Deadborn

Deadborn

Denver can be a haunted place, especially when you have an undead collector stalking you and a shambling horror is snatching kids. Being a monster fighter is a thankless job for El Walton: The world thinks he’s a social menace, an escaped mental patient is sleeping in his kitchen, and being a locksmith isn’t paying the bills. Things can’t get any worse...right? But the mental patient has a bossy kid sister whose on her way to turn El’s life upside down, and he’s pissed off a master vampire intent on making him dinner. He’s not sure which is worse.

How it was written

Most novels are written in traditional means, a writer alone in front of a keyboard laboring over their story. The method used for writing Deadborn however is uniquely collaborative. It was written using an IM client, where Meghan and I wrote the story simultaneously our work immediately apparent to each other. From a philosophical point of view there were three authors of this book, Meghan, myself, and a kind of derived author, the author who emerges as a result of two writer’s real-time interplay. This type of writing requires a very intimate understanding of each other’s style, method, and our ability to realistically evolve characters on the spot as we race toward story arcs that are often purposefully hidden from each other to force reaction, dynamic resolution, and evolution of the plot. Authors sometimes say, “My character surprised me, I didn’t know he would do that.” In the case of our work, this surprise is not only assured, it is essential to the process. Writing becomes a chess game, or intricate dance, creating an entirely new style of creative fiction that could only have been born out the 21st century’s obsession with digital social interactions.