I just recently completed a scene that moves one of the subplots into stronger conflict. Often character conflict is between two or more characters in the “world” or inner conflict between one character and themselves. The scene I just completed takes the conflict of two characters into the inner world. This concept in itself is not unique. It is the very crux of Robert Lewis Stevenson’s classic Novella, “The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” The conflict I have invoked is a conflict of two characters wanting the same body.

Many of the world’s cultures believe in possession of the body by a foreign entity. Some believe that possession to be done only by demons and devils. Others believe it to be done by gods. Some believe a person can be possessed by the ghost of someone else. It is this last possession that the scene works in. As I have written it, the scene takes place in two settings: The real world, where one character does not know what is happening; and the world of dreams. The reader flips from setting to setting within the scene. The writing of the transitions was difficult and it is something I will need to pay close attention to in the next draft.

I do not want to go too far in the description of the scene and its significance to the storyline or how the subplot gets pulled and threaded through the main plot. Instead, I would like to discuss the idea behind the scene. I drew upon many of the world cultures and mixed in some of my own twisted imagination to create the setting. Some cultures describe the act of a ghost possessing another as a dark energy descending upon another, with electrical shocks running through the body. The spirit is then able to interact with the real world in varying levels, depending on the culture’s reports.

I do not claim to believe these reports or cast judgment on them. They are a tool for me to make a story more realistic—as much as a supernatural gothic horror can be. What I would like to ask you, my reader is:

1. Do you believe in the possibilities of possession?
2. If you do, do you believe that angels or demons can possess someone? (after all, if one can why can’t the other)
3. Do you think it would be possible to be possessed by the spirit of someone?
4. If you discovered you had been possessed by an angel, demon, or someone long dead’s spirit, what would you do? How would you react?

Thank you for reading and please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for up to date information on the articles, blogs, novels, and short stories that I write.

The last week has not seen the progress I would like to have seen in writing this novel. Every writer faces the drain on his or her time, and sometimes things just get out of control. As a writer who has a “bill paying job” the demands outside of writing can crumble a schedule. I still am determined to have Dark Medicine completed by the end of September. It is just a huge race. We shall see what occurs.

How far along am I? That is more of an interesting question than the reader might think at first. The novel went missing. Yes, all of that work disappeared and the flash drive with the backup went missing. I have been writing when I have been exhausted. When I write, I have to be somewhere—anywhere other than home. As a result, I spend a lot of time writing at coffee shops. The flash drive and a remote mouse was accidently left behind at one. The mouse is gone, but I hold in my hand the flash drive. I am so thankful to the people at the coffee house for having it in their lost and found.

So, how far am I? At 327 pages (76,049 words) I am just over one-third of the way through the actual storyline. How many pages will it be? Truthfully, I don’t know the exact count. Assuming that each third of the novel is equal in length, which is a false assumption, I am looking at 800 to 900 pages. As I explained, it is a huge race to have the rough draft done in seven weeks.

Over the last few weeks I have had help from a friend in writing elements of the story. One of the characters, whom I have not described in full on any of these blogs because they are a secret, does not speak English—at first. They are a kind of vampire. (There is more than one kind of vampire? Yes, in my story and in the real research of the mythos of vampires.) This vampire is a salute to Bram Stoker. No, it is not a Dracula recreated or re-imagined. It does speak Romanian as its native tongue. Thank to my friend, who is a native of Romania, the bits of Romanian in the novel is authentic.

“But, David, I am an American! I only speak English!” The use of other languages in novels is an old technique. Even when you can’t read it and all your eyes do is glance at it, you still get the feel and the taste for it. It is like throwing in to a good cup of coffee some flavored creamer. You may not need the creamer, but it does make it tastier.

Thank you for reading and please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for more on the articles, blogs, novels, poems, and short stories I write.

When Herman Melville wrote Moby Dick, he started off with the story of one main character. Little did he know when he began that novel that he would create a stronger character and have to change the book and the focus of the story to fit Captain Ahab. Fortunately, that scenario has not happened to me. What has happened is that a secondary character in several aspects of the plot and subplot has metamorphosed from their original design into something else.

Monsignor Daniel Whitfield was designed to be the strictest and perhaps most backward thinking of priests. We all know the type—the kind behind man’s most positive moments like: the Dark Ages, the Inquisition, witch burnings, and so on. Those kinds of church leaders that give the others a bad name. Yet as I rewrote the plot and have had the character move within the “Dark Medicine-verse”, he has taken on a more humanistic and spiritualistic role. Whitfield is a priest who has been on missions around the world, seen the rich and ministered mercy to the starving. He is the kind who looks at the human soul and does his best to help nourish it as well as the body it inhabits. Ready for retirement he is now faced with a moment of crisis in faith.

Unlike some crises, he does not question if God truly exists. Instead he questions if his faith is strong enough to overcome the onslaught of the most ancient evil. He questions if a soul can become so dark and so condemned as to never being able to be redeemed. He questions if standing firm in his beliefs is truly the answer or if surrender to the madness of the world is easier.

What would you do if suddenly faced with supernatural evil? What would you do if you had hard proof before your eyes of the existence of demons? I am not talking about seeing bad things in the world that you can say were caused by a demon. I mean having the demon standing before you, feeling the heat of evil coming off their body. What would you do? What would you question? How would you change?

Thank you for reading and please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for more on the articles, blogs, novels, poems, and short stories I write.