I Have Stories To Tell! Episode the 16th

Just outside downtown Hartford CT

Hi-ho and welcome to the skewered literary world of G.B. Miller, where the cityscape that you see is simply a pipe dream for liberal/progress politicians to perpetually hose their constituents with and the constituents are simply too moronically stupid to realize that 1984 is alive and well.

In last week's post, I gave everyone an example on how I used the concepts of Heaven, Hell and Purgatory (aka Limbo) as a partial setting for a novella. For today's post, I will give you a prime example of going hog wild with those concepts, as well as a possible writing tip/discovery.

Back in the land of 2017 when I decided to write my trilogy {the super condensed info dump can be found here} I needed a proper setting/world to have my story take place in. Long story made into a wickedly short sentence, I remembered a particular one-off scene in a previous slushie that I could expand and elaborate on.

Once I decided to devote some brain cells to it, I was surprisingly able to create a entire mini-world for the first book of my trilogy.

Books by G.B. Miller

So using a can opener to unleash the whimsy contained within, I decided that since the only things that I was able to salvage from my slushie novel (ultimately this slushie, which was original designed to be prequel to my chapbook, gave birth to two complete novels) was a girl and a bar. Out of those two particular plot items, I fashioned a complete trilogy

In book one, since I was using Purgatory as my main setting and featuring both plot items, I needed something that would fit seamlessly with the main world. That something turned out to be the old west of the late 19th century, and ultimately we went hog wild with this.

1} We created a noirish/gothic/spaghetti style western town. And when I say spaghetti western, I mean the full complete deluxe version: empty deserted streets, dilapidated buildings, tumbleweed, you name it, it was there.

2} We upgraded the saloon into something positively hideous, which in this case was making it a portal to the land of sulfur and suffering.

3} We took some of the traditional trappings of Hell and turned it sideways. We modernized it just a shade and upped both the horror and psychological factor to the overall journey/rescue.

4} While roughly 95% of the book took place in this warped mini-world, we did add some elements of both Heaven and Hell to the overall mix, the most prominent being a somewhat modern version of the Holy Trinity (apologies to those who might be offended by this). I can tell you with 100% certainty that I did nothing to debase them in any way, shape or form. I may sometimes go off on weird tangents with my writing, I try my very best to show whatever concept I may happen to use, complete respect.

One other thing that I should point out, since I've often been accused of being a neanderthal with certain viewpoints, is that I do believe in diversity. Not the kind of diversity that people bludgeon other people with, but common sense everyday diversity. Like, having a woman as a minister. This person pops up at the end of the story and at the beginning of book #2. I actually I don't have a problem with this, as I remember from decades gone by of having a youth minister who was a woman.

Thus ends our two part series on how I use religion and religious concepts in my writings. Have a spiffy week and I'll catch up with everyone next week with a super riveting post about writing blurbs.

{c} 2019 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved