I’ve described before how I hear conversations in my head between various fictitious characters, and that’s where a lot of my story ideas come from. The other night, while listening to a friend’s band playing at their album release party, I suddenly heard one of my characters, the Mathemagician, explaining to someone:

“Zombies can be manifest in several different ways, though almost all of the spells or rituals that create them call upon the same principles of magic: Induced Cognition, the Principle of Correspondence, Induced Thaumaturgic Recapitulation–”

Then he was interrupted by his partner, Mier of the Tam Clan: “Oh, you’re over complicating it. All you need to make a zombie is: a corpse, a bell, a fresh egg, a pinch of tea, and most importantly, a drummer who can keep a beat.”

I’m not sure what caused that to pop into my head. It’s possible that a band member (or someone in the crowd near me) had made a comment about the drummer. Or not. Who knows how anyone’s subconscious works?

The exchange itself was interesting to me on several levels. First, it’s perfectly in character. The Mathemagician approaches magic from the perspective of rules and patterns. He’s big on futzing with theory, and he will tinker and fiddle with the theory until he needs to apply it. He’s an academic-style wizard. Meir is a shaman. He thinks in terms of analogy and intuition. He’s more concerned with getting things done than worrying too much about why things work.

Those two modes of thinking apply to all sorts of things, not just the world of fictional wizards. When I try to explain about the craft of writing, sometimes I feel as if I’m being the Mathemagician: what I’m explaining is true, but it might only be understood by people who already know it.

On the other hand, Mier’s style of explanation seems simpler and more practical. Yet one realizes, after a moment, that all he’s given is a list of ingredients. The recipe—instructions for how to use those things to create your very own unliving servant—has been left as an exercise for the reader.

Storytelling is more than a bit of a mysterious process. It isn’t a matter of following a simple recipe. But it’s more than understanding theory.

My third observation is, that I have no idea who they were explaining this to, nor do I know whether this scene belongs in any story which I’m currently working on that includes these characters. Yes, there is an evil necromancer and an army of undead in the novel I’m currently working on, but I’m not sure there is any reason, within the story, for these two characters to explain to someone else how zombies are made.

But I typed it up and saved it, just in case. You never know when it might come in handy.