Đoàn ăn Giáp, also known as Don Van, and Asian, is arguably the most essential character in the Unlived trilogy. He doesn't have a book named after him, as do Raymond and Shelly, but he is, in various forms, at the center of their stories, and will be as well in Reckoning.

Before publication, a younger beta reader, who identified herself as being Asian, politely suggested that Raymond should not refer to Asian as 'Asian'. She said this, having read some but not all of Raymond's story.

"If you don't change that, you will sound racist to some readers."

I thanked her and said I looked forward to all she would have to say once she had finished the entire story.

A week or so later, she sent me her full review, including three full pages of suggestions. Her first comment was that she now understood why I identified Asian as I did throughout most of the story.

I won't disclose my reasons for doing that in this post. Doing so would compromise an essential part of the ending for those of you yet to finish The Unlived Lives of Raymond Quinn. And for the same reason, I ask those of you who have read it not to do so either.

Speculative question for today.

Writers create characters. Do you ascribe what characters say and do to the author, or do you separate characters from the authors who created them?

Character evolution is as important in fiction as it is in life. If the time, place, and/or situation change but the character/person doesn't, something's wrong.

Everything in life progresses or regresses, sometimes both, depending on circumstances. The only constant is constant change.

The Unlived Lives of Raymond Quinn has been out for just over a year. Over 1,500 sales to date. The Unlived Lives of Shelly Bennett has been available for a month. Some of you have now read both, and I would like to hear your thoughts on the evolution of Raymond, Shelly, and Asian.

You can answer here in a comment, or privately using the 'Contact' option under 'More' next to 'The Obligatory Blog' tab, or in a private Facebook message. There are no right or wrong answers.

Speculative question for today.

Have Raymond, Shelly, and Asian changed appreciably in the two books? If so, in what ways are they now different? Did their storylines happen as you assumed they would?

Facebook provides detailed information about those who react to the ads I run in support of the Unlived book series—more data than any other social media platform. The results are important to me; they tell me who my audience is and is not.

Who do you think would be most interested in reading about lives that could have been, but were not lived? Before I began advertising, I assumed men more than women, both genders aged 35 to 55.

Wrong.

The primary audience is women 50 and older, with the largest group being 65+. Men respond too, just not as many or as often as women.

Women 55+ buy and read more of my books than any other group. They are more likely than men to share their 'unlived lives' stories with me in their reviews, comments, and private messages.

They are more than just a customer; they are engaged with me and the concept.

Thank you, ladies.

Regardless of your gender or age, speculative question for today.

We can only imagine what our unlived lives would have been like. If it were possible, would you trade the life you lead for one of the lives you would have lived had you made different choices in the past?

Soon after announcing a sequel to The Unlived Lives of Raymond Quinn, readers began asking questions.

Would Shelly and Raymond be together? Where would their unlived lives take place? Would there be resolution to them being 'stuck' in a parallel universe?

I didn't answer any question directly. What fun would that be if I had?

The Unlived Lives of Shelly Bennett has now been out for a month. A third volume, The Unlived Lives Reckoning will follow this coming spring. "Reckoning" should give you some idea what to expect.

As before, I won't directly answer specific questions, doing so would give away story plots. But please do ask whatever you like, along with how you'd like to see Unlived story lines evolve. That helps me decide where to take things in the future.

To get things started, this and future posts will ask speculative questions for you to consider, starting with this one.

What would happen if someone who was never born were to meet someone who was, in the multiverse?

Texting, emailing, or worst of all, calling someone at 2 A.M. to let them know what you are thinking at that very moment, is almost never a good idea. Often not the thought, certainly not the time you decided to share it.

Waiting until morning—ideally after a good night's sleep—you might decide to say things differently. You might choose to say nothing.

Our lives, along with our unlived lives, are the collective result of our choices and decisions, some good, some bad. If you regret where you are, it was your choices, your decisions that put you there. 

You can change that now. Identify what you wish you hadn't done or said, and choose to say and do things differently in the future. If you don't or won't... 

However, nobody's perfect, and as Sheryl Crow sang, sometimes our favorite mistakes are just too good not to make again. 😉

Last week's post cited long-ago references to what we now call the 'multiverse.' But you don't have to go back to the birth of the 20th century, 1935, or even 1957 to find more connections.

"​While they wait, Millicent, now coming to, insists the strange events are caused by an evil double from a parallel world – a nearby, yet distant alternative plane of existence that comes into convergence with this world as a result of powerful forces, or unnatural, unknown events." Mirror Image (The Twilight Zone) February 26, 1960.

One form of creativity inspires another. Case in point, the 2019 horror picture, "Us," written and directed by Jordan Peele. I find no mention of parallel universes or the multiverse in anything relating to the film. But Jordan did; a direct connection to the Twilight Zone 'Mirror Image' episode he saw as a kid.

Will my Unlived Lives books ever inspire anyone to create anything? I'd be happy just hearing from someone named Raymond Quinn or Shelly Bennett.

The concept of 'Unlived Lives' is neither mine nor new. Google it; you'll find tens of thousands of references related to those two words. And when I say not new, I mean not new.

David Barron's book, The Martians: The True Story of an Alien Craze that Captured Turn-of-the-Century America, references Nicolas Camille Flammarion, a late 18th century French astronomer and author. In his 1889 novel Urania, Flammarion explored the idea that after mortal death, human souls can travel through space in a way the living body cannot. He cites a dream he had about George Spero, a friend, and Spero's fiancée, Icléa, who were killed in a balloon flight accident, their souls reincarnated on Mars.

Flammarion did not specifically mention 'Unlived Lives'. According to Gemini AI, Carl Jung is most likely the first to have used that term.

"Jung first explored this idea in his 1932 essay The Relations between the Ego and the Unconscious, later expanded upon in his 1957 book The Undiscovered Self. He famously wrote, "The greatest burden a child must bear is the unlived life of its parents".

(Side note: That would be Eden, daughter of Raymond and Shelly, had they not died. She, along with others, is featured in the third book, The Unlived Lives Reckoning, due out in early spring 2026.) 

You won't find any of this in my Unlived Lives books; they are simple fiction meant to entertain. However, don't be surprised if you become more interested in the concept after reading them, as I did writing them.   

"I wasn’t kidding; you can see more with your eyes closed than you can when they are open. But you can’t, can you?” Not waiting for a reply, she answered her own question. “You can’t, but you can see through the dark when you close your eyes. Maybe not at first because you don’t expect to. Trust that you will, and you’ll soon be able to. Try it. You will see all you need to see.”

The above is an excerpt from a conversation Raymond had with a girl he didn't know while sitting on a University of Washington campus lawn on a late spring day. Or at least he thought he was. Raymond has many experiences he later questioned.

Having put Raymond there with her, he attempting to 'see through the dark', I thought I would give it try. Initially, and many times since, all I saw was 'dark'. But she did say, 'Maybe not at first because you don’t expect to. Trust that you will, and you’ll soon be able to.'

There's a lot of truth in that. We often close our minds to things we don't understand. Like the reaction I get from many people, explaining the Unlived Lives concept.

Next time you are confronted with something that seems completely without reason, close your eyes and trust that you will ultimately see through the darkness. You may find you will see all you need to see.

As for me...I'm still looking, still dark.

Only the closest followers of the Unlived series will notice what is wrong with some of the above AI-generated Unlived ads.

I've been auditioning apps that use AI to create my own fixed image and video Unlived ads. As of today, I've tried four of them with similar results. 

Very simple to use, I uploaded summaries of The Unlived Lives of Raymond Quinn and The Unlived Lives of Shelly Bennett, along with copies of the book covers. I created both fixed image and video ads in separate tests, hit 'Enter', and with one exception, I had a result less than two minutes later. The one exception was a half hour of video processing time.

The video results were laughably bad. Cartoonish, appearing to have paid little attention to the book summaries. In one case, AI actually changed the images in my book covers to something it thought would be better. (Look for it in the above image.) Some, but not all, of the fixed image ads were reasonable, but nothing as good as an experienced creative person would produce.

It's possible that some AI apps can accommodate active URL links, taking the person who clicks the link to more information about the product. If so, I didn't find them. I can include a static URL link, but that would have to be copied/pasted/clicked in a search window by the person viewing the ad. That's too big an 'ask' for most. 

The examples I saw in the ads for AI ad generation apps looked great. But most, if not all, of those products were commodities, none for books, music, or movies.

Conclusion: Hands down, AI wins on a budget basis, while human creativity is best suited for representing the product most effectively. AI ad generation is more effective for commodities than for creative products. Hopefully, that will improve quickly.

Like most everything with new technology, currently, when it comes to creative products, AI marketing writes 'checks' AI ads can't 'cash'.

My book page posts are evolving to include both The Unlived Lives of Raymond Quinn and now The Unlived Lives of Shelly Bennett. Along with that, the comments about these posts are changing as well.

The biggest difference is a significant increase in the number of people who answer the question, "Where would you be today had you made different choices in the past?"

I appreciate it, please keep it up. It helps me come up with story lines for future books.

There is also more about individual characters, Shelly in particular. Some like her, some don't. I intentionally wrote Shelly, hoping that would be the case. Part of making the book a 'word maze' is creating characters readers see differently.

For continuity's sake, read Raymond's story first, followed by Shelly; you will meet several characters throughout both. Comment on them, what you like about them, what you don't.

What you say impacts what I write about them and others in future, unlived books.

In the meantime, where would you be today had you made different choices in the past?

​#psychologicalthriller #multiverse #paralleluniverse #fictionbooks