So, here's something which I thought I would talk about. In 2018 as I was still in college, I started writing a screenplay, while I was badly hungover. A friend of mine was over from England so we had kind of gone a bit mad the night before. Anyway, we were watching some crap on tv and he crashed out so I was kind of daydreaming. I thought of this idea for a sci-fi and got my phone out and started writing a script.
I got about 40 pages in and it ended on a cliffhanger so I started a new one as at this stage I thought that it would make a cool TV show. I think I got about 3 episodes in before my friend woke up, when he did I put the phone down. But, continued to write over the next few days. Obviously, it was a mess. I had a lot of spelling mistakes and inconstancies like names for characters and planets and whatever else. Mainly caused by only having a phone available to use for my writing and just not having a place to sit and work stuff out properly.
I had no end in mind, no plan, just an idea. Over the course of about 6 months, I would continue writing, think of something better while re-reading it, and then go back and change things. Eventually, it was finished and I had it nailed down.
I read it, patted myself on the back, and said "Great job." But then I put my Producer cap on and said "Nobody is going to buy this, nobody will want to make this, and I won't be able to get the kind of funding to do this idea justice." Even though I had written it in a way that it wouldn't need a mega crazy Hollywood budget. It would still have cost a lot of money. Any studio would be insane to give the kind of budget it needed to some guy with barely any experience. So I thought, hmm. Well, that was fun but, I guess it will never be.
Then I thought, without any kind of source material no one would make this. Like Game of Thrones as an example most likely wouldn't have been made if it didn't already have a series of books and a fan base. Eureka, I thought, I'll make it a novel. Then I can have all those crazy ideas I thought of and make it bigger and better because the only limit would be my imagination.
Re-formatting My Tv Show
So, I did a lot of research, on how to write like a writer. Then I got to work on something that nearly broke my spirit. I had to take the entire story and work it out into chapters instead of episodes.
In the Screenplay, scenes happened, so it would bounce between all of these different characters, as most Tv shows or movies do.
I had to take all of these scenes and gather them up and say "Okay, who's the POV character here?" I came up with my list of characters and got started. It was hard because I had to have these scenes while trying to tell it from one perspective and not only that but I had to add more to each of them to make it, well... good. So it wasn't just bouncing around randomly from chapter to chapter. A lot of stuff was cut or just re-edited in a way that tried to not ruin the flow of the story, while also having key moments.
I also got to build it up, so that was cool, the worlds, ships, characters, and different aliens had to be worked out. Because, before the only descriptions were basic. As I thought. "Well, if I get this show picked up I'll have a team to help work on it." Now I had to try and be detailed. It was fun, but, hard. Mainly because I was so bad at describing these things that I was seeing in my mind.
Eventually, though, it was done. I finished about a year after I started Re-formatting it. Let's say it was 2020. So many times I wanted to give up but, I'm glad I persisted. I hear you saying, "Wow, what an achievement. Where can I read this great book you so highly recommend?" Well, you can't, at least not yet. Oh yeah, because there was another issue.
The Second Book is Complete
As I wrote the script that turned into a book, I thought I liked the idea of the story just starting. My concept of why we start following this story and these characters now. Is that the book opens in space. As a space lane opens and a half-destroyed ship, exits its Jump Lane, then we enter the ship. To then, enter the main character's mind. As if we the audience were just there waiting for something to happen and these are just some of the people living their life as we hitch a ride with them. Cool concept, but, it goes against one of the biggest rules in storytelling. Show don't tell.
There was barely any tell in the book, as I thought, well these characters should already know these factions, planets, and what happened during the war, but it leaves us as audience members out of the know. That's the main reason I'm writing the first book rather than just releasing this one. I don't want someone to talk about the underworld, I want to bring the audience there, I don't want someone to say how bad Particle Disperses are, I want the character to see it with their own eyes.
So, being able to go back and see these characters at the start of their journeys has been great I think. As it feel more natural to me, also it has allowed me to give them all a lot more character development. Since I know what they're all like in the other book so now I'm filling in the space between the two.
What Kept Me Inspired?
For the same reason, I'm writing this post here and now. I got into my old phone, as about two years ago I got a new one. But, that old one had so many important things that I never got off it. Notes. I would get to a point where I was stressed and burnt out, the thing that helped me was leaving the book to one side and just writing, creating, and populating the universe with things. Factions, Planets, Aliens, Creatures, Ships, Side Characters, and Technology.
Tons upon tons of stuff, a lot of which I had forgotten about. But, back when I was writing the book, I needed time away to just create, rather than re-write. That helped so much, Hive too. As you may or may not know, I'm writing a series, which is a book, the first book in this series to be precise. I couldn't be happier about it, as I have had a chance to share my work with people who know more than me and have been able to encourage me and tell me what I'm doing right and wrong. Whereas writing for me, before Hive was lonely. No one read anything I wrote and it just sat in my phone or on my laptop since I've gotten one. Now though I can publish stuff here and I don't feel shy.
Ending Thoughts
I undertook something, that is in its early process. But, now with all of these notes in hand I'm unstoppable. I think it's going to be a really cool Sci-fi series, I haven't named it yet. The first title for the script was Chased Through Space, then I thought, maybe that should be a subtitle, not the series name. Then I thought Star Jumpers, but I wasn't too big a fan of that one. Recently though I thought of something as it's a phrase used often by characters in the book. Off-World
Here's a link to my first post here which has turned into the series which at the moment is 5 chapters strong, each one has a link to the next. There are 3 parts per chapter at around 1000-1500 words for each part.
https://ecency.com/hive-170798/@killerwot/a-trip-off-world
Thanks for reading this story, I haven't told many people about this, and if I have. I haven't given as much detail as I have here. I didn't want to say I wrote a novel because if someone asked about it my answer would be the length of this post. But, since I've been writing and releasing chapters here I thought I would talk about it, if you read this, you are a part of a small group of people who possess this knowledge. Use it wisely.
Keep going -- I wrote my fourth book serially on Hive's predecessor, Steem, along with my fifth, sixth, and seventh, and am doing a reading today for No. 4 -- keep going! That's a GOOD STORY you've written!
Heads up, though -- Ink Well doesn't usually do chapter stories, but Freewriters and The Writing Club Community LOVES THEM! In Freewriters, you'll need to wrap your story around the daily prompt (which is how I did my work, day after day), but the Writing Club does not have that requirement.
Finally, building an audience here on Hive will help you build confidence that will serve you well EVERYWHERE while paying you for your work. The average digital download on Amazon for a book pays about $2-3 in royalties to you ... imagine averaging that much in HBD on Hive by writing and connecting with audiences DAILY. It can be done! Remember that Hive has a video arm too if you want to do readings -- check out Threespeak!
Whatever you do, KEEP GOING!
Thanks so much for the kind works of encouragement and you have achieved so much with your own writing, 7 is so impressive!
I accidentely wrote it into the Ink Well before knowing that rule, but I was allowed to finish off that chapter before moving on to the freewriters to continue on the book. I would love to get into doing some stuff for Threespeak or even Youtube. I had an idea to do an audio book version of the first book, with sound effects, music and even different voice actors to play the different characters. I think it would be really cool to do in the future.
I'll be continuing on with this book I'm writing now, no doubt about that. It's easier with this one because I know how the second book begins so I'm just writing to that point with the current book, which is much easier than when I was writing the other one. I've learned so much about novel writing in the last couple of years, it's so different to Screenplay writing. Both forms are very entertaining to me though.
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