He stood in the rain again, a dark wet outline against an even darker city.
The rain beat down on him, and so did his thoughts. They weighed heavily on his gaunt shoulders. He’d been a powerfully built man once. Now he was more bone than muscle. More regret than ambition.
The constant drip, drip, drip of dark corrosive thoughts weathered channels and furrows in his mind, carving out the moments of clarity and calm.
His true self forgotten, the man he’d been and the man he’d wanted to be. He was a failure, a fraud, and a figment of an imagined self.
He’d even forgotten his name, a shambling figure in rags he stumbled through Escape, poorer than the beggars or barnies with their trolleys and their bin pickings.
He didn’t collect; he didn’t resell, and he just barely survived. But he had other skills. He could sell if a buyer were willing to overlook certain issues.
Didn’t happen often.
He called himself Murph now, the name that seemed to fit his life. If anything could go wrong, it would. That was his existence. Who was he to think that he could or should be more? He deserved nothing.
Anything else would be a lie.
“Come on, Murph. Focus. Why’re we here?”
To think otherwise would be to lie to himself and hide his true nature, to cover up his shortcomings, to blend into the fabric of some community. Become one with a tribe that didn’t recognize the mole within.
“Hmm, what’s the plan?”
A cancor or a tumor eating through their resources and waiting to rupture, to surprise and rent, to let them down again. To be cut out and cast away, a filth without worth. Less than that, a betrayer, a thief and a traitor.
His familiar swirling storm of thoughts settled on his shoulders like a cloak, caught the cold of the rain and drove it deep into his heart and his bones.
But tonight one clear thought shone brightly in the night.
A neon bright beam of purpose.
She needed his help.
He looked at her through the cold biting rain. As she sat in her cramped converted container lab. A single bulb casting a warm yellow nimbus around her shoulders as she worked.
She always worked.
Whenever he’d watched her at night he’d found her working.
Watching a young girl at night, Murph, are you that kind of man? Spying through the windows like a creep. Do you want to break in? To steal her away from her life and her family? Hmm?
“She’s in danger. “
How so? Can you even put it into words? Can you form the thought clearly of why she needs your help?
“She doesn’t know what she’s doing.”
She looks fine. She’s warm and fed and indoors. You’re the hungry wretch standing in the rain leering at a teenage girl.
“I’m not leering, I’m guarding her.”
Guarding her from what? Hmm?
Doubt gnawed at his motivation as it always did.
Nibbling down at the weak flesh until his resolve broke at the teeth gnashing at the frail bones of his mind. Cracking and splintering them in its powerful jaws.
Cackling and laughing at him in the darkness. Forever circling and driving him away from his purpose.
Doubt always won, always.
Murph turned and stalked back into the night. He didn’t know why he was there, he couldn’t voice it. He was probably mistaken.
Mad and confused.
The beacon in his mind dimmed to a faint flicker, the alert in his lenses erased.
Soon he’d forget why he’d even come.
Soon he’d drown the doubt.
Soon he’d wake in an alley, and be less than he was tonight.
Omni looked up.
She stared out into the rain, all she could see was darkness and her own reflection in the window. Ada sensed her tension and switched overlays to the various security cameras around Omni’s Lab.
Omni chuckled, “It’s hardly a lab, Ada, I’m not some mad scientist.”
< I prefer to think of you as a wizard.>
The label changed to Omni’s Tower.
“You’ve been reading too much Tolkien again.”
< Sanderson…>
“Oh?”
<Helps me sleep.>
“Boring?”
< Blasphemy! The perimeter’s clear. One heartbeat outside the ring, but it’s gone now. >
Omni’s head snapped up. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
She scanned the darkness outside the window again.
< You were busy, and it’s gone. Probably just a bin-picker looking for something easy to steal…>
“Let me know next time.”
< Next time? >
“They always come back.”
Author Commentary
A behind the story discussion of what I was trying to do and how I went about making this piece of the story. Including any tools and techniques used, challenges and lessons. Such as distribution on other platforms, results and mistakes.
These Author Comments will give some insights into my Production process, which is in my mind the first step of our Ideal Reader’s Journey.
Why not start with Discovery? Simply because if we can’t get our hearts, heads, and process aligned we’ll never make the fiction our Ideal Reader craves.
My own stumbling blocks in the last thirteen years since I started sharing my stories publicly have been all about mindset and process. Either Resistance was the problem or a chaotic process that ignored energy or time constraints.
I feel for the first time that I’ve overcome a lot of those challenges, through some combination of luck, persistence and just growing up in the ways I needed.
The Voice in the Darkness
The Heart
This story means a lot to me because it deals with an issue I’ve had my entire career as a designer. Imposter syndrome, the feeling that you don’t belong or that you’ll be found out as a fraud and expelled. Be found not good enough and rejected.
Not to put to fine a point on it, but there’s a deep well of childhood issues I can draw from here. And at this stage in live I believe it’s the best way for me to reflect and process them and move forward.
The Head
This is the first story that I’ve been a Planster.
It’s a massive step for me and I think I’ve found the right balance. Provided I can tweak my morning writing and afternoon editing habits to progress more consistently I think I’m on to a winning formula for longer fiction.
I needed to find a balance that I would help me know my story worked, but didn’t completely rob the process of it’s Joy of Discovery, I think, we pansters are so addicted to.
The Process
It’s not rocket surgery, but then that’s the point. A simple process is more resilient and more flexible. The more I can cut, the less “design” there is, the better in my opinion.
What did I do?
Developed the characters in detail
Used the Persona template to bring this together.
Got to know their core flaws and how this related to the story
How the three characters formed a triangle, how the transformation of one was necessary for the transformation of another.
Used Libby Hawker’s Story Core.
Did a light Hero’s Journey outline
I created a simple Notion template that allowed me to outline briefly while making sure I hit the key points in Christopher Vogler’s version of the classic structure.
Too much outline and I kill the story.
Doubt about the “story working” usually kills my longer fiction and NaNoWriMo revision process.
I thought about my world
This is easy for me as it’s a dystopian version of my own city
But focusing on a worst case scenario, where our current problems just kept growing, corruption, poverty and crime mixed with future tech with uneven distribution. Inequality of access to utopia in a sense.
A central theme is that Utopia is for the rich or the first world.
I care most about the people in a story.
Then I wrote
I created plain text documents for each piece.
Copied in the outlines and scene aims.
Then locked myself into a draft until I added 200/300 words using Cold Turkey Writer.
I used the same locking out process for edits.
How did the story do?
First let me say that the story is done. So that was the goal, everything after is gravy.
Medium stats
296 claps from 8 people for " A Madman's Fear" (so not amazing, it missed my 10 Fan mark, but this is published in my tiny Escape Town publication so not real boost there.
A fairly decent showing for a story and pretty normal for an average story.
Comments
These are the comments for this episode.
Flooded with dark, well written atmosphere and great descriptions, this is a riveting opening.
The first indicates my additional edit rounds were worth it. Yay! 🎉
Excellent, Zane! I really enjoyed getting to know Murph and all his dark thoughts, can relate to a lot of that kind of nonsense going on in our heads. And the girl in the bin - Omni - sounds like she's being monitored by a mystery person or organization, but for what purpose? They always come back. Next time.
My time spent in character development was well received, but it does show I might need to clarify that Murph is in fact watching Omni. That’s helpful. 🤔
Oh noooooo, I have to wait until Thursday for the next installment! This feels like that when we still watched TV on TV ;)great part 1, and thankfully there are those other stories to explore ... discovering a new fictional universe is exciting!
Yes! Jackpot! This is exactly what I was hoping for proof of emotional engagement and that my bet that world building in public could find fans.
Next steps
I’ll get the next episode out, make some adjustments to the first and start sharing it on Wattpad and Royal Road making sure those connect to my Patreon.
Are you a panster or a plotter? Let me know in the comments, I’d love to learn about your own writing processes.
Also, did you find this helpful or interesting? I really enjoyed writing it out in detail and thinking through my steps and reflecting on the feedback received.
Until next, happy writing!
Zane