Fiction Writing – Page 3

When Snippets Become Spin-Offs: The Murder Rule, and More (Part One)

Having pretty much completed the Snippet Posts for The Prodigal Band Trilogy, and having been working on ‘Spin-Off’ novels over the last several years since I retired from my previous job, and having published the three-books-in-one trilogy through Lulu for global reach using e-books, I figured why end there?

There are a number of minor characters that could bring about ‘spin-off’ novels, as some of them were actually murdered or ‘died mysteriously.’ I have even contemplated a ‘murder’ scenario of one of my major characters, but I’m not sure which one yet.

By ‘spin-off’ characters, I mean minor or support characters that play some important role within one or more of the three novels. The notion of ‘spin-offs’ was inspired by one of my favorite TV shows during the 70s, All In The Family. A comedy, and a satire of sorts of the politics of the right (Archie Bunker, and to a lesser extent, his wife Edith) and left (Mike Stivic and his wife, Archie’s daughter Gloria, who is a feminist). Naturally, Archie and Mike did not get along. Further, neighbors, including the Jeffersons, who were black, had issues with Archie as well, as did Edith’s cousin, Maude, an ultra-liberal. These supporting characters eventually featured in their own spin-off shows, The Jeffersons and Maude. Another spin-off, Archie Bunker’s Place, features several of Bunker’s buddies from the original series. Further, a spin-off had its own spin-off: Maude’s black maid, Florida Evans, was a main character in the show, Good Times, set in a Chicago housing project; yet, since Maude was never mentioned, it was not technically a spin-off. Finally, the show Gloria was created after Gloria divorced from Mike; the prelude to that was featured in one of the final episodes of All in the Family. So, we are talking four or five spin-offs here!

Two of the spin-off parts of the full novel are being manuscripted slowly but surely, with one or two more possibilities in the works. Both are roughly half-way completed, just waiting for more inspiration to finish, but they will be finished and will likely combine in a ‘three-or-four-or-five’ complete novel, in parts, with the likely title being The Murder Rule. Yep, I like mysteries, suspense novels, and crime stories. After all, there is so much crime and mystery and occultic scenarios going on these days of Covid, and now a ridiculous war in Ukraine, where of course the narrative blames it all on Russia. Sorry, there is more to this story than ‘the narrative’! And while God is in control, Ephesians 6:12 states it perfectly—the world is ruled by evil, ‘wickedness in high places.’

In order to introduce this novel-in-the-works, I will begin with a snippet that will introduce a major character within The Murder Rule. He is another rock star, singer Denny Spradlin of the band that helped mentor the prodigal band Sound Unltd, called Wolfin. (Note: it was originally called ‘Wolfen,’ but since that is the name of an 80s mystery movie set in the Bronx, I had to change the spelling.) Denny and his collaborator, guitarist Blake Fenmore, while loving their fame and fortune, eventually turn into nothing but party animals and eventually become lazy and stop producing hits, falling into has-been-dom, which leads to trouble and danger. Denny becomes a ‘useless eater’ of sorts to those controlling the music industry evil agenda; further, he is addicted to the opioid designer drug mentioned in the trilogy, called skuz.

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Christian or Not, Author or Not, Expose and Fight Evil with Truth!

In a previous snippet series exposing the truth about the music industry, including a post using facts about so-called ‘suicides’ of dead rock stars that are more likely actual murders, featuring Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Chester Bennington and Chris Cornell, and Swedish DJ Avicii among others, I researched the history and facts about the music industry regarding handlers and managers, producers, concerts and venues and who owns them including organized crime syndicates, and others backing various recording artists, to discover the sinister agendas and ways of the industry. In other snippet posts I exposed other evil doings regarding the occult practices including ‘master rituals’ that former head of Zodiac Productions, John Todd (now a Christian) that supposedly even channeled demonic spirits in the ritual, and other rituals calling forth demonic spirits exposed within trilogy snippets. And New Age cult religions as well that influenced rock music from the 60s onward. And, of course, the evil ‘secret members’ of these satanic groups that ultimately control the industry and most media in general.

One of the most evil characters is a banker dynasty controller named Baron Torquay-Lambourgeau who is descended from the Normans who took over Britain around 1066 (Battle of Hastings). Other financial leaders are involved, but Torquay (as I tend to call him for short) is the one who also leads the satanic Corion-worshiping Hellyon Society. Why a banker and not some other occultic leader?

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How I Wrote The Prodigal Band Trilogy, Parts One Through Three (Repost)

Part One

This post is not about how, in the 60s and 70s and 80s, I came up with the characters as a gang, and then as a band. This post is about how I developed the final plot involving good vs. evil spirits and entities using the prodigal band for good or evil purposes, how I was inspired this way and how I managed to write the three novels, the final one (The Prodigal Band) twenty years after the second one (The Prophesied Band). How I turned just an entertaining piece about the foibles of rock stardom into a spiritual plot using the Parable of the Prodigal Son of the Gospel of Luke Chapter 15 as a guide. Finally, it is about actually creating the novels using various software including ClarisWorks (for Mac) and Corel WordPerfect, Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat conversions for PDFs on both Mac and PC desktops and laptops. I reviewed the “why” in the previous post; now is the “how.”

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Feeling Censored? Use Fiction to Tell the Truth (Revised)

Before I go on to the main topic regarding present-day censorship especially with narratives, political and otherwise, I must say that I have a problem with Christians, including authors, that get on my case because my characters cuss or play rock music. Sorry, folks, but if you really think no Christian ever cusses (and I don’t know a Christian who doesn’t cuss every now and then!) or if you think rock musicians are all “devil worshipers” then you haven’t done your homework or you have bought into nonsense. Plus, you have Christians who think all “Christian rockers” are really devil worshipers! Stryper then, Hillsong now, right? Did Stryper sing and play about Christ? Yes. Does Hillsong today sing and play about Christ? Yes, despite the appearance of Justin Bieber (I’m being facetious, okay?), and despite some “symbology” issues some have with Hillsong. Now, why would a non-Christian sing and play about Christ? A joke, right? Harking back to the late 60s and Norman Greenbaum’s hit song, “Spirit in the Sky” about Christ–and assuming Greenbaum is Jewish–why would he do a song about Christ? A reminder–the late 60s saw a surge in a movement called “Jews for Jesus.” Maybe Greenbaum was part of that.

There are people who are Christian authors who believe all “Christian authors” should write a certain way and not have cussing characters or characters who sin before they accept Christ as Lord and Savior. All “Christian author” novels should be squeaky clean. Sorry, but I can’t write that way when, first of all, I accepted Christ as Savior after repenting of the following behaviors: dabbling in the occult (as one of my band characters does); having pre-marital sex (as several of my characters did); being rebellious against some authority; cussing (I have dropped the “f” word but occasionally use the “s” word–and it was hard for me to type that “f” word into my novels, but my characters are my characters!); and questioning what has been certain interpretations of the Bible, among other sins. Because of this, my novels are not “Christian adult fiction” but “adult fiction.” My novels are meant to try to get non-believers to consider believing on Christ of their own free will. Isn’t that what Christ said? “Make disciples of all nations”? I’ll let others “preach to the choir.”

Now, the main point: my novels also include a certain amount of satire and parody of how the music industry works, and it’s not just the “sell your soul for fame and fortune” narrative. It is actually more sinister, what with signing recording contracts whereby the label virtually owns you unless they dump you, and both the label and the distribution outfit (the corporation that owns the label, or “parent company”) take well over half of the take on sales (today it is supposedly most of the take) and where the recording artist must pay for recording studio and production and album cover art and even tours, assuming the recording label pays out some “advance” which also must be paid back. (And I thought authors had it bad!). But the really big time acts (as chosen by the moguls, that is) do get more leeway and more of the take–for a price, which is not a “sold soul to the devil” price literally, but agenda-wise. Once you are made huge, you are forced to stick to an agenda that you might eventually discover is laden with evil. And then the crash begins…And, if you start to oppose the agenda…watch out! My The Prodigal Band Trilogy makes this truth clear and to the point.

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How and Why I Came Up With the Names of the Trilogy Main Characters

When one writes a novel or a series, one has to make up the names of the main characters. There are all sorts of reasons one names the main characters particular names. I could probably name a hundred reasons, but for this post I will only name the reasons why I named my main characters—the prodigal band members and their women and a few others—what I named them.

I came up with these names for the most part in the mid-60s, but instead of a ‘prodigal’ rock band, they and the girls that hung out with them were a clique or a gang of sorts, and were ‘locals,’ fictitious teens living on Long Island which is where I grew up. They had no particular ethnicity or religion, but were as if they were the same kind of teens as the actual teens where I lived, and where I lived the population was almost all white (a few blacks or Hispanics or Asians where I lived), about 40 percent Italian and about 20 percent Jewish, with the rest being a mix of mostly northern Europeans (mostly German, British, French, Polish, Scandinavian, Czech, Slovak, or Russian). The most common boy’s names were John or Jack, Tom, Pete, Joe, Bob, Bill, Mike…typical common boys names. In fact, the surnames for the band members didn’t really come up until the latter 60s when the clique turned into a rock and roll band—a band from England, a year or two before I actually visited England as a high school graduation gift, along with the friend who suggested this trip, who happened to be Jewish (but not religious about it).

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Omegabooksnet.com Site Menu Updates

Two new MENU pages have been added to the site Menu above.

Links to All Snippet Posts. That way, one doesn’t have to scroll all the way down the Home Page to find Snippet Posts one might be interested in reading. All the Snippet Posts are listed, and it is likely that I am done with posting snippet posts.

About the Trilogy Characters. That way, you don’t have to scroll down the Home Page to read about the various characters: the band, their women and support characters, and the good and evil characters, and the spirituality involved.

This Character page will be added to, since I plan to write more posts about the characters, such as why did I come up with their names and other stuff. Cheers!

Christian Authors: God Gave You a Talent—Use It! Or At Least Consider It a ‘New Year’s Resolution’

Welcome to 2022! Happy New Year!

There is a possibility that in the near future I will be publishing a ‘guide’ or ‘manual’—call it what you will—for Christian authors, called (maybe) Talent for a Mission, based somewhat on the Parable of the Talents in the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 25, verses 14 through 30. Remember the one who received a talent but hid it? Well, guess what? The giver of the talent took the talent away from the one who wouldn’t use it!

In other words—Christian author or not—if you don’t use the talent God gave you, God will ‘take away’ that talent, which, in this case, is the talent of writing and being an author.

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Random Trilogy Snippets of Random Events That Lead to Climactic Events, Part Three (from The Prodigal Band)

There really are two climaxes within the third novel of The Prodigal Band Trilogy, called The Prodigal Band. There is the one at the end where the band is victorious over the evil-controlled Mark Besst. Then there is the one right in the middle of the novel where the prodigal band Sound Unltd is nearly killed or seriously injured by a bomb planted under a seat on their private jet at the airport in Philadelphia.

This snippet post deals with the first climactic event. To begin the story that concludes in this post is the notion of why the prodigal band is called Sound Unltd in the first place. In Chapter One of Battle of the Band, the angelic Tooters tell their messenger, the ‘witch of the Hovels,’ what will become the name of a ‘rock band’ of the future that will carry out the will of The Creator. “Their name will be sound, unlimited.”

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Random Trilogy Snippets of Random Events That Lead to Climactic Events, Part Two (from The Prophesied Band)

In terms of what most would call a “climactic event” within a novel, this snippet scenario in this post might not classify as a climactic event in strict terms, but for the band members that witness this event, it should be, seeing as how they react when they find out a secret they had no knowledge about.

Note: I removed the “spoiler alerts” in these snippets.

The climactic event to finish Battle of the Band, where singer Erik and bassist Keith are in comas at a local private hospital in their home city of Walltown and encounter good vs. evil in their spiritual voids as their fellows watch over them and as the evil Swami Negran attempts to capture their souls for the satanic Corion (thwarted by God’s angels, the Tooters, and their agent, the ‘witch’ of the Hovels), gets recounted within Chapters Four and Five of The Prophesied Band.

In this snippet, it turns out that Swami couldn’t capture their souls, as hard as he tried. So Corion, the devil character, punished Negran by causing him to disappear from the hospital. Negran was in fact taken by Corion into Corion’s abyss where the Creator had placed him in Chapter One of Battle of the Band as punishment for Corion’s rebellion against God. But Negran wouldn’t be the only one Corion takes into the abyss. In 50 AD, Crynnwagg, high priest of the cannibal Crag-Dweller cult, was also done that way. Why? And then he escaped the abyss. Why? Hmmmm…. From Chapter Five of The Prophesied Band:

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Random Trilogy Snippets of Random Events That Lead to Climactic Events, Part One (from Battle of the Band)

Each of the three novels that make up The Prodigal Band Trilogy has at least one seemingly random or even somewhat meaningless event that would, likely at the conclusion of the novel, play a key role in the overall spiritual climax of the novel and the trilogy as a whole. The first snippet post in this topic comes from the first novel in the trilogy, Battle of the Band.

When I incorporated this event that just popped into my head, an event in Chapter Four that is somewhat based on the seemingly endless ‘war’ between British troops in Northern Ireland (aka Ulster) and the Irish Republican Army (IRA) that pretty much concluded in the late 90s (or just went underground so to speak), I figured, before creating the final version of the novel in 1995 for publication in 1996, that it was just some random novel event that would not have broader implications as to the novel’s climax. But what makes up this snippet set does indeed play a key role at the climactic event ending the novel; while suffering a mild heart attack and in a state of physical coma yet spiritually existing in a void where good vs. evil reigns, the prodigal band’s bassist, Keith, is visited by two deceased ‘gang brothers’ who deliver to the bassist a powerful message.

Before I get to the snippets, let’s review what this Northern Ireland conflict was about. It was mostly nationalistic what with Ireland having separated as a Republic in the early 1920s from the United Kingdom (of Great Britain and Ireland), but most Americans anyway were ‘told’ that it was mostly a Catholic vs. Protestant issue, which according to events summarized in this Wikipedia post, was not the main cause of the conflict. It wasn’t just Protestants that wanted to stay in the UK and it wasn’t just Catholics that wanted to join Ireland; mostly, it was nationalistic mixed with politics between the Irish Sinn Fein (Provisional IRA) and the Ulster pro-Britain political groups, while Catholics did tend to support the IRA and while Protestants tended to support the UK. The roots of this conflict go back to the early 1600s when mostly Scots from the southern portion of Scotland moved to northern Ireland and were given ‘plantation’ land rights, lands that may have been stolen from the native Irish (and these Scots eventually would make up what became known as the Scots-Irish, many of whom wound up in what would become the USA in the 1600s and 1700s as indentured servants (note: I am part Irish and part Scots-Irish, as well as part German). Oh, and I was once Catholic as well! Still, I didn’t really support one side or the other, for the most part. Starting in the late 1980s, both sides apparently tried to end the conflict, which didn’t end until the late 90s; cease-fires began to happen throughout the mid-90s.

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