon's new guidelines. This also points out the other issue that you have to have bought a certain dollar amount of merchandise so you can review, which means a lot of people who read my book when it was free have never been able to review it. (Also it's convenient he hadn't read past where the preview cuts off... in which case, writing a review off a couple page preview is insane why that's allowed). I try to not let it bug me, but every time I scroll through my books I see the reviews on this book screwed up and it's frustrating. Anyway, moving on.
Our main character gets to the corner store, and that's when I realized I wanted to be putting conflict basically in every single point in the story I possibly could. Every time he would turn around, there would be something impeding his process he would have to make choices about or have to problem solve. At the end of the day, it still may be an "and then" story, but I wanted to constantly be putting obstacles in the way and addressing real-world conflicts that were a real every day thing, unfortunately.
So a conflict happens at the corner store, and this's when I really had to stop and decide. How supernatural did I want the story. How deep or serious did I really want this to be. That's when the first world building begins and I decided to go for it. I figuratively and literally blocked the character's easy path. This was also the first time in one of my books where I predicted a real world event.
As a few weeks later after writing this chapter of book, before it was even published I think, my friend lost a close girl friend that worked at a corner store at night. She had been assaulted, killed, and left in a gas station that they subsequently blew up to hide the evidence. I almost stopped the book right there, because it immediately became real to me. It was very scary. I remember taking a little break and inevitably decided to keep writing.
Most of the locations are real places in the book, but they aren't actually next to each other. So they're real places, but not actually next to the other places, if that makes sense. Some of the locations are from dreams though, so its sort of fun probably to figure out which is which.
Some places I plucked from maps, and some of you may recognize, some are from memories, and some are a hybrid with new things put there like a commercial district where in real life its a residential one. Sort of like a "what if."
Like when the main character was approached by the homeless group. There actually was a homeless group like that where I used to live, that lived in the woods and would come out to go to the corner store, grocery store, and hospital. So it wasn't too far fetched to let fear set in if they popped up at night.
So then the recyclery. It was completely made up, based off a cool sci-fi premise I had. The book is supposed to take place a few years in the future. I wanted the character to be cold and hungry and wanted to take this second act as to how you'd actually survive at night in the cold. It's probably not super accurate but it's the best I can do in my mind. Some parts of the building were definitely based off of real buildings. Other parts were caricatures of what to me a perfect atmosphere for a continual improvement building would be.
My thought process was there, if someone read the book 5-10 years down the line, post collapse or whatever, they could remember how things could of, should of, would of been before foreign companies kept buying up and crashing our industry here in the states.
The second act took quite a while to write, and I came up with two legitimate floorplans I made in visio for them. They are in the #1 anthology, but anything smaller print and it was a novelty at best. That started me trying to make artwork for several of the insides of the books. It's only in the anthology though, unfortunately. More on that in book #2's retrospective.
The final act is based off what I think the first few days after the collapse would look like. I think the retribution and purge would happen very very quickly. There's people that have already been planning for years, waiting for this to happen.
Hope everyone enjoyed this first retrospective. I'll try to write one a week or so. Thanks again!
https://www.amazon.com/PNW-Affliction-Recycled-Chance-Paladin-ebook/dp/B06XFQMG3C/ref=la_B07BGCH47Y_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1532962472&sr=1-4
-Chance Paladin
Alright. This's been a long time coming, and there's probably no real better place to start than at the beginning. Spoilers abound, although this's mostly "behind the story" type stuff.
This book isn't actually the beginning of the story by any means. It's the beginning of the main character though, and it's how this whole "universe" got started.
Basically I had a dream one night of walking and it getting progressively darker until there was no light left. Just like nearly every single one of my books, this started out with a basic premise. Really no more than a "first act" if you will.
I wrote the first act, peppered in with some things that were real, like me having a cat that played with a plastic bag while I tried to sleep. I can't exactly remembered where the premise came from for act two, except that I've always been fascinated by recycling and the recycling logo. At some point I'd thought of a cool idea where if a recyclery could run almost entirely on its own power by some how processing and drawing energy from recycled material.
So basically I wrote the first act to where the main character was going to walk through the pursuing darkness, get a snack (because he needed sort of a place to go once he was out), then come home. I'd got the idea for the corner store because they are always beacons in the night between fuel, bathrooms, someone to talk to for a minute, and all the snacks. Sort of like a "save point" or whatever if it was a game.
You'll notice there are lots of videogame elements to my stories, as well as thematic movie elements. It's all organic. My webcomic was the same way, randomly changing artistic and writing styles to fit the moment. It's a little chaotic but its always been what's comfortable for me.
So, unfortunately, this's where I got my very first bad troll review. Someone who thought being pursued by darkness was idiotic, and thought my character was all-powerful and should have turned right around and gone home. It was covered in the story but I'd guessed he'd glossed over it. I'd always supposed everyone suspended their disbelief, got immersed, and just went for it, but apparently not everyone does.
Despite him only reading a few pages and completely misrepresenting the premise in the review, Amazon refused to do anything about it. So his 1-star review plagues me to this day because apparently immediately hating a premise is legit to write a bogus review and get it approved under Amazon's new guidelines. This also points out the other issue that you have to have bought a certain dollar amount of merchandise so you can review, which means a lot of people who read my book when it was free have never been able to review it. (Also it's convenient he hadn't read past where the preview cuts off... in which case, writing a review off a couple page preview is insane why that's allowed). I try to not let it bug me, but every time I scroll through my books I see the reviews on this book screwed up and it's frustrating. Anyway, moving on.
Our main character gets to the corner store, and that's when I realized I wanted to be putting conflict basically in every single point in the story I possibly could. Every time he would turn around, there would be something impeding his process he would have to make choices about or have to problem solve. At the end of the day, it still may be an "and then" story, but I wanted to constantly be putting obstacles in the way and addressing real-world conflicts that were a real every day thing, unfortunately.
So a conflict happens at the corner store, and this's when I really had to stop and decide. How supernatural did I want the story. How deep or serious did I really want this to be. That's when the first world building begins and I decided to go for it. I figuratively and literally blocked the character's easy path. This was also the first time in one of my books where I predicted a real world event.
As a few weeks later after writing this chapter of book, before it was even published I think, my friend lost a close girl friend that worked at a corner store at night. She had been assaulted, killed, and left in a gas station that they subsequently blew up to hide the evidence. I almost stopped the book right there, because it immediately became real to me. It was very scary. I remember taking a little break and inevitably decided to keep writing.
Most of the locations are real places in the book, but they aren't actually next to each other. So they're real places, but not actually next to the other places, if that makes sense. Some of the locations are from dreams though, so its sort of fun probably to figure out which is which.
Some places I plucked from maps, and some of you may recognize, some are from memories, and some are a hybrid with new things put there like a commercial district where in real life its a residential one. Sort of like a "what if."
Like when the main character was approached by the homeless group. There actually was a homeless group like that where I used to live, that lived in the woods and would come out to go to the corner store, grocery store, and hospital. So it wasn't too far fetched to let fear set in if they popped up at night.
So then the recyclery. It was completely made up, based off a cool sci-fi premise I had. The book is supposed to take place a few years in the future. I wanted the character to be cold and hungry and wanted to take this second act as to how you'd actually survive at night in the cold. It's probably not super accurate but it's the best I can do in my mind. Some parts of the building were definitely based off of real buildings. Other parts were caricatures of what to me a perfect atmosphere for a continual improvement building would be.
My thought process was there, if someone read the book 5-10 years down the line, post collapse or whatever, they could remember how things could of, should of, would of been before foreign companies kept buying up and crashing our industry here in the states.
The second act took quite a while to write, and I came up with two legitimate floorplans I made in visio for them. They are in the #1 anthology, but anything smaller print and it was a novelty at best. That started me trying to make artwork for several of the insides of the books. It's only in the anthology though, unfortunately. More on that in book #2's retrospective.
The final act is based off what I think the first few days after the collapse would look like. I think the retribution and purge would happen very very quickly. There's people that have already been planning for years, waiting for this to happen.
Hope everyone enjoyed this first retrospective. I'll try to write one a week or so. Thanks again!
https://www.amazon.com/PNW-Affliction-Recycled-Chance-Paladin-ebook/dp/B06XFQMG3C/ref=la_B07BGCH47Y_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1532962472&sr=1-4
-Chance Paladin
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