Writing Soulbond (Pt. 2)

(Highlight the invisible text to read spoiler trivia.)

One of my most favorite music videos is the video for Elektrobank by The Chemical Brothers. It's one action scene played out and synchronized to one song. It's not just action to music though. There is a story surrounding the video, a context. This girl in the video has put in a lot of training to get to this point. There's obviously a heated rivalry between her and one of the other top competitors. The girl's mom shows up late to her routine. The viewer never sees the development or the cause behind any of these plot points. It's like we're missing the rest of the story. It's like we're watching the climactic scene taken directly out of a feelgood sports movie. This is the closest emulation of what the original Soulbond movie idea was, that I know of. The fight scenes I spoke of. They would look just like this.

I've already explained that I've come to terms with not being able to do a movie. But as a holdover from the original idea, the chapter titles are all appropriately picked song titles; sort of a book soundtrack. 

The song ‘Replica’ by Fear Factory is the title of the chapter where Andy fights a replica in a factory.

Coming up with a good character name is one of the most difficult things for me to accomplish. If left to my own devices with no help, I tend to come up with bland names like Andy or Travis. In the past I've pulled names from the phone book and famous baseball players. When I started Soulbond I immediately needed help again. I decided I'd go with a theme and I ended up sticking with it the whole way through. All female characters' first names are lifted from video games, specifically horror video games. Why? Because. The only exceptions are Trish and Misty whos' names come from outside the horror genre.

The character Laura Marks is inspired by two pain in the ass instructors I had in art school. One instructor in particular was so impossible that I was convinced that there was no way that you could show her anything you did and leave a generally good impression. She could critique the Garden of Eden. She'd give it a C+.

In the first draft of the book there were no nanobots, murder/AID side story or cannibalism. The character Trish only existed in mention.

The four codename tarot cards drawn in the debriefing all accurately predict their respective characters' immediate futures.

A dullahan is a type of ghost forced to carry its severed head. It is also the last name of the Quantech CEO who was shot in the head.

One of the biometrics specialists at the AID is named Michael as a self reference from several bad short stories I wrote in high school. They were all completely different in genre but somehow shared a recurring character of the same name. (I told you how hard it is for me to come up with good names.)

There are several movie quotes and references throughout the book, many of which come through Andy. The quote written in gold in Andy’s tomb is from Bladerunner.

In the movie Equilibrium, Christian Bale shoots his partner in the head through a book of Yeats poetry. This is referenced in the first chapter of the book.

VEO, though never explained in the book, stands for Violent Ether Outflux.