STRETCHING KELLY

BONUS CONTENT

Minor spoilers ahead. It’s better to come here once you’ve finished reading the novel.

WRITING STRETCHING KELLY

Stretching Kelly is my debut novel. It started as a thought experiment about a popular comic book superhero. I pondered how a real alien with those properties should realistically fare in this world. After I wandered around in his experience a few weeks, I decided that in reality, his life would be...weird. At least, it would appear weird from our perspective – far from the convenient and clean solutions in the comics. This evolved over fifteen years, giving us the character Kelly called The Unnamed. Fifteen years! That means there are many pieces to this story that make it deeper and more fascinating than what I could fit into this first book. I found good room for some of that in the zeroth chapter (the Exordium), and chapters 13 and 17, and a better deal of this in chapters 40 and 45.

The original Stretching Kelly was not meant to be a protagonist, and not an antagonist, either. This first conception, when the whole story was anchoring in my heart, was quite dark and undefined. She was simply a bullied little kid who developed a supernatural power that she would wield against the world for all the pain she suffered (hence the last few lines in the blurb). At the same time, the Unnamed was also coming into focus, and their paths crossed.

To understand him and realize his part in our world, I considered the developmental discontinuity between advanced species (the “Council” and us humans), and used the analog between modern and ancient civilizations. I also looked at the world of animals as a human resource. He fitted the antagonist role, but only from where we are standing.

Him as one of the most powerful beings in the universe being checked by a little girl became an intriguing idea to me. I held off mentally developing their confrontation in the end, but only so I could enjoy it as I went along with them both.

If this book is well-received, then I mean to summon the Council soon to explain their history, nature, and purpose. Kelly may also return if she is willing.

I had so much fun (and frustration) writing Stretching Kelly. This book was the most challenging project of my life, and I’m excited to bring it to you at last.

WHAT HAPPENED TO TOBY

What happened to him? All I will say is that we need not grieve. Toby’s story is far from over, and far more amazing.

A FUNNY LITTLE MISTAKE

In the opening pages, during the siege of Shumen Fortress, we follow Svidna, who had just given birth that same day when the Byzantines broke through. She was dropped off the side of a wall about thirty feet high. Svidna would normally have an open placental wound, a weakened abdominal wall, and weakened pelvic floor at minimum. Having her unravel out of the cloth wrapping wouldn’t do anything to slow her fall, which I only later learned after the manuscript was finished.

I also hadn’t considered how much fabric Svidna would’ve needed to be wrapped up in that length. But surprisingly, I also later learned that such bolt length was routinely used in those times, sometimes to more than twenty-five feet. I accidentally did this right.

Landing in the Jerusalem thorn is about the only reason she could survive at all. But this being ancient Bulgaria, there’s no realistic way for her to be up and running on her feet so soon. We’ll pretend the Unnamed fixed her up.

INSIDE DETAILS & COMMENTARY

  • The opening chapter, the “Exordium,” originally was thought out to have the Unnamed simply steal cargo from ancient soldiers. A pair of soldiers would’ve followed him until they reached the side of a high cliff, where they’d see their supplies inexplicably dragged up the cliff face.

  • I turned to Osprey Books for much of my research on the Battle of Pliska. I find their books to be great for understanding what life felt like at a phenomenological level.

  • The blurb mentions a man who stole Kelly’s meal, and then has his fingers broken when Kelly recites a poem. This event was never created in the story, but was crafted this way to inform readers that there are some stories in Stretching Kelly’s life tucked between chapters. We can’t be with her every step of the way, but at least we get a good idea of what she’s about.

  • I had a chapter about Michael and Shelly, written from Shelly’s perspective, that brought us along with them on their last drive. I concluded it with Shelly looking out her window and seeing the radiator grill of a big rig crashing into their car. It was intended as the first chapter of the book and started like this:

    Chapter One

    “Change. Change. Change.”
    Green light.
    “You’re pretty good at that,” Michael said. “Have you thought about doing it professionally?
    “Um, yeah. But competition is pretty stiff,” Shelly said.
    “Well, I think our university offers a course in traffic influence – traffic light influence.”
    “Really? I’ll have to look into that.”

The setting, style, and tone are here established. The rest of the chapter covers Michael’s marriage proposal to Shelly, and their drive to both parents’ houses for announcement. I opted to remove it for length and starting the story too dark, and I no longer have any version of it.

  • My own parents and their home were the inspiration for the characters Paddy and Gerard. No other characters were inspired by any real persons.

  • The ambiguous location of Big Rattalton was intended to avoid sticking either state of Idaho and Washington with a crummy setting. It worked out better than I had hoped.

  • My mother came up with a minor plot detail, which I made good use of. She added a level of a woman’s realism that was never in my gut.

  • Chapter 29 is one of my favorite chapters. I figured out how to shift the diction to Toby’s level while keeping my own cognitive signature. I love the first and last sentences of this chapter. Then we get to chapter 32 (where we see the dog Zoey’s backstory), and this is one of my least-liked chapters because I explored similar diction, which feels like a cookie-cutter attempt. But I needed the chapter for a later scene, so I left it in.

  • The very end of Part II was thought up on the spot, and it still sends shivers up my spine for what and how it does.

  • Chapter 35, I think, was the most fun to write. Here, I crafted the Unnamed’s introduction to Kelly, and I could never do better again.

  • The conclusion of chapter 37 is one of my favorite chapter endings. It carries so much momentum into later chapters so eloquently, I doubt I could ever match it again.

  • Chapter 42 shares the resonance of Kelly wanting to hear Toby’s sound, just as he wanted to hear hers again back in chapter 29. I used this tactic intentionally a few other times as part of the broader plan.

  • Chapter 43 is also a favorite for doing so much with so little.

  • Chapter 44 has one of my favorite lines: Kelly looked up at Tobiah gliding away, saw him fearless in space, courteous to his companions, fostering his grace out of the simplicity of orbit.

  • The argument between Kelly and the Unnamed in chapter 46 was the hardest of all to write. There, we see Kelly using his own point against him when she says, “And humans need to live” – a reference to chapter 35, when he talks about the cricket. This came to me quickly, and I love how it turned out.

  • The little creature we see in chapter 13 and the hominid in 17 are the Unnamed. Whom Gutta saw in the cave was...someone else.

MAKING THE COVER

The trees on the cover were photographed from many places in my county, all at an angle of roughly 30 degrees. Stripping off the leaves in software, then turning into objects to import into other software, I nearly lost my mind. I did learn about channels and other filters that helped clear the bright blue backgrounds. The end result has these trees angled to 45 degrees, which gives a surprisingly good effect for what I needed them to do.

The volcano was hand-rendered in software, and I am particularly pleased with the ash form. Where we see the trees and volcano, there is actually a high hill with big green trees. The fenced-off section was once a mixed-use building, which was destroyed in an arson fire.

The day of the photo shoot was very bright, so I turned to AI to adjust the weather.

By the way, the Unnamed makes an appearance there. See if you can find him. That and the dandelion are really the only hidden details, so don’t waste time looking for more. (Well, there is one more thing, and it’s visible enough. But I doubt anyone will ever connect that dot.)

I did have a photo intended for the back, which is a hand holding the pair of crystal owls (the same model from the cover). But I couldn’t get any software to cooperate in rendering text correctly over the photo, so this was begrudgingly abandoned.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ASSISTANCE

I used an LLM to hunt down typos and advise me on historical information, such as the Battle of Pliska. But I will never use AI again for anything more than typo-spotting (if that, even). The results beyond that were aggravating for all the mistakes they gave me, including basic grammar advice. I’m astonished at how poorly they performed in my case, and more so at how many people are using them for generative content. It did well in helping change the weather on my cover, I concede that. And it did give good input on changing my title design to something more readable as thumbnails. But that’s the best I’ve seen come of them.

DEDICATION TO MY PARENTS

Mom: I’m sorry I didn’t finish the book in time for you. I miss you.
Dad: I hope you liked the arrowheads I gave you.