What book does this first line come from?
"The sun did not shine, it was too wet to play, so we sat in the house all that cold, cold wet day"
Prior to writing my urban fantasy, Enter 5-D, which features Greco-Roman characters relocated into the modern world, I had been reading folklore and mythology. I had also read Joseph Campbell’s Power of Myth several times, as well as, watching his interviews on PBS.
By far, I’m not the first author to venture into this territory since historically humans have delved into archetypes and cautionary tales for as long as we conveyed stories. We also embraced metamorphic characters as this is compelling to our subconscious minds.
But how do we take a well-worn story with familiar characters and turn it into something new, splashy and compelling? For instance, I rewrote the story of Orpheus, the famous musician god and the loss of his bride to Hades. I didn’t stop there. I brought in archangels and E.T.s And then, I added my final ingredient, humor.
See an excerpt from my novel, below.
Enter 5-D
(In this scene, Pluto, the governor of Cascadia/Washington State contributes tension and suspense to my story).
In his office with charcoal walls, Pluto gathered his Plutocrats for a meeting. He shut the blinds and he lit candelabra with a torch.
“So far, the music stores and radio stations are all complying. However, I would like to pass laws against musicians selling real estate since many of them will try to sell their homes at this time. This would saturate the market and cause real estate to collapse.”
A Plutocrat, auburn hair and a swarthy complexion in his twenties spoke up.
“What will the musicians do to support themselves? Many of them won’t be able to find any other work? They only know how to perform, record, and teach music.”
Pluto banged his fist on his large iron and wood desk.
“That’s not my problem!” He turned to his right-hand man, forties, balding, with a crooked spine, “Who hired that apprentice? We can’t have any Plutocrats sympathizing with musicians.”
Instead of cowering and shuffling the way to the corner as other Plutocrats would do after chastisement by Pluto, the swarthy Plutocrat stood his ground.
“Perhaps, I’m too dense to understand your plans, but what do you have against personal music? After all, music calms the masses and prevents them from rioting. My mother told me when I was a child that music feeds the souls.”
Pluto glared at the Plutocrat and leaned into him with his face now inches away from the Plutocrat’s nose.
“If I were you, I would hold my tongue. Do you think I care about feeding souls? My job is to keep the economy going and we can’t keep the economy going if people are spacing out listening to music. It’s a distraction we can’t afford.”
Pluto spit in the face of his employee while the Plutocrat stared defiantly at the governor.
What happens in this scene?
I introduce Pluto’s nemesis, Marcus who transforms from a yes-man to an underground rebel. I also place the mythological character, Pluto in a modern yet gothic structure. Later, I introduce technology into the story, which doesn’t bode well for Pluto.
The language in my story is vernacular to Washington State and has a youthful tone. I don’t stop there, I have a large cast of characters and my story is multi-narrative.
My theme is the death of the patriarchal era and the Rise of the Divine Feminine.
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