Tuesday, January 2, 2018

The New Stories

Now that Shining has finally been printed, it could be said that it's time for me to move on to new stories. However, you might be aware I've been slow on working on them. Part of that was due to the decision to actually publish Shining in print, but it's also a combination of time and inspiration.

Neostriker is certainly a hobby, but it's one of many. While pretty much everything I do ends up contributing to Neostriker in some way, I can only write when I have free time and if I feel like it. While I would like Neostriker to be my career, the only funding I currently have is by working full time. In addition, I do have a family to take care of so the chances that I'll complete a new story in the near future is fairly low, unless I do serialized stories instead.

Now for years, I've had planned I want to do at least 12 different stories, but which ones I develop keep changing. Most of the time, it's the "Origin" novel that focuses on the first Nellenion King. However, I've also had periods of high inspiration for other stories along the timeline as well as sequels to Shining. To give an idea about the diversity, here is what I've been planning (names not final):

Main timeline

  1. Origin: Adventure novel on the first Neostrikers and the first Nellenion King. Feel would be like chapters 15-18 of Shining. The first chapter, which I wrote before deciding to rewrite Shining can be read here
  2. Legends: Serialized stories taking place in the same period as Origin. A few of them can be read on this blog.
  3. Twilight: Epic novel highly inspired by Twilight Princess. Takes place quite some time after Origin and focuses on the princess and a hero with the heart of a child. Many of the ideas here are a result of some dreams that I've had.  
  4. Fall of the Nellenion Kingdom: Covers the war that leads to the defeat of the Nellenion Kingdom which was partially described in Shining.
  5. Rebellion: Story of rebellion against the occupying forces taking place in a steampunk world. Inspiration varies from Zorro and The Last Story. Possibly serialized
  6. Wings of Freedom: Norse-inspired story that follows the descendants of the exiled prince.
Expanded universe
  1. Rising Sun: Japanese-inspired story. Possibly serialized.
  2. Eagle-heart: Native North American-inspired story
  3. Heart of the Ocean: story of a fisherman and his "mermaid" love (not actually half-fish).
Shining Universe
  1. Story focusing on the children of David and Jenny. Best if visual media like a movie
  2. Serialized stories following the events of aforementioned sequel. Best if a TV series
  3. Climax

I originally intended to focus on Origin, but I made a change of plans when I decided I wanted to practice my writing skills first with Shining. As a result, the core concept of the world has been established already, making me feel like I can actually write in any order like Brian Jacques did with Redwall. Of course, there is also the desire to make a Neostriker video game, which would take a very long time to do. Then again, if Shining sells really well, then maybe there is hope I can focus on these ambitions sooner.

Dream On,
J. D. Nyle