A Cosmic Detective Story

Several days ago, I reminded you that as we hit the home stretch for Tales of the Vuduri, I won't have time to truly flesh out all the Big Ideas I had for the novel The Milk Run. Today I would like to explain why I decided to write this book as a cosmic detective story.

In all the previous books, I had clues and foreshadowing as that is standard practice in writing any kind of novel. It wasn't a problem since I knew about what was coming but this time I went full bore and wrote the entire outline before I started. Therefore I knew presenting each event when it occurred, even if it appeared out of context, would be mystifying to the reader but they would ultimately be able to put all the pieces together at the end.

Stated another way, to write a proper detective story, you have to write it backwards. This whole book was to be Aason's voyage of discovery and I had to know what he was going to discover. I knew he was going to find the lost Ark IV by accident. I knew he was going to meet a creature who thought he was a god. I knew Aason would meet plant people. And finally, I knew Aason would travel to Heaven (and Hell) to find his sister.

So each section of the book was divided up into its own sub-mysteries and as the answers became clear, they would only lead to more questions and more mysteries. The overriding mystery, of course, was who kidnapped Lupe and why. But the sub-mysteries were what did Lupe mean by "New to Lupe" and who were the K'val and why did they have an invisible planet? Also, another mystery was who was Molokai and did he really come from Heaven? I even wanted to explore the mystery of the meaning of life, the soul and the afterlife. You might not agree with my conclusions but I am hoping you at least enjoy the journey.

It was quite liberating and quite fun to do it this way but I don't think I'm going to do it again. Maybe someday I'll write a true detective mystery, not science fiction, and take my cues from how I approached The Milk Run. I think that would be fun.

But for right now, I have to buckle down, finish up this blog, finish up The Rome's Revolution Saga and get it on Netflix. Then maybe I'll look at other worlds to conquer.