Back when I was originally writing the rough draft for Little One and the Glitch saga (many many years ago, because I was still in the process of figuring out what I was doing with my writing and hadn’t started publishing), I decided to read a few horror books to get a feel for how those stories worked and how to get an underlying tone of dread and something bad about to happen.
One of the books I read was Christine by Stephen King.
Though I don’t remember a whole lot about the plot now, one of the things that stood out to me when I was reading it was how Arnie’s personality slowly changed over the course of the story, and at one point, the narrator realizes that Arnie’s signature has changed due to how he scribbles it on a cast.
That image stuck in my head, and while I had originally read Christine in hopes of getting inspiration for Little One and Glitch, Christine ended up being far more influential on the Distant Horizon series.
Especially for book three, Starless Night.
The book ended up influencing the concept of brain seeds… a telepathic attack that rewards and punishes its target’s behavior so they’ll do what the seed wants. The more the seed grows, the more the target changes.
It’s an issue Jenna, the main character of the series, is all too familiar with.
When Isaac and I first came up with the Distant Horizon world, memory seeds and brain seeds weren’t a thing. Lady Winters did have a tendency to mentally blast people with telepathy and horrifying images, but these weren’t the constant attacks that Jenna has to deal with… or the slow change of personality that we start to see in Fractured Skies and that tries to assert control in Starless Night.
These were small changes in mannerisms, occasional phrases of speech… and Jenna’s general preference in regards to coffee (which were really fun to write).
Below is a scene from Starless Night that takes place between Jenna and Stuart, a butler for the Camaraderie. Stuart has been around for quite some time, and he is perceptive. (And also a powerful telepath who was not fond of Lady Winters).
He can recognize a threat to both Coalition and Camaraderie:
Stuart inclined his head toward the cup in my hands. “It is my understanding you only recently took an interest in coffee. Is that correct?”
I frowned. “Tastes change. Why?”
“Though I shall continue to suggest tea as the superior drink of choice, may I ask how you like your coffee?”
“What do you mean?”
“Cream? Sugar? Or black—”
“Black as a starless night,” I interrupted, taking a sip of the drink. It was more burnt than black, but bitter was bitter.
The butler’s eyebrows narrowed almost imperceptibly. Danger…
The feeling faded. He was only a butler.
“For the sakes of those you care about,” he said, “you should do your best to fight the seed. No one cared for Winters except herself. But there are many who care about you.”
(That said, I somehow managed to nix the phrase “coffee, black as a starless night” from the drafts of both the Glitch series and in Distant Horizon, which effectively destroyed some of the foreshadowing I had intended. *Facepalm.* If I ever do a revamp of the series, that’s getting added back in somewhere. Isaac even gave me a coffee mug for Christmas one year with the Camaraderie symbol and the quote, though it’s long since faded).
How Jenna refers to people, whether she’s nice to them or condescending, whether she knows a little more than she should about a particular situation… all these were little details I got to tinker with.
The biggest issue for me was keeping track of what changes have already started in one book and which ones had yet to take root.
Once we get to book four (currently drafted/semi-revised), she sort of has control again, but she’ll have some all-new problems to deal with.
Either way, the idea of a shifting personality and how the others around the person being affected person respond to those changes, definitely got at least some inspiration from reading Christine.
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An evil brain seed is determined to take root in Jenna’s brain…
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Happy reading and writing!
Stephanie Flint - Author and Artist 