Writing
Gods and Chaos
Chaos Magic, Love Runes, and Personal Demons were originally intended as
a single book. About five chapters into writing the story, I realized there
was far too much story for one book. Lucky for me, it split easily into
three parts of about equal lengths, so I ended up with a trilogy.
By a very long, twisty route, Sam and Hector came from the first story I
wrote for a Torquere anthology, Gods and Monsters. The tale I told was from
a little-known Greek folk story about the monster Sybaris. In the original
story, a Greek hero sees a beautiful youth being led up a mountain to the
mouth of a cave. Inside the cave is the fearsome snake/vampire/creature
Sybaris who demands an annual sacrifice of the town’s most perfect youth.
The hero is so taken by the youth’s virtue (yeah, right - his virtue) that
the hero slays Sybaris and saves the lad.
At the time I wrote that story I was looking into writing Yaoi scripts.
I played around with the idea of the further adventures of the hero and
the hottie youth as a graphic novel. Since the hero was basically a mercenary,
I could see them traveling throughout ancient Greece (never mind that the town Sybaris is actually in Italy). As I worked on the characters, I read
a bit of the Iliad and other historical texts. One of the things that caught
my attention was how soldiers would make sacrifices to their gods before
going into battle as a sort of insurance. Since there were already mythical beasts in the story, why not Gods too? And I wanted them to be like they are
in the Iliad, like humans with their own problems and personalities,
not just some nebulous idea of a god who may or may not be real .
After a lot of work, I decided that writing a script for a graphic novel
was beyond me. So I set it aside. Or at least I tried to, but the guys kept
popping up in my brain and crowding out other stories. I’d also
decided that I didn’t want to do all the research required to write a
historical. The obvious fix for that was to put the story in a contemporary
setting. By then, the Gods were already important to the plot, so I kept
them, but decided traditional Greek Gods made no sense in a contemporary
setting .
Living in Los Angeles, I often joked about needing to make a sacrifice to
the Goddess of Traffic, so Angelena was my first modern deity. I wanted to
get away from the model of Gods that were immortal, all powerful, singular
in nature (only good), and remote from humans. In some Buddhists texts, godhood was thought of as just one of the six possible aspects of incarnation, and gods didn’t live forever. That worked in the world I was creating.
While it may seem that way, Sam doesn’t make people into gods. Some gods
even believe that he gave them their power, which only goes to prove that
these gods aren’t all-knowing .
Sam is descended from a long line of powerful witches, he can see
ghosts, and of course, he’s a god too. With his extra sensitivity to the
spiritual world, he’s attuned to the god nature inside everyone. When he
meets someone who is the best candidate to assume the powers and duties of
a specific god spirit, he acts as a conduit for bringing the god spirit and
the person together. Being Sam, he absolutely refuses to believe that he has
anything to do with it. He’s not the only person with that ability, and the
god spirits can find their own hosts, but he’s like a natural born talent
scout. (I suspect that god spirits find it easier to follow him around
than to do their own search.)
In Sybaris, the character who eventually became Sam started off as a spoiled
brat who knew he was the hottest thing this side of Ganymede. Obviously, he
changed a lot. Being submissive, he’s uncomfortable with the power his looks
give him over men.
Hector made a more gradual transition. The last thing I wanted was the stereotypical perfect Master, because they’re boring. With all the Gods
and ghosts and magic flying around this story, I wanted the characters to be
as real as possible. The Greeks were great storytellers, and they knew how
dull perfection could be, so their heroes tended to have fatal flaws. I
think the moral there was that no matter how physically strong you were,
you could be defeated through your mind. What brings down most of the
legendary Greek heroes is jealousy. It even affects their Gods. (Hell, it
was the reason for the Trojan War) Hector’s flaw might not be fatal, but it
comes close to killing his relationship with Sam.
Now that Personal Demons is on its way to the editor, I have mixed feelings
about saying goodbye to Hector and Sam. On one hand, they’re finally out of
my brain and I can write other stories. On the other hand, I’ve grown fond
of them over the past couple years. Sam drives me nuts when he acts like a
ditz, because I know he isn’t stupid. Hector can be such an ass sometimes.
But together, they made magic.
© 2006 Jay Lygon. Not to be used without permission.
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