The Writing Process

How scientifically accurate have you attempted to be in your stories?

Dude, they're stories about superheroes. You expect scientific accuracy in stories about superheroes?

Snarky answer aside, there have been many situations throughout TASK FORCE where game system rules have been somewhat... orthogonal... to Real Life laws of Nature and Science. To resolve these conflicts, I usually ask myself "Am I currently in combat?"

Answer	What I Do
Yes	Use Hero System Combat Rules
No	Try to be as scientifically realistic/plausible as possible

Let's be realistic here: even the Mark I Starforce powered armor would have parbroiled both Tara Lemick and Bob Hawkins had I followed a strict interpretation of the Laws of Thermodynamics -- which wouldn't have made for much of a story or series. Other things which happened in universe, however (such as Bob's antisatellite rockets in "Reign of the Destroyer", diverting 1989 FC in "Extinction Event", or Mechanon's Humongous Mecha form in "Mechanon, Inc.") are much more dramatic and entertaining if we follow the established rules of physics in Real Life. So I guess that makes the actual answer to the question "It Depends."

Why do you sometimes refer to "Seasons" when you describe stories or story arcs?

When I started writing TASK FORCE in earnest, I separated stories into groups based roughly on when Starforce rebuilt his battlesuit. This not only worked out to story groups roughly 5 years in size, it also corresponded nicely to certain long-ranging story arcs within the stories. If you must know, the seasons break out roughly as follows:

Season	Year Range	Major story arcs
1	1982 - 1987	Zorran the Artificer (1985) Die Glocke (1986)
2	1988 - 1992	the Ladyhawk/Starforce romance arc
3	1992 - 1997	Bob Hawkins, Son of Doctor Destroyer
4	1998 - 2002	Rise of The Warlord
5	2002 - 2006	Shadow Destroyer The Mandragalore
6	2007 - 2012	Shadow Destroyer Time Travel arc teen Jason arc
7	2012 - 2017	The Destroyer Wars President Julie
8	2018/1985	Placeholder for the Champions Universe "Secret Crisis" event
9	2022 - 2150	Distant Epilogue

How do you keep track of what has happened when?

Because I write non-linearly, any attempt at resolving continuity snarls and loose ends would be doomed without the master timeline of the TASK FORCE Universe that I maintain.

Do you make changes to the master timeline?

Sometimes. For instance, the earliest versions of the timeline had Ladyhawk and Starforce's relationship upgrade taking place not at the end of 'The City That VIPER Built', but at the beginning of 'The Varanyi Civil War'. After putting both of them through the events in Dayton, delaying the upgrade for another two years in-universe made no sense anymore. It also led to me adding the story 'Expedition to Earth', which gave readers a glimpse into what their lives were like in a state between their previous belligerent sexual tension and the more intimate relationship we see between them in later years.

Seasons 5 and 6 are an even better demonstration of this in action. It was always going to begin with 'Black Ops' and end with 'Leap Day' -- but everything in between changed unexpectedly in early 2016 when I was ready to write those stories in earnest and discovered my order of certain events (such as those from 'Shadows Out of Darkness' and 'The Island of Shadow Destroyer') were seriously out of sync with both the 5th and 6th edition Champions Universe timelines. Reordering my existing plots to match left huge holes in 2003 and 2005, which plugged themselves in short order by incorporating Champions Universe events I had previously ignored (the South Indian War of 2003 became "Chantal's War", Menton's takeover of Central America and subsequent botched assassination became 'Jungles of Guamanga')

Even more recently, when I started on the "Lost Tales" upload queue, I originally had "Like a Jewel in the Heavens" taking place before "What's Yours is Negotiable". Switching their order in the Master Timeline (as well as moving the Kat el-Hassan story to just after "North Tower" and 9/11) not only made more dramatic sense, it served as the "ignition point" (more on that later) for both stories -- and created room for a story in spring of 2002 which allowed me to reintroduce VIPER as a presence in the DFW area and introduce some recurring characters who later figured in the stories of the teen Jason arc. Another hole in the timeline was created when I finally wrote both "Nine-Tenths of the Law" and "The Great Stronghold Breakout", which rapidly got plugged with the idea for "Crazy Like a Foxbat."

Wait. You have ADDED stories to the timeline after planning it?

Of course! Between the backstory of the baseline Champions Universe timeline and the gaps in the currently-written timeline, I have plenty of latitude for inserting stories should an idea come to me. In 2015 alone, the stories 'Patron of the Arts', 'Fields of Saguenay', 'Tethys Rising', 'International Treasure', 'A Week at Davos', and 'Mechanon Inc.' got added to the timeline.

Also, I have had high-concept story ideas that ended up working better as multiple stories. The arc consisting of 'Megaterak Raids Again' and 'The Secret of Arcadia' was originally conceived as a single story. Ditto 'The Destroyer Wars', 'International Treasure', and 'Force of Will'. 'The Manifestation' was originally planned as a B-story arc to 'Cliques' which got broken out into an independent story because it didn't really fit with the A-story.

How do you go about writing?

I put some smooth jazz on the MP3 player, pour two fingers (or so) of good single malt whiskey, start a simple text editor for writing the story, and have my browser running multiple tabs to Google Maps, Wikipedia, TV Tropes, and the HTML rendering of my current story for proofreading. If I'm writing a fight scene, add to all that my copy of Hero Designer, an XTerm window to run some custom-written attack and damage dice-rollers, and multiple PDF source/rulebooks.

What are your sources of inspiration?

It depends on the story. Before you ask, I have no idea how to predict when a top-level concept from the timeline will hit what I call the 'ignition point' and start becoming a story. Just in case you doubt me on this:

• The ignition point for 'What Happens in Vegas...' was the completely lunatic idea of the guys visiting a superhero-themed casino and hotel on the Strip
• "Like a Jewel in the Heavens" was a neat idea I had kicking around in one form or another since watching the SyFy miniseries Ascension. It never really took off as a story, however, until I reordered it in the Master Timeline to take place a month after "North Tower" and 9/11.
  • This story also benefitted from a secondary ignition point -- Ladyhawk's escape from both Kat el-Hassan and the Arcology pre-liftoff by leaping through a window half a kilometer above ground. This idea was too cool *not* to use, so most of writing the story then became an exercise in how to set that up.
• Upon re-reading the supplement "Book of the Empress" to get ideas for "V'Han Returns," I started thinking about what major life events for Bob or Julie that Istvatha V'Han could influence by using her time-travel powers, and then realized that Julie's rescue in "The City That VIPER Built" made an awesome point of departure for an alternate timeline. Chapter II of that story practically wrote itself after that.
• 'Leap Day' didn't hit its ignition point until listening to the piece 'This is Gallifrey' from the soundtrack to Doctor Who suddenly had me visualizing Starforce and Ladyhawk soaring over the Vale of Javangiri for the first time
• Allowing Judith Shapiro to live at the end of "Extinction Event" brought her and Bob's daughter Jocelyn into existence -- whose fresh viewpoint to the larger TASK FORCE universe in "The Destroyer Wars" was what fleshed it out as a story.
• A vision of Warlord quoting the poem 'Ozymandias' by Percy Bysshe Shelley as Doctor Destroyer's life-support equipment shuts down was the inspiration for the short story "Ozymandias". This vision was so powerful that I went from it to completed story in less than 24 hours.
• Just thinking the words "A Rose for Tara" one night brought that story into existence almost of their own volition.
• 'A Parting Glass' didn't even exist as a story until the morning I woke up with the first epilogue scene fully-formed in my head -- after which it practically wrote itself.

And sometimes, the ignition point affects several stories. Deciding that Destruga II would levitate in the air for 'The Island of Shadow Destroyer' brought the Mandragalore sub-arc into being across every story from "Black Ops" to it.

Do you have any idea what you're going to write before you sit down?

The answer depends on how high your overview is when you ask the question, and is sort of related to the previous question. Like I've said earlier, I have a master timeline detailing major stories and minor between-story events from 1982 to 2150. If we look specifically at 1990, for instance, we'll see that I have a story early that year where Mechanon attempts to divert an Apollo-group asteroid into an Earth impact but not too many more details past that level.

'Extinction Event' is an interesting tale in the process of how I go from "high-level concept" to "story" without the benefit of an 'ignition point' and went roughly as follows:

1. In reading something else entirely unrelated to TASK FORCE, I stumbled across the Wolf Prize in Physics. On further reading, I discovered that 50% of the winners of this prize go on to win the Nobel Prize in Physics the next year. I already had Bob scheduled to win the Nobel in 1991 (announcement in "Operation Phoenix", award ceremony in "Nobel Week"), so this meant that if this pattern held, he would have had to receive the Wolf Prize in May of 1990 -- solidly within the window of the Mechanon Asteroid story. Intrigued, I added this detail to my initial notes on 'Extinction Event'.
2. I then asked myself if there was any way an astronomer could contact Bob while he was in Israel to let him know about the asteroid that was on a collision course, and 5 minutes with Wikipedia revealed both the Astronomy Department of Tel Aviv University and their remote Wise Observatory out in the Negev Desert.
3. "Why would this astronomer contact Bob specifically", I asked myself next, and the story of the RIAS probe's failed intercept of 4581 Asclepius after its historical close approach to Earth the previous year practically wrote itself in response, in addition to giving Mechanon the tool he needed to change the asteroid's orbit.
4. My next question was "How do I sex up the story?" since neither astronomy nor orbital mechanics are particularly exciting to read about. It's four months before Bob and Julie are scheduled to resolve their Belligerent Sexual Tension; let's make the Israeli astronomer *female*. This allowed me to make her the roommate of an already-established character in my stories (Aida "Ha'Pele" Lerner), which had the added advantage of setting up their initial meeting at Ben-Gurion Airport in the first scene without resorting to authorial fiat.
5. The added layer of Tolkien geekery was thrown into Judith Shapiro's nascent character creation to round out her personality and make her even more desirable to Bob. It also set up Bob's heartbreaking quote from Canto V of Tolkien's Lay of Leithian as Aida drives off with Judith at the very end.
6. Then, I couldn't help but to notice that this story took place square in the middle of the Champions Universe's Destroyer-Mechanon War. How could I have Mechanon attempt to smack an asteroid into Earth without Dr. Destroyer getting involved?
7. Judith's ultimate fate at the end of the story was my final sticking point before I could write; I couldn't think of a way for Bob and Judith to break up without killing Judith off. I bounced that problem off of my daughter Raychel one morning while driving her to community college, and she suggested having her freak out over Bob being Starforce and initiating their break-up. With that, the final piece of the story was in place.

With the plot written, now comes the story. For a specific scene, I will have a definite start, a definite end, a definite idea of what's supposed to happen in it, or some combination of those three. Beyond that, I wing it. I have a good enough handle on my characters to know how they would respond in most situations into which I throw them. I will sparingly use INT rolls, PER rolls, or skill rolls when I am not certain WHEN something should be thought of or noticed.

Have your characters ever done anything stupid in a story that they shouldn't have?

The closest I have come to embracing an Idiot Ball in a story (which I will admit to) is Ranger in '72 Hours', who SHOULD have had Starforce lure Destroyer's own anti-aircraft missiles into his interdiction field generator *several* *hours* before he thought of it in-story.

How much research do you put into your stories?

A surprising bit, actually. Part of the reason "Greatest Generation" was such a fun story to write was due to the sheer amount of it I had to do on the historical Der Riese site, the geography and topography of the land which it occupied, all the urban legends surrounding Die Glocke in Real Life, RAF Woodbridge, and Julie's song set for the USO show (not to mention the topography around the Trinity National Historic Site and Rendlesham Forest/Kecksburg UFO incidents for "The Paradox of Doctor Destroyer" immediately preceding it).

Additionally, I wasn't afraid to reach out to people who had specific expertise which I lacked and could not otherwise find on the Internet. My daughter Raychel, specifically, was taking English Lit classes at the time I was starting to write in earnest -- a bigger help than you might think when both of your degrees are in Physics. There was also a detailed legal consult which went into the writing of "United States v. Hawkins" (which went uncredited by request), and my ex-wife even provided both valuable advice and her online psychology textbooks when I explained what I wanted to do with the story "The Jewel of Awad."

Do you game out your battles?

If I don't have an overriding story need for something specific to happen, yes. I will let the dice rolls influence the story, only overriding them if they do something extremely non-canonical (such as the one-shot TKO Spiritual Warrior originally rolled on Takofanes outside of Danville in the climax of 'Heart of Darkness.' You thought I was kidding when I parenthetically added I had to fudge rolls to keep the lich alive...). If someone is rolling really crappy, however, I will happily lampshade it (Lady Blue vs. Dark Seraph in 'Crowns of Krim' is the classic example of this. She couldn't hit the floor with her forcebeams if she *tried*, so after the second missed attack roll I had her complain about it in the middle of the battle).

Sometimes, my fudging also extends to timing during combat. The best case of this is the battle between Ladyhawk and Fiacho during "A Week at Davos". When I originally choreographed it, Fiacho was effectively inside Ladyhawk's OODA loop until the battle's end (in spite of spotting her 2 points of SPD) by forcing her to repeatedly abort her next phase to a defensive option. Several of her aborts happened after half-move/attack actions, which a subsequent re-reading of Hero System combat rules said was illegal. When I re-choreographed the battle to mesh up with combat rules, I was forced to fiddle with both their actions during turn 2 to get the desired ending.

There are also times when the character's design dictates either what happens in the battle or choice of target. In the battle on the Pyramid of the Sun in "Leap Day", for instance, the ONLY action which took place that was not dictated by powers or disadvantages was Ladyhawk's initial choice of target. After that, I was constrained by everyone else's character sheets, in terms of triggered powers (The Edomite), shared history (Shadow Destroyer and Doctor Destroyer), or rolls to be enraged (Starforce).

Why do your battles seem so one-sided?

It's not intentional on my part, I assure you. I've even significantly upgraded villains in both 5th and 6th edition supplements to keep up with the heroes.

I will admit to gaming out three battles which did not go anywhere close to how I had originally planned them, which might be contributing to the perception that my heroes are overpowered:

• Part One of the battle between TASK FORCE and GENOCIDE in "The Lady in the Lake" was intended to be a far more desperate affair for TASK FORCE. Unfortunately, I was using the GENOCIDE agents as designed in the 4th Edition supplement "The Mutant Files." I never realized that GENOCIDE Pawns in that supplement only had a PRE of 10 until Starforce one-shotted his Rook agent and immediately did what you're supposed to do after doing that: throw a Presence Attack on the remaining agents. Faced with stopping writing for two hours to redesign *all* of GENOCIDE's agents to come close to my originally-intended battle choreography or just going with the designs I had been given and seeing what happens, I eventually decided on the latter approach. Who the HELL designs agents in a Superheroic campaign with a Presence score of only 10?!?
• I originally designed Kat el-Hassan to go toe-to-toe with Julie in a fair fight. When it came time for their final fight in "The Jewel of Awad," though, I stared at their character sheets for a long moment before slapping myself in the forehead and going "What am I THINKING? Julie's a ninja, and she of all people isn't going to fight fair!" And that's why their battle went the way I wrote it...
• Starforce and Ladyhawk's fight vs. Viperia in "International Treasure" was supposed to go FAR longer than two phases, and I had even done a first cut at it which had. I reviewed that first-draft battle a day later and came to the following two conclusions:
  1. Ladyhawk should have started the battle with at least one energy shuriken, since she already knew from the previous scene that was going to be her most effective attack against Viperia,
  2. Viperia, given the damage she would then start taking from Ladyhawk, would target Ladyhawk more aggressively in the battle's beginning.
  Upon re-choreographing the battle as indicated above, Ladyhawk made her Danger Sense roll for Viperia's intended Move-Through on her in Segment 3 (which if it had landed probably would have KO'ed her) and Starforce made his INT roll for correctly interpreting why Ladyhawk was aborting to an Artful Dodge. Starforce and Viperia's mutual Move-Through on each other in Segment 3 was the result of all those rolls -- which after I got over my initial disbelief on the sheer amount of damage dice they each were going to take I realized was far more entertaining.

Why do you write in a pseudo-script format?

It's a very dialog-centric mode -- and there's a lot of dialog in these stories. Plus, it's easily-convertible to HTML for reading/proofing. Dialog between characters was something that I felt I needed to work on when I started writing these stories. There are other advantages to pseudo-script, namely:

• I can bang a story out quickly whenever the Muse pays me a visit
• I can convert them to HTML rapidly for posting to Archive of Our Own (thank you, Perl...)
• I can include roll results in the story as I game out battles
• I can provide links to various musical cues to enhance the reading experience
• The reader can see the story as originally written years ago
• The narrator can snark at what the characters are saying, thinking, or doing in Real Time

Which story did you enjoy writing the most?

'Greatest Generation', with Honorable Mention to 'What Happens in Vegas...'

Which story did you enjoy writing the least?

'The City That VIPER Built,' because I put Julie into a deathtrap and she died (spoiler alert: she gets better). Also, the last scene where Bob and Julie finally resolve their belligerent sexual tension toward each other went through several dozen rewrites until I finally got something that was true to both characters and realistic given what they had just been through.

Which character(s) did you enjoy writing the most?

Starforce and Ladyhawk, hands down. In Seasons One and Two, I'd write their scenes before everyone else's. Honorable Mention would go to Lady Blue -- NO ONE else in the TASK FORCE universe could pull off her scene with Ranger in "Black Ops" with the same style and panache, just to list one example.

Of the Hawkins children, the one I enjoyed writing the most would have to be Jillian. Yes, there does seem to be a pattern of me liking to write snarky characters...

Which character(s) did you enjoy writing the least?

Judith Shapiro, because by the time I had started writing 'Extinction Event' I was so used to writing strong, independent women that I had trouble putting myself into her character. Francois Rochemont would be an Honorable Mention, because there's nothing much to him except his monomania when it comes to Doctor Destroyer and you can only humiliate a Lawful Stupid character so many times before it gets old.

Which character(s) do you regret not developing more?

Spiritual Warrior and Mr. Bassman, with Honorable Mention to Powerfist from '72 Hours'.

Spiritual Warrior also had an interesting foe subtext with James Hailey which never got explored to the depths which it should have. I've had a couple of people tell me that it was fascinating his primary foe was not a demon or someone who controlled them or a practicioner of black magic -- it was a con-artist raised in a fake revival.

Did you leave any hooks for continuing stories?

I left five, mostly toward the latter end of the series run, which are as follows:

• Suburban Lion and his "Mission Control" person Rajitha Gune ("VIPER Reborn", "Castle Doctrine")
• The Texas Guard (Biomaster, Nathan, Laura, Jackie, et al), from 2013 on ("Force of Will", "Malva Awakens")
• The Eastside Homeowner's Association of Dallas' Pleasant Grove neighborhood, as featured in "Street Level"
• TASK FORCE as a galaxy-spanning superhero team (Ranger, Sage, Thelambra, a new Starforce, and other alien superheroes) between 2092 and 2150
• A takeoff on "DC's Legends of Tomorrow" using the Temporal League setting detailed in issue 26 of Digital Hero, featuring Powerfist, Mr. Bassman, Copycat, Ghostbane, and Lady Blue all lifted from the flow of time at the historical moment of their deaths and adventuring across time to preserve history.