So, finally, after almost three years of writer’s blocks, constant rewriting and re-rewriting (and sometimes even re-re-rewriting), Adrift is finally at its 10th Chapter, which may not seem much to all the cool folks in here with stories spanning well over that number, it is a first time milestone for this pro-procrastinating me.
Adrift began as what I like to as a ”Inspirational Dam-Shatter”; suddenly, you have an idea, and you think that idea would make a nice story, but it’s kinda late that day, so you just open Wordpad and write it down for later, but as you write it down, you keep thinking of new things that would go well with it, so you put them in there as well, then you think of a main character, of an intro, of another character, of scenes and this keep going on and on and on…. until you realize it’s 6:30AM, that you’ve already written the first chapter and half of the second and you were supposed to be sleeping eight hours ago to avoid falling asleep on a test you had next morning at 8:10AM (OH SH1T!) Real story, btw….
This is not the way I usually write my stories; I usually spent long, long periods of writing ”world and setting guides” and ”Character Sheets” and looking for a bunch of reference material and such, which in the end becomes quite a hassle when the ACTUAL WRITING begins (because I tend to overdesign), but Adrift had none of these (at first, there are a couple now…). All ideas were put into paper without much additional thought or carefully crafted references, and this happened to the point that I didn’t even fully think out the characters at first; all of them were created on the fly in such way that it was AFTER reading my own stuff (even months later) that I figured out the ideas and inspirations that had given birth to them. And I believe all this improvisation and lack of overdesign that has helped Adrift to keep going in my mind.
But well, I’m already 3 paragraphs in, and I haven’t even mentioned the cool stuff yet (as usual with me 😛 ).
So, as a way to celebrate this milestone (and as a Blatant Display of Pretentiousness on my part…. sorry), I decided to conduct a simple poll to know which of the characters of Adrift are found to be the most interesting, or maybe even favorites.
Which Adrift character do you like/find interesting?
- Cole (15%, 8 Votes)
- Haudrica (19%, 10 Votes)
- Zalura (27%, 14 Votes)
- Desri (8%, 4 Votes)
- Mizelle (19%, 10 Votes)
- Tetlekar (12%, 6 Votes)
Total Voters: 24
Loading ...This poll will be going on for two weeks (until Jan 27), you can vote for up to 3 characters, and once the final results are counted, I will post a picture (My infinite thanks to .less for creating them. Epic stuff, dude!) of each character starting from Most to Least along with a sizable amount of (probably) spoilerless trivia regarding how each character was conceived in my mind, and what kind of source of inspiration led to them (I will also answer any spoilerless questions asked in the comments about them).
Anyway, thanks you very much to all those who enjoy this story and to those who’ve helped me with it, and please forgive this blatant display of pretentiousness on my part and for my blatant over usage of the word ”said” in all my works.
P.D. I just found out I quite like using the word ”Blatant”.
UPDATE: OK, the poll is closed. I’ll say I’m pleasantly surprised by the results in more than one way. Expect the first picture within the current weekend. And thanks to everyone who voted.
Honestly, I find all of your characters to be interesting. It can be quite the challenge maintaining the cast of characters, and keeping their individuality going.
One of the hard parts of writing for me, is actually typing something up. I’m a Master at procrastinating the actual story. Whereas all of the details I’ve often done up ahead of time (Character sheets, etc)
But, it’s much much easier for me to edit something that I’ve done up already.
Yeah, I usually write the whole thing in one go, even if it looks bad, and start rewriting it again and again until I feel it looks good.
I used to think that doing it like that was lazy… until I saw an interview with Hasekura Isuna where he said he did exactly the same and recommended it to other writers… to me that was like approval from god…
I’ve learned to keep the details on the side, because if I have to stop the big writing to check it and see if that good idea actually ”fits” my own setting gets me into a Block real fast.
I put my vote in but in truth the interactions and mechanics of the group make every single one of those characters important and contributing something of their own to the enjoyment from reading your story.
Anyway – thanks for writing this story, don’t know how much of an impact that sleepless night had on your test but as a result you created something great that is entirely your own and is interesting to others.
I’ve always believed that ”Characters and their interactions make the story. Not the plot, or the setting.” because it’s through them that we see both plot and setting, so I’m glad Adrift could elicit this kind of feeling.
As for the test… well, I didn’t fail, but I barely passed, and had to skip the rest of that day’s lessons to sleep 😛