I woke up yesterday from a rather vivid dream in which GM was telling someone about the ‘prison break’ sequence from GM’s backstory. As it turned out, while I was asleep, my twin had been writing — as in, actually putting words on the page — about that part of the story (the prison break, not GM talking about it well after the fact). I have to say, this is a lot better than sharing nightmares (even though the things that lead up to that prison break are NOT pleasant — maybe it didn’t get to me as much because in my dream, it was years ago instead of happening right now). I have not yet read what he wrote — he just told me about it, especially the changes from the previous version — but it sounded… intense. And better than before, and especially good for GM’s role in the matter, because this time around he gets to take the initiative (heaven help us when DD finds out how GM knew where to find the stuff he needed to make the plan work) and has a more important part in the story as a result. I kept worrying about that anyway: the backstory (this is, remember, what I’m referring to in general whenever I talk about “Backstory Revision Syndrome”) was focusing on JL — which makes sense, because it was meeting him that set everything in motion for the rest of the characters — and DD, who does have a tendency to… overshadow other characters if not kept in check. (I think that, after this, we will be less inclined to make those jokes about HT(h): “He shot himself in the head once — what makes you think he’d be afraid of you?” Besides, that got removed from the story several revisions ago.) The thing is, readers are gonna want to know more about GM, and they’re gonna want to know more about JG, and in the backstory, they’re… mere sidekicks, it feels like. *sigh* I may have to make my clone go and write at least a short outline-ish version of that “castles burning” story so he can get the tendency of focusing on DD out of his system.
Do you ever look up real places that are mentioned in fiction that you like? Do you ever plan road trips so you can see those places in person? Do you ever experience disappointment when you learn, for example, that the restaurant in Santa Fe where the protagonist of a novel you like once had lunch no longer exists, so you can’t go there and maybe even sit at the very same table? What about music mentioned in fiction? Did you become a Peter Gabriel fan because of a favorite sci-fi novel? Do you plan to put together a ‘roadtrip soundtrack’ of all the music mentioned as being played by the radio of that semi-supernatural, created-from-a-memory Chevy so you can play those songs while driving through New Mexico?
No? Maybe it’s just us, then.
