Blood Mark, THE LIAR: Writing Origins
How “Les Mis meets 1984 meets X-men, to the tune of the Bohemian Rhapsody”came to be
About 10 years ago —the summer after I turned 14, I took my Teen Titan fan fiction I was working on with a friend, made a spinoff OC inspired by Murtag in the movie adaption of Eragon (2006), and sat down to write my second “official” book. My idea was this: “A Child Called It meets 1984 meets Left Behind, following the life of the MC, but told from the POV of characters who had a major influence on the MC’s life, and bouncing between past and future scenes to reflect history’s tendency to repeat itself, in a world where all science fiction tropes are normal.” I thought that was clever. It’s not.
Two years of laborious editing later, I got an offer from the first publishing company I queried. They were a scam. Our relationship thankfully ended before the money mooching began.
My rapid consumption of anime, manga, web comics, and H.G. Wells didn’t help either. Well…it did. Despite my growing up in a desert, the Sigrast region and Kyshen/Dason’s relationship is heavily inspired by the world of Trigun. The “blood mark” came from the Cursed Seal of Heaven in Naruto — though it has always looked and been functionally different due to influences from Spiderman’s Venom. Ghost in the Shell became Hedastiran culture. In a later arc of the book, Dason was supposed to turn into a wolf-dragon —like Haku from Spirited Away — due to a weaponized rabies virus; in another, his arm warps into a biological gun that threw lightning everywhere. When I say anime didn’t help, I meant I tried to jam too much “everything” into my world instead of focusing on building upon that which existed. Oh, and Kyshen was a female contractor who built guns. Lodin was also female and her assistant.
One year later, I decided the book was better off as a series, chopped the first 30-page long arch in half (ie: ~15 pages, removing the time jumps) and expanded it into a 90,000 word novel. And so seven years of laborious editing passed. I ran a gag comic series, wrote several scripts for “my own manga,” tried to give psychological thrillers a break to write a fluffy reverse-harem novel (*shiver*), graduated high school, played D&D for the first time, said farewell to my parakeet (RIP, my little yankee boi :’C ), wrote a bunch more stuff, started a company, graduated college, published a book of short stories, wrote a bunch more stuff, and shortened my book to 75,000 words because it had some useless subplots and unhelpful POV. I went through a few beta readers (to my surprise, they liked Kyshen). I got 95 literary agent and 5 publisher rejections.
Did I ever mention I hated writing? See, writing a book is like hosting a parasite. It sucks the essence out of your life to create one for itself. You sacrifice your time. Your relationships. Your other projects. Your sleep. The day I get this stupid series out of my life is one I’m eager for. And here’s I’m still stuck on the first book.
THE LIAR was supposed to be published last year (2016). In fact, I began the “official process,” starting with a developmental editor and beta readers. Lo, both my beta reader and my editor finally informed me of why I’ve been having such trouble: my story lacked a plot. Naturally, the structure of a mystery spanning 30 pages — with no ending because you literally did chop off the last 15 pages— and the structure of a proper novel are two very different things. My story also read like a movie script. Then again, every editor who reads my stuff points this out, so it wasn’t a surprise.
So another year passed while I did massive restructuring. My book expanded into ~103,000 words. I made a cover. I’m working on map of the world. I’m trying to figure out how to market. I’m trying to figure out my cosplays for Otakon. But it’s a bizarre thought that I’m sitting here beside a journey I’ll be holding in my hands in just a few weeks.
Many things have changed from my original idea for the series. Five characters in the first arc became…a lot more. Lekus evolved from a no-name bully into a major character. I made Kyshen and Lodin both male and criminals. A matriarchal-parallel-Earth warped into a planet where people either an avian species or descendants of fallen “angels” (depends which character you ask). The Left Behind inspirations fell away in my “mild” obsession with Les Miserables (by pure coincidence, Hugh Jackman has also played versions of a criminal seeking redemption and someone with a healing factor). I’m not sure how the Bohemian Rhapsody ended up as the plot, but…yeah. That was an accident. Some readers will be happy to know many other concepts — like weaponized rabies, Tharians imported from another planet, Dason being a blatant rip-off of Vash the Stampede, and humans solving the problems of non-Earthlings— have since been rejected and removed from the long term story. (Aka, Dason’s never going to turn in a wolf-dragon. Sorry if that’s a deal breaker.)
However, many things have stayed the same. Blood Mark is, and always will be, a mother-son story exploring the mythos of life and the nature of power. Readers will continue to find the subtle hints of history repeating itself — Shokyo being the more obvious gag. “Everything is real” manifested into everything a character says is true, for some definition of true. It’s also no joke when I say you can make a bingo card of your favorite science fiction tropes and check them off as you read the story.
Either way, I can confidently say it’s almost done. It’s finally almost done. My stack of patient projects scream in joy and wiggle their own parasitic tendrils in anticipation they’ll get to suck away my life next. Like the next book in the series…and the website….
Kai Austin is a writer, full stack developer, and generalized nerd who may or may not be a robot. You can keep up with his projects and musings on his facebook page: Here.
