Tom and I dove into the world-building and came up with a bible, some main characters, and even wrote a few scripts.
Only one problem: Nick could not drum up enough funding to get the Horror Channel off the ground.
So we left the Nocturnia bible to molder on our hard drives while Nick beat the bushes.
Years later I did three novels for the middle-grade/YA crowd that were well received and even made a few recommended-reading lists (like VOYA). I enjoyed writing them and itched to do more. I remembered Nocturnia and felt it would make a superb setting for books aimed at that age group. But my plate was too full to take on something like that by myself. So I called on my goombah for help.
Back to Tom…
When Paul suggested we re-tool the whole Nocturnia concept to a series of novels, I felt like a mook for not thinking of it earlier. We had invested so much into the creation of the world, it practically begged us to fill it with characters and stories. Paul and I travel a lot, and on one of those occasions (I can’t remember which one), he stopped in at my house a day early so we could spend some uninterrupted time reconfiguring the newscast scenario into a larger adventure for younger readers.
We quickly realized that while we had a huge well-realized setting in place, we didn’t have a story. What we needed was a serious brain-storming session, and the best way to do it is sit down in a room with a few Manhattans on the rocks and more than few hours to keep pitching ideas for plot-points, conflicts, complications, and interesting people who all have their own sets of reasons for doing what they do. I love working with Paul like this because we are able to lay out our ideas in a kind of shorthand where each of us understands the underpinnings of the new idea because we shared the same pop-cultural references as kids. We read the same comics, saw the same movies, read the same books. The truth is, we can often finish each other’s sentences.
And so we clocked in some good challenging hours and, using elements from our original geo-socio-political settings, we created characters who represented most of the creature-nations. The newscasters – originally major players for The Horror Channel version – were now reduced to either minor characters or removed from the story altogether. We brought in new protagonists – curious and adventurous young people who would be ushered into our world of monsters. We introduced a suitable villain and his supporting cast, and enough plot twists to ratchet up the mysteries that would need to be unraveled. And just to give the story an extra layer or two, we plugged in some Swiftian social satire to keep our readers thinking.
By the end of that initial session, we had mapped out the story for the entire first volume in the series. At that point, we knew we had more than enough material for at least a trilogy.
Our plan was to block out linear sections of the narrative and simply pass it back and forth as each of us finished their assigned scenes. The process has worked well. We’ve yet to argue over a plot point, a motivation, or even the syntax of a sentence. We just edit each other and move on.
One of the things that makes the collaboration feel less demanding is that we share a similar narrative philosophy and style. Many times, while revising or re-reading drafts, I have not a clue as to who wrote what passage. As expected, when we started to write Book One, Definitely Not Kansas, we could feel our initial plot changing, gradually warping into more complication, and as we grew to know and like our characters, we discussed ways to make them deeper and more fully realized.
Paul, finishing up…
As I write this, we are rolling on book two. We have enough backstory and plot twists for six novels – easily – but we’ve taken the best and condensed them into three. Trust me, we have some mind-boggling twists ahead.
As for the storylines we haven’t used – we won’t be discarding them. We’re tucking them away in a safe place. Who knows? We may want to revisit Nocturnia sometime in the future.
Fallston, MD
The Jersey Shore
October 2013
Bibliographies
also by Thomas F. Monteleone
Novels
Submerged
Serpentine
The Eyes of the Virgin
The Reckoning
Night of Broken Souls
The Resurrectionist
The Blood of the Lamb
Fantasma
Dragonstar Destiny
The Magnificent Gallery
Crooked House
Lyrica
Terminal Road
Night of the Dragonstar
Night Train
Day of the Dragonstar
Ozymandias
Night Things
Guardian
The Secret Sea
The Time-Swept City
The Time Connection
Seeds of Change
Short Story Collections
Dark Arts
Fearful Symmetries
The Little Brown Book of Bizarre Stories
Rough Beasts & Other Mutations
Dark Stars and Other Illuminations
Non-Fiction
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Writing a Novel
The Mothers and Fathers Italian Association
Anthologies (as editor)
Borderlands 5
Borderlands 4
Borderlands 3
Borderlands 2
Borderlands 1
Random Access Messages
The Arts and Beyond
also by F. Paul Wilson
The Adversary Cycle
The Keep
The Tomb
The Touch
Reborn
Reprisal
Nightworld
Repairman Jack
The Tomb
Legacies
Conspiracies
All the Rage
Hosts
The Haunted Air
Gateways
Crisscross
Infernal
Harbingers
Bloodline
By the Sword
Ground Zero
Fatal Error
The Dark at the End
Nightworld
Quick Fixes – Tales of Repairman Jack
The Teen Trilogy
Jack: Secret Histories
Jack: Secret Circles
Jack: Secret Vengeance
The Early Years Trilogy
Cold City
Dark City
Fear City
The LaNague Federation Series
Healer
Wheels Within Wheels
An Enemy of the State
Dydeetown World
The Tery
Other Novels
Black Wind
Sibs
The Select
Virgin
Implant
Deep as the Marrow
Sims
The Fifth Harmonic
Midnight Mass
Collaborations
Mirage (with Matthew J. Costello)
Nightkill (with Steven Spruill)
DNA Wars (formerly Masque with Matthew J. Costello)
The Proteus Cure (with Tracy L. Carbone)
A Necessary End (with Sarah Pinborough)
Definitely Not Kansas (with Tom Monteleone)
Short Fiction
Soft & Others
The Barrens & Others
The Christmas Thingy
Aftershock & Others
The Peabody-Ozymandias Traveling Circus & Oddity Emporium
Quick Fixes – Tales of Repairman Jack
Sex Slaves of the Dragon Tong
The Compendium of Srem
Editor
Freak Show
Diagnosis: Terminal
The Hogben Chronicles (with Pierce Watters)
Omnibus Editions
The Complete LaNague
Calling Dr. Death (3 medical thrillers)
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Definitely Not Kansas (Nocturnia Book 1) Page 23
