May 6, 1998
I started "Dreams" towards the end of April 1998. I had just finished
reading all of the stories on the Callisto's Tales web pages (which
took me about a month). I was (and as of the time of writing this,
still am) a bit obsessed with Callisto and Ms Leick. I was also
impressed with the camaraderie on the Hudson Leick Mailing List (even
though this was right after a bunch of core members left due to heavy
spamming on the list as well as list member conflicts). I wanted to be
part of that community and thought a story would be a good way to start.
My favorite Callisto stories are ones where she is partially to fully
reformed. I like to read about her being more on the side of good (or
even neutrality) than evil. Just to give you a basis as to what
influences me, my three favorite Callisto stories are: "Callisto's Way"
by Brant Forseng, "Times" by Brant Forseng (he's a talented writer),
and the "Callisto: Queen of Rage" series (which includes "Bad Seeds")
by Michael "Darth Skeye" Moussourakis. I'm not into superpowerful
beings so I won't write about Gods or Callisto as a Goddess. Few of
those stories interest me; but some of the stories where she's immortal
are not too bad since she's still beatable.
It took me a couple of days to come up with my initial idea. I wanted
something original which is not easy for me (one thing I'm not is
creative). My first idea was to have Callisto lose her memory and see
how she would do now that she doesn't have Cirra to guide her actions.
I decided that the plot would lead to Callisto is now good (and boring)
so why write it? Then I thought to have Xena lose her memory and have
Callisto find her and befriend Xena to try to make Xena commit acts of
evil. That seemed to be a better story so I started writing.
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Initially I
was going to add a chapter before chapter 1. This introductory chapter
would have dealt with Xena getting amnesia. After writing chapter 2 I
realized that the story pace was going to be quite slow so I ditched
the amnesia story line. Instead I decided to focus on Callisto's dreams
and build a story around them. I'll probably go back to the amnesia bit
if there's a next story.
This is my first story and my writing style may take some getting used
to. On rereading chapters 1-3 I've changed a few things such as how I
do character thoughts. Hopefully my style is not too abhorrent to
readers.
Chapter 1 Notes:
This first chapter set the tone for the rest of the work. I settled on
2-1/2 to 3 pages of text per chapter (about 160-190 lines). I tried to
avoid using "Callisto", "Joxer", "he", and "she" too much so there are
a lot of metaphors to describe the two characters. Characters think
directly with single quotes. I mix dialogue into the paragraphs.
Why Joxer? I like the character. There is some influence from other
stories where Joxer is a fool with a good soul. There are not too many
choices for Callisto's sidekick/partner. I definitely didn't want to
make up a new major character. I sometimes get the feeling that other
authors are doing an 'Ensign Mary Kay' routine such as is found in a
lot of Star Trek fan fiction. I haven't seen that many Xena or Hercules
episodes so I couldn't think of any other suitable candidates.
Autolycus only recently got a conscience, Salmoneus is inappropriate,
Iolaus is too competent, Gabrielle would be hard to rationalize.
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