Welcome to part three of four of the
official author’s blog of the dystopic novel, Tombstone Philosophy.
The reason for these blogs is so that you, the reader, can get the
opportunity to peek inside the author’s mind with the thought
process and chronicling of this novel’s creation.
For those of you not familiar with
Tombstone Philosophy, it is an eBook written by Bryan Miller about a
world where the United States has been governed by a twisted
incarnation of the Catholic Church, and of a group of freedom
fighters whose goal is the return of separation of church and state
by any means necessary.
The creative process behind Tombstone
Philosophy’s development has been an odd one. As a visual thinker,
one of the things I did while outlining the chapters for Tombstone
Philosophy was draw out sketches and storyboards with brief
descriptions to help illustrate the overall plot. Of course I had
written layouts with paragraph-sized descriptions of each chapter and
the goal/reason behind the chapters. About seventy percent of the
original content survived the editing and fleshing-out of the
storyline, the thirty percent scraped because it either didn’t flow
with the story or was replaced with newer, better content.
The one author whose writing style has
helped me flesh out Tombstone Philosophy was Thomas Harris. Harris,
famous for his crime/suspense novels Silence of the Lambs,
Red Dragon and the creation of fictional serial killer Dr.
Hannibal “the Cannibal” Lecter, has helped me develop my own
writing style, more specifically with his 1999 novel, Hannibal.
Despite the mixed reviews Harris’s novel has received, it’s still
one of my favorite literary pieces; Hannibal has certainly kept me
entertained with the story’s pacing and character development, and
inspired me to incorporated most of those elements into the
groundwork of Tombstone Philosophy.
The Hannibal audio book (narrated by
Harris himself), was particularly helpful in making sure the words
and dialogue in Tombstone Philosophy flow properly. My greatest
weakness in writing has been maintaining the flow of words that often
resulted in run-on sentences and jagged dialogue. I must’ve read
Hannibal and listened to the entire damned audio half a dozen times
before the writing and editing of Tombstone Philosophy reached my
level of satisfaction.
As a graphic designer, it is important
to me to have the layout of my book’s content be as appealing as
its exterior design. S.D. Perry’s novelization of the Resident Evil
series was helpful in modeling the internal structure of both
Tombstone Philosophy’s eBook and limited paperback edition. In her
first RE novel, The Umbrella Conspiracy, it was one of the
rare books that could make Times New Roman a surprisingly adequate
font for its content. Out of the seven books she’s written of the
RE series (five based on the games, two original), the first one to
me was the best in terms of internal layout.
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| (l to r) Orwell, Harris and Perry, influential to Tombstone Philosophy's development. |
Like a lot of fledgling authors, we believe that after reading enough books that we can write one up ourselves. It is, however, rather difficult to not only come up with original material, but to make it enjoyable for your potential audience to read. One of the greatest difficulties I’ve encountered when tackling a sensitive subject like religion, was how to set it up without deliberately offending my readers. Thankfully (as far as I can tell), I haven’t besmirched Catholic doctrine as much as I had feared, despite the risky circumstance involving the Church that has been documented throughout the novel. In Tombstone Philosophy, I discovered that the reader can potentially root for either the Crusaders or the Church. Both groups possess traits that can clarify them as both good or evil because of their actions, leaving the reader to root for either party; that was an unexpected bonus that had formed a life of its own.
Tombstone Philosophy is not an
anti-Catholic novel, nor is its intent to make offense of Catholic
doctrine. Tombstone Philosophy is a work of fiction, a product of my
imagination.
All I ask, reader, is that you keep an
open mind.
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