So, this happened.

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 Why in Dende's name do I have a blog? As though I don't have enough crap to write? Well, I think that the way I come up with stories is pretty interesting. Of course, I could add an Author's Note to the end of my stories...but frankly 99% of my readers don't care what music I listened to, or what scene specifically made me think this plot was good. So, this thing is probably mostly just to give me a place to pretend to talk about the creative process. Maybe, unlikely but possible, it's to write something interesting about how I write. If that sounds interesting, enjoy!

Through the Seven Gates Chapter 8

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Chapter Eight Playlist

I recommend at least starting it at "Fly Like an Eagle" when they go through the doorway. 😉


I love atmospheric horror and I hope this was nicely creepy for you. Will the dark horrors from beyond reality play a further role in the story? I will leave it to you to guess.

There were a lot of things that influenced my writing in this chapter. Lovecraft, of course. Stephen King was also a huge influence - he is a master of the Bad Place genre and is able to paint a picture of utter horror without anything really happening. For this story in particular, the novel Black House and the short story 1408 were the biggest things I drew from. The monsters themselves were hugely influenced by the game "Bendy's Ink Machine".

Getting the balls from the Sixth was a really tough thing for me to figure out. The original version in my outline involved a completely different plotline. But I think I like what I came up with better. Interestingly, this was the second time I tried to write from Gohan's perspective, but each time I try it just works better not to, from a narrative sense. He just doesn't want to be a major character, I guess.

You may notice that in my playlist there is a distinct bias toward songs from the Legion soundtrack. When I was looking for "creepy atmospheric songs" I remembered about this soundtrack and realized I needed very little more. If you haven't seen the show, I highly recommend it. 

Another song you'll see on the soundtrack is "Papa Legba" by the Talking Heads. This is from a movie that's kind of a "rock musical" called True Stories which is honestly one of my favorites. Not thematically similar to the chapter but nicely weird. This song, though; if you listen to the lyrics, especially the third verse, you will probably see some influence.

The last thing I want to say: It's weird, but I don't think anyone ever specifies Gohan's area of expertise in the show. We know he works at a university. But, I also work at a university and you know who universities don't hire? Generalists. Gohan has to have a decent record of research in a particular and probably narrow subject, and what that might be is fuzzy.

I choose to believe he was influenced by Bulma's crazy research into space-time folding, and went into quantum physics. 

Also, I deeply, deeply apologize to any of you that might be physicists. As a biologist myself, I know how painful technobabble can be.