Many, many Distant Horizon Universe newsletters ago, back in early 2019, I had a poll for which Distant Horizon beast subscribers would like to see me try to render in Daz.
Keyword being “try” to render, because I was still learning the program and uh… even my drawn attempts to create beasties hadn’t been that great.
At the time, I had a lot fewer assets to work with, and a lot less practice with morphing the figure’s features to get the desired look.
Anyway, with a lot of Photoshop post-processing…
This was my take on a plant beast “candid shot” caught in the wild by a rebel photographer.
The image was inspired by this section from Distant Horizon, where Jenna sees a picture of a plant beast for the first time:
The image had been taken in a jungle, with thick ferns and tall trees spiraling around the frame. It focused on a vaguely humanoid creature. Thick, woody vines wrapped around its hands, twined across its shoulders, and curled around its collarbone. The vines rested loose against its bare chest. The creature—male—was naked, with pale, green-tinted skin and a thicker brow. Like the beast we’d seen in the security feed, this one had cat-like eyes and pointed ears.
Anyway, there you have it!
First attempt to create a Distant Horizon beast in Daz.
Should I give it another go sometime, try a then and now?
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Discover what the Camaraderie doesn’t want the Community to know exists in the Distant Horizon…
If you enjoy the world-building of the Distant Horizon or Huntress series, you might enjoy these books!
(Note: The giveaways above are hosted through BookFunnel. Authors will usually ask for your email address, and in many cases, the author will collect these addresses for their newsletters.)
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.
Especiallyfor 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.
* * *
An evil brain seed is determined to take root in Jenna’s brain…
When Isaac and I first created the Distant Horizon universe, we made it as a homebrew role-play game, sort of a cross between the 90s cartoon X-Men, and The Giver. (Dystopian world with superheroes). There were a lot more superhero references in the game…
And in the names.
Especially for the villains.
For example, Lord Black (the founder of the Community), was usually called “Jellyman” or “Lord Gelatinous” due to his natural form looking something like jelly.
*Cough.*
We eventually decided he probably wouldn’t call himself that, and he definitely wouldn’t have encouraged the people in the Community to call him that (especially since they’re very particular about maintaining appearances and hiding the existence of super powers). But the rebels, particularly those who had a grudge against him, might.
I found a stray reference in an early draft of Starless Night where a character grumbles “Son of Gelatinous!” in frustration. Lord Black’s son was something of a rebel, and therefore a source of frustration to his father. Needless to say, that line got reworked, since it no longer made sense.
Another example was Lady Winters, who was first referenced as Brainmaster. She had a couple name changes, actually. First was Brainmaster, then we changed that to Lady Bridget. But that was too easily confused with Lady Black when reading, so we changed it yet again to Lady Winters.
Long story short, we decided there was no way she would call herself Brainmaster, and most of her underlings would know better than to call her that, too. And they try not to think it either, in case she’s reading their mind. That said, due to her cruelty, the Brainmaster moniker has stuck around for both the Camaraderie and rebel faction if she’s not within earshot or mind-reading range.
And then there’s “The Camaraderie of Evil.”
That name actually got to stay. In Whispers in the Code, Commander Rick explains why they kept the name.
“You will be challenged by much of what we do,” he continues. “In the Community, your tasks were simple: program basic systems, keep everything running smoothly… This job is not so simple. We call ourselves the Camaraderie of Evil because we are willing to take steps others wouldn’t dare consider. That’s the only way we can accomplish security and efficiency. I don’t personally believe we are evil, but the name stuck around from our earlier days, and they were… an interesting bunch.”
What the commander doesn’t mention is that they got the name because the founders were a group of young, ambitious (and variably “evil”) people with powers getting frustrated with their uptight “mad scientist” of the group and deciding they would call themselves that to taunt him.
They didn’t expect it to stick and, nowadays, the COE typically just calls themselves the Camaraderie… or if they’re in the Community, “The Community of E-Leadership.”
Other names were changed for ease of reading. Janice became Gwen because we had so many “J” names already and that was the easiest one to swap and keep the others.
Overall, I think the changes were for the better, though they did change the flavor a bit from role-play game to reading.
* * *
Most of the names got updated. Even so, characters leaving the Community for the outside world still have a few superhero/supervillain surprises in store…
It seems like dishes… and just about anything else… gets done when it’s time for the proofreading stage.
Oh, there’s a chore that needs done? Dishes been piling up? The counters are clean now!
Laundry need washed? Everything’s now been washed and hung in the closet! (Or neatly stacked in a chair because the closet is cold and I’d rather put on warm clothes in the morning thank-you-very-much).
Plants need a little bit of pruning? Even those pesky scale bugs are about to face the gardener’s otherwise defeated wrath.
Or, for a little more fun… new stories need written? Old stories need revised? Let’s do this!
(Inner voice just scowls. “No new stories for you right now. Jot down a few notes and get back to proofreading! Finish what you’ve started!”)
*Sigh.*
There’s all these other new stories calling you to write them, but you’re stuck giving that manuscript you’ve looked over nearly a dozen times one more read to look for typos, and then after you’ve given it that maybe-final/maybe-not-final read you’ve got to actually input those notes into the manuscript.
*Cue second sigh.*
Proofreading might be my least favorite part of the process.
Still, proofreading is important, and helps me to correct little typos I don’t want you guys to suffer through. Missing “a”s and “the”s. The occasional word that just doesn’t make sense. Minor plot points I thought I removed during the read-aloud but accidentally remained in place. That sort of thing.
It’s all about polishing… even if, for me, it is the least interesting part of the process.
Funny thing is that in the 2018 newsletter email I’m adapting this post from, I was lamenting the proofreading process for Fractured Skies.
Now I’m lamenting the proofreading/editing process for The Dark Forest of Aneth. The reading part’s been done. I just need to add my editing notes to the manuscript. But… uh… there’s been an outline and draft written for Huntress 3 and a whole new 5,000-word short story drafted, polished, and sent to beta-readers since I finished that reading a few months ago. *Cough.*
So… yeah.
Do I need to write that draft I’ve been meaning to write for five years?
Looks like I just need to get myself some proofreading or editing notes!
In the meantime… here’s a throwback to when my Legion Spore plushie got to help out with the proofreading:
Isn’t it adorable? (Well, as adorable as living airships made from shapeshifters go). Isaac made it for me for Christmas a few years back.
Actually, I also made him a Legion Spore plushie (we both had the same idea), but let’s just say that the one he made better matched the first Legion Spore, and the one I made closer resembled the Manticore. We had a productive discussion after that regarding the differences between how we saw the living airship of The Glitch Saga.
Needless to say, the Legion Spores you see in the books have been refined a bit.
Or a lot.
And that’s another reason that proofreading… and read-alouds… and beta-reading… is important!
* * *
Read a few polished books that I at some point had to proofread or edit…
Previously I’ve talked about how Distant Horizon got its start as a role-play game between me and Isaac. Many plot points changed, but many stayed the same. In today’s post, we talk about how, in Fractured Skies, Jenna and Lance met Anna…
Who had a few changes along the way.
I’m pretty sure Anna started as a way for Isaac to keep my character, Jenna, from getting herself hopelessly captured. Let’s set the stage, shall we?
In the game, Jenna and Lance have returned to their hometown in search of her parents, who she knows might be in danger. Security guards have started to notice Jenna looks really familiar (she’s the granddaughter of a rebel leader, so they’ve been given her profile), there are a set of conspicuous mercenaries on her tail… and she is very good about demanding information in a not-so-subtle way. Not a good combination.
So Anna, an old friend from her high school, shows up and manages to (unintentionally) whisk Jenna and Lance to safety.
This despite shouting “Jenna! Lance! It’s you guys!” across the same room with said guards and mercenaries.
Needless to say, I can only assume the guards failed their notice rolls or smarts rolls.
Anyway, Isaac and I realized that wasn’t going to be very believable in the actual novel, so we made a few changes.
One, we gave Anna powers.
Surely Jenna and Lance weren’t the only one who didn’t take their daily pills in a huge city, right?
Two, we decided Anna isn’t an old friend… at least not that Jenna remembers… and that Anna knows more than she first lets on… allowing her to get them away from the guards a little more naturally while still arousing their suspicion as to her real intentions.
Here’s an excerpt from Fractured Skies:
One of the guards looked toward us—the one who had examined our IDs earlier, but before he could question us again, a young woman our age plopped into a seat across from me. She had shoulder length brown hair pulled into one of the few “stylized” cuts the Community allowed, and she wore a pale blue shirt and pale gray pants, nothing that stood out.
I blinked. “Uh… hello?”
“I can’t believe you’re back! Chris… Kate…” She propped her chin on her knuckles. “So good to see you again.”
I stared at her, dumbstruck. How did she know what our fake IDs said? Was she a Special Forces agent in disguise? A telepath?
Lance chuckled nervously. “I’m sorry. Do we know you?”
“Of course!” She laughed. “It’s me, Anna. Don’t you remember? We shared chemistry in high school.”
I tried picturing my classmates from chemistry, but honestly, I couldn’t remember more than a few of their faces. I certainly didn’t remember this “Anna.”
Lance and I exchanged glances. Quin seemed to be fast-talking the guards toward the exit, both groups too busy to worry about us. Was Anna a merc? If so, she fit in way better than the others.
She gave us a mischievous grin. “Now that you’re back, there’s a question everyone wants to know—are you two dating?”
I blinked. Why would anyone care about that?
Lance shrugged. “Sort of.”
I froze. What was he doing?
Anna’s eyes popped open. “Seriously? Oooo… just wait until I tell everyone! I told them it was bound to happen.”
“Yeah…” I shuffled uneasily in my seat, suddenly wishing we were dealing with the mercs. At least it was clear what they wanted.
“That’s so exciting!” Anna clapped her hands together and glanced over our shoulders. She quickly diverted her eyes back to us. “You should totally see my room here. It’s great. I’ve been living on my own ever since I moved from my parents’ house.”
“I’m not sure—”
“Sounds cool,” Lance said smoothly. “Why don’t we go check it out?”
I glared at him. What if this is a trap?
Lance flinched. “It’ll be fun,” he murmured, his voice forced.
Dear Community—
This flower charm was obnoxious. Technically, it was a telepathy artifact—artifacts were objects enchanted to mimic certain powers—and I’d accidently used it to project my thoughts. At least I had directed the thought rather than broadcasted it across the room. That would have been terrible. What if everyone thought they had theophrenia? I shoved the charm between my shirt and my coat, where I wouldn’t have to worry about accidently using it.
“Come on!” Anna grabbed us both by the wrists and yanked us from our chairs. Since I didn’t want to cause a scene and attract more guards, I didn’t resist. She dragged us through the hall and into an apartment room a bit bigger than our old dorm rooms combined. Her walls were covered in pictures of similar people with similar hairstyles—all smiling like cheerful leaders on cheesy self-help brochures, except these were beauticians’ posters.
If I took off my hat, it would be painfully clear I did not fit in.
Anna’s come a long ways from the original campaign.
Right now she only shows up in Fractured Skies, but she’s an example of some of the changes we made along the way. 😊
If you enjoy the fairy tale retelling aspect of the Huntress universe, you might enjoy these books!
(Note: The giveaway above is hosted through BookFunnel. Authors will usually ask for your email address, and in many cases, the author will collect these addresses for their newsletters.)
While plotting, I often enjoy listening to music. Sometimes it helps me invoke a particular mood for a scene, come up with new ideas, or simply picture scenes better in my head.
For example, I often listened to Rush’s “Subdivisions” while working on Distant Horizon, especially on scenes involving the Community (It seemed to fit the Community quite nicely).
Then, for a while, I enjoyed listening to DragonForce’s “Through Fire and Flames” while working on the end of Fractured Skies and Spirits of a Glitch. Isaac introduced me to that song and which scenes he thought it fit best. Epic battle scenes… determined character montages in my head… that sort of thing.
(Also makes for a great… and difficult… custom Beatsaber level).
Other times, music helps inspire titles. For example, there’s a line from Styx’s “Brave New World” which inspired the title for Distant Horizon. (I don’t like coming up with titles for books. Seriously… they’re illusive little critters that like to hide away and have to be dragged out from their cozy caves for me to find them).
I’ll admit my tastes in music are eclectic. I’ve listened to a lot of Gordon Lightfoot songs. My favorites are “The House You Live In” and “Race Among the Ruins”, though these tend to inspire me more with the Wishing Blade Universe. I’ve also listened to a little bit of Tarja Turunen (“I Walk Alone”) which almost always makes me think of Ivy Man’s character from Fractured Skies (as does the song “Darkness” by Blackmore’s Night). Both are quite useful when writing any scenes that involve that character.
And sometimes songs might not… really fit, but they still work great for me to plot to. I like “Anti-hero” by Taylor Swift for the character of Sanjorez, even if it doesn’t exactly fit. And… even if I put together an animatic in my head of him dealing with the rest of the Camaraderie whenever I listen to that song.
Once I find a song that works for me, I tend to listen to it on repeat, as I did with Nightwish’s “Escapist” as performed by Alina Lesnik & Guitarrista de Atena (Great for plotting with Shevanlagiy’s character in the Wishing Blade Universe), as well listening to as Joan Baez’s “Rejoice in the Sun” and “Silent Running” (on repeat. Several times. Because when I like a song, it usually ends up looped).
I think I like music I can picture a story to, even if the song might not normally be paired with a particular character or genre. And even if I don’t hear the lyrics right and that spins off a whole ‘nother idea.
There was that one time I listened to Skye Boat Song and misheard “Over the sea to Skye” as “Over the sea to die” and BOOM… new character! (Who, ironically, hasn’t yet shown up. Maybe eventually. That particular story arc took a major turn from the original plan).
And sometimes music gives me ideas for magic systems. Really. The concept of Magic’s Lure and the Wishing Blade spawned from singing “Rainbow Connection” during voice lessons. And the idea of shadows got their first inklings from listening to the song “Shadows” by Gordon Lightfoot.
There are so many more songs I could list as inspiration… But I’ve got to wrap up this post sometime.
Lately I haven’t really listened to music a lot when writing or revising, unless it’s background coffeeshop music, but I still like listening to music while plotting, or if I’m trying to get in the mood to write a certain scene. Or if I’m trying to plot out a stuck spot.
So there you have it. A few songs that I’ve enjoyed listening to while working on these books.
How about you? Do you ever have a soundtrack that reminds you of your favorite books? Do you associate a certain song with a certain character?
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These two series both got a lot of inspiration from listening to music:
If you enjoy the worldbuilding and magic/power system of the Distant Horizon universe, you might enjoy these books!
(Note: The giveaways above are hosted through BookFunnel. Authors will usually ask for your email address, and in many cases, the author will collect these addresses for their newsletters.)
Recently, I was thinking back to some of our early role-play campaigns… including the one for Distant Horizon.
See, the game started as me and Isaac wanting to plan a one-shot campaign that was something of a cross between The Giver meets X-Men.
Actually, that’s not entirely accurate.
The very first campaign set in this universe was a group campaign that followed the terrible exploits of superheroes from the Super Bureau who did more damage than the villains. It was great fun, and ended up providing a bit of lore you occasionally see in the Distant Horizon series.
There’s even an easter egg regarding the Super Bureau campaign in the Glitch saga (Ghost of a Memory), when Tim is researching previous encounters with spirits:
After reviewing an article about a spirit that possessed a brain-dead child, I find several related articles from the time shortly before EYEnet was founded. One is about a man listed as Agent Knight. According to the text, he took an unruly team from the Super Bureau to remove a cult leader who tied the spirits of his followers to metal photographs—some superstition about photographs stealing a person’s soul. But the methods weren’t magical. The cult leader used life-spirit powers to bind his followers to a separate object, where he could better control them.
Long story short, though the actual events have been tweaked to better fit the story (as a great many of the campaign events have), and we don’t actually see all of the members of the ill-fated Super Bureau, some of the basic concepts of that campaign remain.
There is still a possessed, brain-dead child (at the time, she simply had a ridiculous level of power, rather than being possessed) who has a large role in the backstory of this universe (a back-burnered work-in-progress titled Little One). I have Isaac’s notes on the current version of the manuscript, and eventually I’ll need to work on those revisions. There, the investigation of the cult leader who stole souls continues… though he’s already dead (more-or-less) by the time Little One begins.
That said, we do get more Easter eggs regarding Little One’s story in Starless Night… and it’s a plot point that has some weighty significance for Jenna in dealing with the brain seed she’s trying to thwart.
There’s plenty of other little references as well. Jim mentions a few of them in the Distant Horizon series. The character of Benjamin had his start in that early campaign, though his character has gone through several iterations before you see him as he is now.
Distant Horizon was conceived as a campaign about a year or two after that one, but just between me and Isaac, and it started with Jenna in the Community, trying to figure out what was going on with the Health Scan. (Another key idea for this was that the superheroes had failed and the villains now ruled the world… but those in the Community didn’t know).
Of course, it’s not uncommon for our “one-shot” campaigns to run much longer… and it was about halfway through the campaign I decided I wanted to try writing it as a novel (I started taking notes about the spot where Fractured Skies ends). Though events have changed, the basic concept has stayed pretty much on point. One of the biggest changes being how big of a role “memory seeds” play in the story, since telepathic attacks existed, but the detailed workings of memory seeds came about later.
Tim’s story in the Glitch saga, on the other hand, wasn’t actually one of our campaigns. Portions did get played out between Isaac and me (primarily conversations between the Legion Spores and Tim… with Isaac voicing the living airships and me voicing Tim), but a lot of details were notes that Isaac had regarding what happened behind the scenes in the campaign for Distant Horizon.
Now, those aren’t the only Distant Horizon Universe campaigns we’ve done. Of note, we also had one we called “Exiles,” of which much of the story arc has been dismantled due to changes made in the published Distant Horizon series. I may revisit a version of it later, but, for now, you can see hints of it in the Deceived series. A team of young power-users have to escape a beast facility and then go on adventurers to change their world for the better… one of those characters being over-powered enough that the Camaraderie isn’t terribly happy about them…
Another campaign was the Athena arc, which is something of a techno thriller that takes place after Exiles. Again, a lot got changed based on changes to Distant Horizon. However… other aspects might eventually get reworked into later books if we ever explore the world beyond the Distant Horizon series once that’s complete. (And I have been dropping certain foreshadowing hints into the current series in case we do lean into that route).
And then there’s another campaign I ran much farther into the story’s future, but it would need major, major edits to be even remotely feasible, though there are some plot details which may work themselves into other books… especially Little One.
In any case, role-playing has been a fun way for us to develop the story and delve deeper into the individual characters and the world. 🙂
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Sneak around with Jenna in the Distant Horizon series!
Stephanie Flint - Author and Artist 