Hard and Soft — An examination of DHN: Vol. 3's Job Nine
Buenos dias, hermanos.
Today is June 9th, marking the second anniversary of Demon Healer Naberius’ initial release. Being able to celebrate such a thing fills me with pride, especially since the me of two years ago never could have imagined that little tale would become the apple of my eye and a project that continues to this day. However, while I could go on and on about how much I love Nabby, Bosa, and all their antics, today’s article has a bit more of a functional purpose.
Just last week, I was given the privilege to release The Theatre of the Siege Princess, an unrelated spinoff that takes place in the same world as DHN, and I’m happy to say that production on Vol. 5 is well underway. So, with the future all tucked in, we’re going to be taking a look back at the past—specifically Job Nine of DHN: Vol. 3. Naturally, this will require some spoilers of Vol. 3, so please back out now if you’re planning to read the novel and would like a clean experience.
(Also, as an aside, I originally planned to herald today with a review of my first short story, a piece called An Indulgence. Unfortunately, between my recent bout with COVID and the efforts of working on Siege Princess and Vol. 5 simultaneously, I couldn’t muster the guts to read what I’m sure is an incredibly embarrassing part of my past. I apologize to anyone who would have liked to read that; I truly do wish to share it one day, but I’d like to wait until I’m in a better state before inflicting psychic damage on myself.)
The purpose of this article is twofold: I’d like to go over the theme of Job Nine, as well as the attempt to resonate that theme throughout the chapter, and discuss the techniques I use as a writer, including the ideology behind my methods. I’m sure the latter half won’t be as interesting to most folks, but I’m a know-it-all, and I can’t help but wish to share my thoughts. That said, I don’t plan to give an exhaustive deconstruction of Job Nine or my writing techniques, so I’ll keep things brief where possible.
Less directly, this article is also an excuse to talk about one of my favorite chapters from DHN. Percy and Aria are standout members of the supporting cast, and playing with the theme that went into their debut chapter was a delight. I’ve wanted to reflect on this small corner of the series for a while now, so I hope you’ll enjoy what I have to say.
Alright, that’s enough him-hawing. Let’s get into today’s topic, starting with the concept of Conceptualization.
Conceptualization
In Job Nine
For the purposes of this article, conceptualization refers to the initial brainstorming that occurs before any actual writing is done. It’s when and where you get your nascent ideas for characters, scenes, settings, mechanics, and virtually anything else that goes into your book. Accordingly, Job Nine started with me hearing the word “turgid” and imagining a character brilliantly nicknamed “Mr. Turgid”, who was fond of saying “turgid” and giving updates on his turgidity.
That was it. That was all I had in my notes for months.
I’m one of those authors who tends to jot down anything I think might be useful and/or funny, regardless of how shallow it might be initially. Some writers, like Hirohiko Araki of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, believe only good ideas that stick in your head are worth committing to paper, but I’m of the breed that likes to give everything a chance in case it can bloom into something more beautiful and complete.
So, while I decided Mr. Turgid was worth noting, that was all that came to me at first. I had no idea what he’d look like, what his job would be, how old he’d be, or even his name (names are actually among the last things I add to each character, more on that later). He was just Mr. Turgid, and I left him as such until the muse told me Mr. Turgid should be a DHN character who used magic to make his body/flesh harder as a defensive tactic. A few more notes were added to his spot in my idea document, and while it was still nothing of real depth or description, Mr. Turgid now had a place in a world, and his concept was becoming a seedbed for further storytelling.
Funny enough, he got his next bit of growth when I thought to include a gag where Nabby would have trouble remembering the differences between lamia, gorgons, basilisks, and cockatrices, as they’re all creatures with snakelike qualities and/or petrification abilities. That got me thinking about gorgons in particular, and since Mr. Turgid was big on getting hard, I thought he should have a gorgon partner who could petrify him. Again, that got added to his notes, and since I had a decent amount of material at that point, I felt confident that I could turn those two into full characters and decided to give them a cameo in Vol. 2’s Job Seven. The gorgon (nicknamed just “Gorgon”) was decided to be his shy love interest, though their relationship didn’t have any more depth at the time.
But with those two characters set, I was inspired to weave a theme throughout their chapter: things that are hard and soft.
The Theme
Hardness and softness would go on to define everything about that chapter, starting with how Mr. Turgid was basically just a gag about boners. You’ll pardon me if I don’t elaborate further—I doubt explaining the biological functions of a penis will make the joke funnier.
Beyond humor, the theme inspired qualitative aspects of the characters. Mr. Turgid’s flesh is soft, but he’s able to harden it with his magic, and while Gorgon can petrify things, and she herself is a soft, fragile person. I also had notes for a monster to appear that could counter Gorgon hardening Mr. Turgid with her petrification as a climactic conclusion, though I didn’t have anything concrete at that point.
Next, the theme decided the subplot of Mr. Turgid and Gorgon’s relationship. Love is something that is very soft, yet admitting it can be hard when you’re unsure of the other person’s feelings. As such, I wanted the two to have a cute, almost childish romance that would make it hard for them to disrupt it, though it would be a rather soft, affectionate relationship once they overcame that difficult hurdle.
Lastly, the dungeon Job Nine takes place in was influenced by this pervasive theme. I dislike bluntly pointing things out, but the dungeon was meant to inspire images of cooking pasta. The doorway to the dungeon was located in a fast-food spaghetti joint, and the dungeon itself is noted to be full of steam and savory smells. Specifically, the theme pertains to how noodles start off hard and get soft when boiled and, in a more subtle sense, how food is a great way to soften people up (both physically and emotionally). I suppose you could say it’s also reflected in how steam can help soften dry, hard skin, but that one is just coincidental.
This is what I meant by “thematic resonance”. I wrote Job Nine with the goal of having as much of the story as possible play with different interpretations of the same theme. From the characters themselves to the setting they find themselves in, hardness and softness were at the chapter’s core.
And now you might be wondering, “Why the fuck did you bother with all that?”
Justification
Mostly it’s just fun. I like taking odd concepts and seeing how far I can run with them, as I feel it leads to more interesting stories that can’t arise when you keep things orthodox. A perk of being a small, self-published author is that no one can tell me anything I wish to include in the book is too stupid for printing. That does mean I risk putting out horribly stupid ideas, but eh—them’s the breaks.
I feel that having a resonant theme can also be rewarding for attentive readers. Those who notice the recurring theme will begin to look for it in less obvious manners, though I try not to be exclusionary when I write in this style as I don’t want those who take things more at face value to be left out. The idea is to add a benefit for those who notice the gag, not punish those who miss it.
On a more technical level, having a theme like this helps fill the story’s details, like figuring out what to name your characters or what locales the story should touch on. For example, if your theme is winter, you might give a character “Lappland” as a surname, which might then inspire you to make them fatherly or generous or otherwise draw upon Santa Claus. In the case of Job Nine, delving further in the theme is what inspired the monsters that appeared in the dungeon, as well as some minor details about Mr. Turgid and Gorgon that we’ll touch on shortly.
In addition, giving a chapter a theme provides something unique for your main cast to play off of in long-form stories like DHN. You obviously shouldn’t get too wild (it would be incredibly strenuous on the overarching story if Job Nine took place on another planet, for example), but showcasing similar situations over and over again will unsurprisingly bore the shit out of your readers. Giving Nabby and Bosa a chance to react to a guy who keeps talking about his turgidity provided an experience that isn’t likely to replicated in any other chapter, not to mention how it also allowed them to offer their opinions on romance and confessing one’s feelings.
Conceptualization is a chaotic, wonderful thing that works best with a passive listener. I don’t recommend trying to force out your creative juices, so if you’re patient and bear an open mind, you might just find an idea—or even a theme—to kickstart your story.
Of course, you’ll need more than that to actually weave a yarn. So, let’s elaborate on Elaboration.
Elaboration
In Job Nine
I’m under the impression my method for elaboration is reversed compared to what most people do, as I practice something called “backwards script writing”. Yoko Taro provided a delightful GDC talk that explains it far better than I could, but as the video of that talk is now unavailable, I’ll attempt to summarize it as the art of writing your conclusion and working back from there. Instead of “I have these characters, what do they do?”, it’s “I want these characters to do this, how do I get there?”
As previously mentioned, I already planned for Job Nine to climax with Gorgon petrifying Mr. Turgid in their final battle against an as-of-yet unspecified monster, so I needed to figure out how to get those two to the point where that scene was viable. Pondering that inspired the idea of them handling a dungeon gig, as that would necessitate a boss monster, and imagining the visuals for the dungeon not only provided additional dressing for the chapter’s theme but also gave rise to the softener, the foe who would enable the key scene.
Once I had the setting that would lead to my desired conclusion, I then needed to consider the path there—beyond just the literal path, of course. Being in a dungeon would mean Nabby and Bosa would be spending plenty of time around Mr. Turgid and Gorgon, and since I had the subplot of the unnamed duo being in an unclear relationship, I was naturally encouraged to bring that out as a topic for dialogue. Stemming from that, I then got the idea for Bosa to push the two to confess their feelings, which would build Mr. Turgid and Gorgon’s characters and help establish who they are beyond just the chapter they appear in.
And we’ll stop with the play by play here. I could go over every step of the chapter and how it came to be, but this article is already looking to be hefty, and I think my examples here sufficiently illustrate how I formulate my plots. Your own writing process will likely differ, but my strategy is to conceive the major beats I want my story to hit, typically starting backwards from the conclusion, and and then fill the spaces in between those beats.
It’s sort of like a puzzle, where you start off with the biggest or most distinct pieces first and fill in the rest from there. Then again, it’s also a puzzle where you have to create the pieces and decide how they fit together, which is both a blessing and a curse.
In my opinion, you should start off by making too many pieces. You’ll ultimately end up rejecting most of them, but giving yourself a plethora of options is great while you’re still in the outlining or brainstorming phases. That said, don’t get too attached, as you may need to “kill your darlings”, as Stephen King puts it in On Writing. You might come up with the greatest joke ever known to man, yet you’ll find it’s horribly awkward and can’t actually fit into the story you imagined it for.
Names and Character Sheets
Elaboration is also important for what goes on behind the scenes. As mentioned, one of the last things I do for a character is name them, as I feel what the character does should always take precedence before their name or any other detail of their persona, so they’re typically written with nicknames throughout the outlining process. I’ve used “Mr. Turgid” and “Gorgon” so far to reflect who they were during their early stages, but using those in a completed manuscript would have been jarring, so I eventually conjured them up some proper names.
Mr. Turgid became Percy S. Peterson. “Percy S.” is a homonym for Perseus, the man who slew Medusa, which might seem macabre given his love interest, but I was going for the lighter notion that he slew her with love. “Peterson” was mostly meant to just give him a nice, alliterate name, though I suppose you could interpret it as how he is one my many children.
…Also, I wanted give Bosa a reason to nickname him “PP”. For obvious reasons.
Gorgon would be named Aria Dinc. “Aria” sounds beautiful while “Dinc” seems insipid, but her name as a whole is simply an anagram of “Cnidaria”, the phylum for sea medusas (jellyfish). There’s the obvious Medusa nod, but the reference is also meant to point to Aria’s talent for debilitating magic, akin to a jellyfish’s venom. Tangentially, Bosa nicknames her “Bangs” as a clear jab at how Aria wore her hair in front of her eyes and ensure that detail isn’t far out of the reader’s mind.
In addition, the art of elaboration is useful if you’re like me and enjoy writing up character sheets. My character sheets are based on something I think I saw Uchikoshi Kotaro show off, and they contain information regarding a character’s name, face, body, clothes, personality, background, and more—regardless of how much of that info will appear within the story. I also write these after the character’s actions in their story/novel have been outlined, so they’re written with the thought of “What sort of person would do this stuff?” instead of being independent from the character’s narrative.
A look into the mind of a neurotic fool.
Character sheets can also act as a reference for future appearances or if you had to change a scene and aren’t sure if it’s reflective of your original ideas. Having a repository of your characters’ key traits and backstories is likewise more convenient than having to skim through their appearances in your stories to find that information, and it can give you a place to store important details that may only become relevant in later tales.
That said, characters sheets should not be treated like bibles. It is important to alter things when needed, so accepting that your past self was not an immutable genius is a good lesson to learn. Before anything else, writing should be fun, so don’t soil your pleasure by shackling yourself to the relics of a bygone age.
That’s probably why plenty of writers don’t bother with character sheets, now that I think about it. But again, it’s my personal contrivance, and having those sheets helps with creating design documents for artists, so I’ll continue to float my boat on such waters.
That’s all I’ve got for elaboration. Now, let’s review Reviewing.
Reviewing
Redrafts
After your characters are fully developed and you’ve written out their story, it’s time for you to begin the redrafting process. My personal preference is to put every project aside for a month after finishing the initial manuscript so that I may ‘forget’ the details and return to it with as little bias as possible before redrafting. This is so I can edit with impunity, as I continue to operate without an editor.
After that, I aim for six or seven redrafts, but I admit that that is probably too many. I think only three or four is necessary—maybe less if you have an editor—to hit the Four Cs.
Create—Write the actual manuscript.
Complete—Make sure everything you want to include in the story is in there.
Cut—Remove everything extraneous or awkward.
Clean—Check for typos, bad formatting, or other errors.
Reviewing your work often shows you things you thought were brilliant don’t actually work. In my experience, this is usually because the context they were written under isn’t the same as when they’ll be read, primarily due to how writing is a much slower act than reading. When writing, you typically only have the past few pages in mind as you progress, but a reader might have the first half of the book still in their brain, so it’s important to review your work in larger chunks than how it was written. Similarly, the emotional state you were in while writing a scene might not have translated how you imagined, so be sure to check your dramatic monologues and comedic quips under varying lenses as well.
It's also advised that you review your work multiple times because making one change might cause a domino effect and necessitate changes elsewhere. For example, if you removed a descriptive paragraph because it felt unnecessary, be mindful if it held a specific detail that was referenced later on, as you’ll otherwise have deprived your readers of valuable information.
But above all, never be afraid to change or remove anything. Again, you’ll have to kill your darlings, and keeping a bad section in your manuscript will weigh everything down around it. You can always start by trying to reword or rearrange that awkwardness out of your desired section, so remember that the puzzle pieces of your story are made of gelatin, not concrete.
(Ironically, this article itself experienced a review process, and I realized that its fourth section was pointless during such. That section was titled “Polishing” and focused on word choice and paragraph structure, but after realizing how unconstructive the paragraph bit was, I rolled “Word Choice” into Reviewing and removed the rest.)
That said, you’ll also find ‘flaws’ that are too ingrained to remove. These can be actual flaws, like bad logic, but they may also simply be lines that you feel you can’t quite work into something satisfactory. I think every writer encounters this phenomenon at some point, and it’s fine to admit defeat and accept the line as it is. Fixating on any single part of your story is rarely productive (I’m one to talk; I’ve spent hours trying to finagle a single paragraph into perfection), so consider leaving it be and coming back to it later. You might come to appreciate that that line is in fact the best version of itself already.
In Job Nine
As an example of something that changed during the review process within the titular chapter, Percy originally reacted violently when Bosa asked how he’d feel about her dating Aria. Percy was going to slam his fist on a wall, go silent, then act like nothing happened to illustrate how he couldn’t stand the idea of someone else being Aria before Bosa gave him the push that’s still present in the final version.
Obviously, that outburst doesn’t particularly fit the affectionate goofball Percy really is. That scene felt forced even during the outline stage, but I couldn’t convince myself how badly it needed to change until I began the novel’s second draft. It then became painfully clear just how un-Percy that moment was, so I went back to the drawing board and eventually returned with the scene in the form that made it to publication.
Rather than get mad, Percy tries to play Bosa’s suggestion off with a joke, only to find himself at a mental dead-end as he realizes that he wouldn’t be happy to see someone else taking his place at Aria’s side. Not only does that fit his gentle nature more, but it fed into how he never considered the consequences of never acting on his feelings. Accordingly, that better prompted someone as pushy as Bosa to give him the encouragement he needed, wonderfully smoothing out that bump in the road of Job Nine.
Trust in the power of reviewing your work. It transforms writing from the act of one person tip-tapping away on their keyboard to a collaborative effort between you and your future selves. By cooperating and comparing with your other selves, you’ll have a better chance at bringing out the best and brightest in your stories.
Word Choice
Word choice can be an overlooked place for refinement. Writers and readers agree that simpler words are almost always better than their fancier brethren, following the wisdom, “Never use a five-dollar word where a ten-center will suffice.” Flexing your lexicon is fun, but bear in mind that it can be obnoxious or even offensive, as making readers top and look up what your obscure word means is a death sentence for your story’s pacing and vibe. You want readers to stay immersed, so use your common sense and stick to common language.
Of course, where there are rules, there are exceptions, and you should bust out the fancy words when the time is right. If you have an arrogant, posh, or stupid-but-wants-to-sound-smart character, make sure their dialogue reflects that. Likewise, there are moments where the fancy word is the only one that perfectly suits the scene or item you’re trying to describe. “The diaphanous beauty of her hair” works much better than “The delicate beauty…” or “The translucent beauty…”, despite how all three of those words are considered synonyms.
On that note, understanding the connotation behind words and their synonyms can mean the difference between a good scene and a fantastic one. While “excite”, “arouse”, and “work up” all mean “to elevate a level of energy”, the specific sense behind each one gives them all scenarios they’re better suited for. “Arouse” draws on sexual imagery a lot more, and “work up” is best when describing someone getting agitated into action.
Reversion
As stated, you should go over your work to find opportunities for improvement, but it’s good to be aware that you might have gotten something right the first time and made it worse after ‘fixing’ it. In that case, don’t hesitate to revert your changes, as you might have only made the alteration because you felt you needed to change something. It can be hard to keep track of your past versions of lines or ideas unless you save every individual draft, though—in my experience—your mind will hold onto the better versions whenever you’re not sure of the ‘upgrade’.
Overall, reviewing should be made with the reader at the foremost of your mind. Your goal is to give them an enjoyable experience—not just a story—so try to consider things from their viewpoint.
You are (assumedly) a reader as well, so you know what pleases your eyes.
In closing
A little devil that lives in my head has often asked me why I write unrespectable stories like Job Nine. The short answer is it makes me happy, but for the sake of seeming more poignant, I’ll say it’s due to my belief that ridiculous concepts and thoughtful concepts are not mutually exclusive. I know some people can’t take a story seriously if the characters crack dirty jokes or have bizarre quirks, and I think that’s fine as everyone has different tastes. However, I personally find it elevates a story when you can clearly see the writer was having a ball as they wrote it, so in the pursuit of creating stories that I would want to read, I endeavor to share the tales of the silly bastards that make me smile.
This is partially thanks to how I don’t find most ‘serious’ stories meaningful anymore. I enjoyed that sort of content when I was younger, but now it just feels bland, or like it was designed explicitly to seem deep. Too many stories misconstrue humorlessness and ‘maturity’ as quality, and they come off as these miserable pieces that seem to be trying to tell you you’re clever for appreciating them. I’m likely just jaded or overexposed, but I suppose I’d like to say that I wish fewer stories felt they needed to be highbrow to be art.
Vonnegut and McConnel describe how many writers seek depth through seriousness in a section of Pity the Reader titled “A dearth of death”, but I think the video game Disco Elysium does a finer job summarizing my opinion. I’m paraphrasing here (I couldn’t find the exact quote online), but upon inspecting a shelf in the bookstore, the main character’s inner thoughts will say, “Don’t pick the fun book—it’s stupid! Pick the dark one—it’s smart!”
I was able to devote a chapter to a man who says “turgid” every other line because I don’t think immature or even stupid stories can’t also be good. That said, Job Nine might have been utter trash if I had stopped with just that simple concept, but that is why I use the writing techniques I’ve described here. By giving Mr. Turgid his Gorgon partner and fleshing them out, we now have the silly love story of Percy and Aria, and it’s my hope that sharing that story and the techniques that went into it might help someone else move forward with a tale they’d otherwise consider unrespectable and unworthy of completion.
It should be noted that while I’ve focused on a rather odd chapter in Demon Healer Naberius’ legacy in this article, the driving force behind it is the same what goes into everything else I write. Within the same novel as Job Nine, we also get stories about a man trying to find a reason to go on in his undead existence, two friends realizing what they mean to one another, and a demon desperate to reclaim her honor from someone who regretted taking it from her. All four of those tales made me think, “This would be fun to read” at some point, so while they have varying levels of seriousness and humor, they were all born from my desire to present an enjoyable experience.
I simply can’t write a story if it’s not something I’d want to read. So, it’s quite fortunate that, in my experience, writing something you’d want to read is the first step to writing something someone else would want to read.
When I first started writing (before I had published anything), I wrote out of spite. To make a long story short, my father was not a good man, so I wrote stories with the intent of blowing the world away with my passion to make him regret what he’d done.
Obviously, that was very, very dumb and petty, but more importantly, it wasn’t sustainable. It might have gotten me started, but writing out of a desire to hurt someone will only bring you pain when it fails to get the results you desire. It will make you fret over reviews and sales numbers, and you’ll fixate on your failures rather than reflect on how you can improve and write the best possible experience for your readers.
It’s sad. I’ve seen other people fall down that pit, and it often makes them give up.
Thankfully, I realized my stupidity before I hit such a point, and after enough reflection, I started to write out of affection—for my characters, for myself, and for everyone who is willing to give my stories a chance. Doing so has brought me all the motivation I could ever need, and I never find myself dreading the thought of sitting down and working on DHN or any other piece because I’m doing it out of love. I can still not be in the mood to write and end up just playing video games instead (I’m still human, unfortunately), but I can proudly say I’ve never written any part of Demon Healer Naberius with a heart full of anger.
Writing has become an incredibly cathartic experience, and one that feels less like tapping on a keyboard or even a hobby and more like visiting cherished friends. I get excited to sit down and find out what Nabby and Bosa are going to do next—hell, I sometimes forget I’m their author and that it’s up to me to figure out where they’re going.
Love has a funny way of making you stupid, huh?
Regardless, if you ever find yourself struggling with motivation, please try to consider why you’re writing in the first place. Having an extrinsic goal is fine, but be aware that it might not be enough to feed your spirit long-term—especially if it’s as bitter an objective as I once had. It sounds selfish, but don’t be ashamed to write for yourself, as your own happiness is a bountiful fuel for the engine of your imagination.
Basically, keep a mirror nearby while you’re writing. If you can see yourself smiling while you’re at it, you’re on the right track.
That’s all for now. I think the last time I wrote anything discussing writing techniques or my own thoughts was over a year ago, back when I was dissecting A Fool’s Goddess, so this has been a delight. I know I’m probably coming across as a know-it-all jackass, but after putting out five novels, I can’t help but want to act like I know a damn thing about writing. But, on that note, be sure to disregard anything and everything I’ve said here that sounds wrong to you. Only you can decide your golden path.
Demon Healer Naberius: Volume Five is in the works and will hopefully be in everyone’s hands in a month or so. Now that I’m recovered from COVID, I’m firing on all cylinders, so you can believe I’ll do everything I can to bring that release date closer. It also doesn’t hurt that what comes after Vol. 5 is something I’ve been craving to write about for a while, but that’s another story for another article.
Take care, dear reader. I hope something I’ve put here will be of use to you, but regardless, I appreciate you stopping by. I wish you nothing but the best of luck.
Love,
Peter
