Originally published at LonPrater.com. You can comment here or there.

Just finished The Touch by F. Paul Wilson. It’s hard to make up my mind how I feel about this novel.  I’m of course an unashamed fanboy of his Repairman Jack books, and there were of course too many moments of “oh cool!” to count in this excursion.  I knew going in to this one (being from the Adversary Cycle instead of the RJ arc) that it had been altered to bring the story into the modern era, so that he can all tie up into one tidy uber-cool Secret History of the World.  Now, I read the old versions of The Keep, The Tomb, and Reborn.

With Reborn, I noted the differences in time and place–the disconnects in crossover character age, etc.–but I was able to put them aside and enjoy the novel for its own sake.  I was able to envision on my own what this story happening in the modern day might have been like, but because the story in front of me hung together well with its own internal consistency, all that meta-stuff connecting this story to the rest of the books didn’t jangle any bells.  The Keep,happening in WWII, was pretty easy to go along with.  And I wasn’t one who felt compelled to go read the updated version of The Tomb, which took Repairman Jack of the 1980s and flashed him forward into the late ’90s.  And still, I’m not really sure how I feel about The Touch.

My main beef (and I totally see why these beefs remained in the story, respect Paul’s craft decisions, enjoyed the hell out of that ending, and so on) is the utter lack of cellphones or internet, or even any mention.  One character goes on about having to type his document into the mainframe and the idea of a Google Alert never really dawned on anyone.  Crucial plot points just wouldn’t have been allowed to go on uninterrupted in a world where spectacularly rich people had heard about the invention of cell phones.  At the same time as these nits are nagging at my suspension of disbelief, we find references to Harry Potter and a clear indication that the end of this book is happening at the same time as the end of Ground Zero.  On the whole, I think I might have enjoyed The Touch just a little better if I hadn’t been plagued by the plot inconsistencies necessitated by moving the story into the Internet Age.

Now it’s a given that I’m going to read the “heavily revised” Nightworld when it comes out.  How could I not?  It will include Jack and be the natural end of a series  (saga, really) I’ve been following for years now.  But Reprisal I’m not so sure about, and here are my questions for any other Repairman Jack/F. Paul Wilson fans out there:

Should I read the original Reprisal or the updated version? Why?  Not knowing anything about the plot beyond its intimate connection with the end of the RJ series, I’m on the fence.  Will I come away thinking the plot suffered too much from the update, or is this book not going to be easily hampered in that way?

Originally published at LonPrater.com. You can comment here or there.

(An occasional reminder to myself of the things I think I’ve figured out about the craft, hobby, business, joy and dismay of writing, being a writer, and having a head full of strange. Feel free to come along for the ride.)

This mini-article originally appeared on my old journalscape blog, and took some legwork to dig it up again for posterity.

For me, the biggest ways to bring depth to characters are contrast, contradiction, and conflict. They are exponentially more powerful methods than just coming up with a collection of likes/dislikes/habits/tics and having people talk about your character.

CONTRAST: Put them in situations which highlight how they contrast from their peers, their society, their own expectations of themselves, and sometimes even their story role/archetype.

CONTRADICTION: Once you think you know everything there is to know about a character, find something paradoxical about them. The dyed-in-the-wool miser who can’t resist the urge to splurge on wind-up toys from the ’50s, for example.

CONFLICT: Apart from the internal conflict of your protagonist (which should be an obvious enough depth-building technique) every character of significance should have an internal conflict, something about their life that they are not satisfied with, even if it’s one only you as the author know all the details about. What I mean here is that many of your secondary characters can be made to feel more “3D” with just a few light brushstrokes.

An example of this last:

In one of my favorite series of all time (F. Paul Wilson’s Repairman Jack!), Abe the overweight arms dealer knows he shouldn’t overindulge, but can’t help himself. Julio, another secondary character who runs a dive bar, can’t stand the yuppies who come in “slumming” so he lets all the plants die and leaves them there, hoping to drive that crowd away. (Has the opposite effect. Heh.) Even though they are only on stage in bits and pieces, both of these characters feel like real people because they have their own problems, which adds to the illusion that their life goes on when they aren’t helping Jack take care of his latest “fix-it” jobs.

Originally published at LonPrater.com. You can comment here or there.

That makes three that I know of–two women and one guy.  Shelley will be converted, once she gives in and reads the first, I’m sure.  ;)

Being a person with the dubious morals of your neighborhood pusher, I lent my neighbor F. Paul Wilson’s THE TOMB.

She finished it in a day and immediately put books 2-5 on order.  I’ll say it again:  If you aren’t reading Repairman Jack, you are missing out on some of the best paranormal thriller action going!

What about you?  Are you an F. Paul Wilson/Repairman Jack fan?

Is there a particular series or author you “push” on anyone who will listen?