So, this thing is going to be twelve books. I know because I outlined the entire mythology to see and that was the number I came up with. I don’t know every detail about every book, but I know the major story lines and events. I know who will be alive in book twelve. I know who will die before then and in which book. I’m all ready sad about some of those deaths. There is a great power in knowing the course of the series. I am purposeful with the action and when characters come onto the scene. I can do meaningful things with their actions by knowing who they are now, who they will become, and why their presence matters to the legend. There is also a burden with that.
When I introduce other elements in the story, I know where they will lead and why. I know characters that are growing in one moment, but will be pulled apart in another. Sometimes that will be spiritually and emotionally. Other times it will be physically too. There is a complexity to some of the coming villains that will make them sympathetic in ways they will not truly deserve. This will make the efforts of the heroes to stop them all the more difficult. I’m rooting for my heroes and I feel bad for the hard times that I’m finding ways to make darker and more difficult before they even begin.
Fiction serves sometimes to reflect our lives back to us in a way that allows us to look and see in ways we can’t without the lens of the fictional story. We can explore issues that we don’t know how to talk about. We can see our own hypocrisy laid bare in the actions of characters. We can hear our own prejudices and misconceptions voiced by characters in situations that allow us see through our own shortcomings. Sometimes coming to those realizations by opening ourselves to literature, even zombie stories, can bring the heavy weight of truth down onto our heads and shoulders. The truth was always there, but now we are aware of it and can really feel it in a way that we couldn’t before.
Stories can also expose our fears. It can do so in a way that helps us face them. It can let us know that they need to be faced even though we are often not anywhere ready to do so.
Knowing is a gift that often can feel like curse. There are moments in life we can look back on and realize that not knowing what was coming was a gift in the brief moment. But we also realize that ignorance was never meant to be a permanent state. Knowing brings responsibility and expectations. It pushes us to act on that knowledge as it relates to the principles we hold dear. Knowing the truth about something – anything – is an innate call to action. It is a call to begin. Realizing that you know it is time to begin something new is a burden we all must face from time to time both in fiction and in life.
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Check out the
latest book and music from a new series by Jay Wilburn:
The Dead Song
Legend Dodecology Book 1: January from Milwaukee to Muscle Shoals –
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00YDZKXCI/jaywil0d-20https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/amazing-circle-of-suffering/id996569862?i=996569871&ign-mpt=uo%3D4
Jay Wilburn lives with his wife and two sons in Conway, South Carolina near the Atlantic coast of the southern United States. He taught public school for sixteen years before becoming a full time writer. He is the author of the Dead Song Legend Dodecology and the music of the five song soundtrack recorded as if by the characters within the world of the novel, The Sound May Suffer. Follow his many dark thoughts on Twitter @AmongTheZombies, his Facebook author page, and at JayWilburn.com
