With the first season of Shattered Heaven about to wrap up, I’m preparing to properly revisit the novel it is based on. Complete rewrite/revision, proper editing, all to match what the story became once it was introduced to a visual medium. I never really pushed the first book, it was something that was published quietly to sate my father years ago who never quite understood what being a writer meant. I love my dad, don’t get me wrong, he taught me a lot, pushed me to understand the importance of balance in life. But when it came to anything creative, especially online endeavors, he never truly “got it”. I spent a lot of my time when I was home from work writing, but to him, he didn’t see any money for it so there was always constant badgering whenever writing came up.
“How much are you making from this? Are you making anything? Is this a hobby or are you trying to do something with it? You should be making money. How many hours do you put into this, now when you calculate minimum wage to those hours, etc, etc”
A basic synopsis of what discussions with my father were years ago. No matter how many times I’d plead with him, tell him that the book wasn’t ready, it needed polishing, better editing, he still would push the idea of publishing and “just do it”, “throw paint at the wall and see what sticks.” It’s easy to say to not be influenced by what your parents say, but when you live with them, and they’re constantly judging everything you’re doing, all the hours you’re at a computer, you can’t just ignore it. You see, there’s a very bad stereotype of people who sit at their computers. Parents who don’t understand the culture and the generational climate of creativity, will never get it. They will always look at you on the computer and assume you’re just wasting time when you could be outside living life. Now, I’m not a social outcast, I’m extremely social, I enjoy going out, seeing friends, networking. I had a full time job then and I do now. But even with all of those things, both parents would often throw me sitting at my computer for hours at me with some negative shade. Not their fault, they just “didn’t get it”, they didn’t grow up with the doors we have today. The point is, I was rushed to publish a book I know needed to be rewritten and revised. The only reason was to shut up my father, because I thought it would give me some peace and quiet.
The time that I was writing Shattered Heaven, I was going through severe depression. So when writing, the focus was really just get out the steam, make the story and see characters grow through emotions I was struggling with. The book that was published, was pretty much a college rough draft with some minor editing. I knew that, so I never did the full marketing tour. I never paid for book tours, tried networking with other authors, I just left it in obscurity. I sort of regretted it, but my palette of interest had already shifted to an animation medium in late 2007. Finding the inspiration and drive to write well, was hard. I felt like I was wasting time, because I wasn’t animating, or learning how to improve. So the novels were pushed aside in favor of this new adventure in my creative life.
In 2013, I decided I need to redo everything. The animated series needed to start over from the beginning. This way, the audience wouldn’t be confused the way they were with the 2008 series. The 2008 series took place well after the third novel. Characters were established, major plot events happened, so it sort of just jumped right into things. I learned from that mistake. Time to start over, I thought. At the time, I didn’t think much of it. I just figured it’d be a different take on the series. I’d just take what the book had done and convert it word for word. Haha, oh man, that didn’t work.
When I started to convert the book to script, I realized just how the book needed to be adapted. It gave me a much better understanding when it came to books being turned into movies. What works in prose form doesn’t necessarily work in a visual medium. It just doesn’t. So you have to change things, add to it, take away from it, whatever you need to do in order for it to work. I always hated the initial act of the book. It was awkward and I never knew what to do with it. It was meant to show a time in the protagonist’s life that was simple, the time before the inciting incident would take place. So, what exactly is, “the inciting incident”?
The Inciting Incident is the event that knocks the protagonist out of his or her normal routine. It is what catapults them into the plot of the story. A lot of times these happen before the book begins, or in a prologue. For me, I wanted the inciting incident to happen a few chapters into the book. Knowing what I had in store for Adam Novus, I wanted the audience/readers to see his personality, his life before things changed. Give them something they could compare and contrast with who he became after the incident, and then again with who he grew into by the end of the book. That being said, I was pretty lazy with it. The supporting characters introduced were pretty hollow, not much depth with them. They were there and then things happened. I never allowed the audience/readers time to know who these characters. It was pretty jarring.
So with the animation, I decided to flesh out the first act. The supporting characters were given a little more depth where it was needed. It gave me the chance to give the first part of this series some expansion, allowing emotions to set in, characters to be developed and a base of Adam Novus’ life to be established. In doing this, I ended up creating some new characters that were never in the book. Karin Dolor, who I’ll write about in her own post later I’m sure and Grace Cooper.
Grace Cooper is a female test pilot for Genesis Global, like Adam Novus and Mike Aquilis. Much like the first act and the characters within it, I never really explained the Genesis Intern program in the book. Adam was an Intern and worked alongside some friends, they made mechs, and they fought each other for fun. That was the extent of it. So converting the book to animation also allowed me to really expand that more. With Grace, I wanted to create a character that would bounce more off Mike Aquilis than Adam. Mike, being Adam’s best friend in the Intern program is a key character in the book. But he too, I felt I sort of shafted in the prose. He had time developed to him, but he was pretty shallow. He was a hot head, competitive jock type that wanted to be just as good, if not better than Adam in the VR arena. That was about it. Introducing Grace, I wanted to give Mike a rival, someone to push his buttons outside of Adam. After Act 1, Adam leaves the program and becomes a pilot for the Alliance, leaving Mike by himself in the pilot program. Grace is a character that is very similar to Mike in terms of competitive nature. She’s also a flirt. I’m not one for forced romances, but I do like organic flirting and growth into relationships. I feel characters can show their true nature away from the front they put on when they’re in that “baiting/courting” session. It also allows for some comedic moments and those are always fun.
Just to get it out of the way, Mike is black and Grace is white. Skin colors don’t mean much to me, but another thing I’ve learned through experience is the concept of diversity. I hate “forced” diversity, when companies change a major character for the sake of the political climate. But I’m all for organic diversity. With Mike and Grace, I had a chance to throw in an interracial relationship. It wasn’t something I planned on, it just happened when I wrote the characters and noticed how much fun I had writing their scenes in later episodes. That then turned into art and I realized how much fun I had drawing them together. I mean, they’re pretty damn cute!
Something that I never encountered when writing the book, something all authors won’t, is the use of voice actors/actresses. When I originally got into this animation medium in 2007, I found the world of online voice acting. To make an extremely long story short, I’ve become addicted and intrigued with how my characters sound. Without realizing it, a lot of my characters started taking on attributes or quirks of the actors that played them. I firmly believe that when you have a talented person portraying your character, they can take that character to a level you never expected. It’s inspiring as a writer to hear your character, they become far more real once they have an actual “voice”. Whether it’s wanting to do right by your actor, giving them better material just to see them perform it, or it’s just a matter of expanding a character, I see characters growing once they have an actual voice.
That said, the actors for Mike and Grace are tremendously talented. A good friend of mine, Corinne Sudberg (Megami33 for people online/TFS/DBZA/etcetc), took the role of Grace. She’s vastly talented, and while Grace was created for the series to add some depth, working with Corinne, her talent and voice helped me make a character that never existed before hand in this series become extremely real and vital. Mike has had 2 voice actors, he was recast midway through the production of episode 1. That’s what happens when good friends move to follow their dreams, dreams that become successful mind you. Time gets limited and you, as a creator don’t want to force/pester them, and they, as your friend don’t want to hold you back. Carlos Moreno (Solrac for people online) took over. What he brought to the role was high energy and intensity that was perfect for Mike’s competitive nature.
With two solid actors for these characters, Mike and Grace started to influence the story’s direction. This is something that was noticeably absent from the first book, focus on characters that weren’t part of the main grouping. As a creator, I acknowledge making a visual universe is a bit harder than making one in prose. In a novel, you don’t want to over do it, whether it’s with details or expand into everything else, you can be coy with certain characters, about their traits, physical or personality wise. But in a visual realm, you really have to know what you’re doing. You need to be on top of your universe, what connects to what, how characters look, making sure they look different from others. Of course you have to be aware of all of this to an extent in writing a novel, but you have more room to get away with things. Namely character physical traits. You’re not going to spend a paragraph detailing the differences between Female character A and Female character B. The subtle differences in their facial structure, etc etc. It drags on when you do and readers get bored. But in a visual medium, you have to make sure your characters look different enough so the viewer can distinguish between them. It’s not easy.
As a creator, once I brought this back to a visual medium, my own understanding of my characters changed drastically. They became far more real, real personalities, real goals, it made me want to turn them into more three dimensional characters.
Mike and Grace, their developing relationship through rivalry, sarcastic banter and modest flirtation helped me understand my characters and the world I generally ignored in the first book. The opening act was rushed, and flat. Characters were shallow, they said their lines and moved on. But now, these characters have ambition, have desires, they’re real. I’ve expanded on them, felt for them, and have enjoyed writing them in this new world. So when I go back to the first novel, I’m coming back refreshed and with a much more solid vision of the world I’ve created.
And as an added bonus, I can help showcase diversity on a modestly small scale. From the friends I’ve encountered in the past few years, to the friends I’ll continue to meet going forward. As a writer, I do truly understand the need for a diverse cast. One through organic and natural means. Like most writers, a lot of my characters are based slightly on friends and people I’ve met. Their lives, their struggles have often been set within the limitations of my own experience. Through meeting and becoming friends with more diverse people of color, of gender preference, and of sexual preference, I’ve found an additional drive to represent them properly in my world. This is something I’ll talk about in more depth in other articles. But I will say, there are a good amount of LBGT characters in my universe. Some new ones made solely out of a desire to represent them in some form of a respectable manner, and some old characters that I added the trait because it doesn’t change who they are as a person.
Mike and Grace opened that door for me through creating a natural interracial “ship” that is canon. It is something I’m looking forward to exploring more in the novel and to show in the coming episodes of the animated series and audio dramas.
I’m happy that I stopped writing for a while. Adapting this book to an animated format truly helped me grow my world and the characters in it for the better.
