Andrew Reeves's Blog
October 25, 2020
10, 9, 8... one short story - a million possible endings...
Hi fellow Writers! Fancy joining me in my mission to entertain? I’ve created a Facebook Group for a story I’ve written which has limitless possible endings. Here’s the premise:
Eleven text messages from an unknown sender change John Claymore’s life. They simply count down from ten to zero. Each at precisely midday. By the time the daily messages reach zero, he is a shaking, manic wreck. Is someone playing a prank on him... or is the world about to end? Finish the story in 500 words or less and post them in my Group and I’ll illustrate my favourites! I’ve started the ball rolling with a couple of my own 🤣 A bit of fun for now... but let’s see what happens! It may become a proposal to a publisher...! 🤷🏻♂️
If you’re interested in getting involved, please hop along to the 10, 9, 8... Facebook group and help me destroy (or improve) poor John’s life!
Facebook group link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/52186...
Eleven text messages from an unknown sender change John Claymore’s life. They simply count down from ten to zero. Each at precisely midday. By the time the daily messages reach zero, he is a shaking, manic wreck. Is someone playing a prank on him... or is the world about to end? Finish the story in 500 words or less and post them in my Group and I’ll illustrate my favourites! I’ve started the ball rolling with a couple of my own 🤣 A bit of fun for now... but let’s see what happens! It may become a proposal to a publisher...! 🤷🏻♂️
If you’re interested in getting involved, please hop along to the 10, 9, 8... Facebook group and help me destroy (or improve) poor John’s life!
Facebook group link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/52186...
July 24, 2017
THROUGH THE SMASH-HYPO' (an excerpt from THE EMPTY WORLD by Andrew Reeves)
Danny followed Rasmus and Inambau through the tangle of corridors that ran beneath Knocker Road. Project Control was even larger than he had thought. They passed the open shaft where the outhouse had deposited him - now it was empty. Doubtless the grimy toilet was back above ground. Danny couldn’t believe all this had been here his whole life, hiding like a wonderland under his garden.
He marvelled again at the cool air being constantly flushed around in the spooky breathing motion. He saw pipes like the ones he had hid behind from D.A.N.I.E.L. and he reached out to touch them in interest. They hissed – one hot, one cold, but whereas earlier they had scalded him, now they just tickled his skin.
He held his fingers there a moment, a pipe in each hand, and inhaled deeply, as D.A.N.I.E.L. had done, his body refusing to feel any pain. This was incredible. He released his grip and his fingers merely tingled; he smiled, thoroughly pleased with his upgrades.
And then they arrived at the Smash-Hypo’ door, and Danny grew nervous. What was he getting himself into, trusting Rasmus...?
He watched as Rasmus unveiled a large switch within a hidden access panel on the wall - a metallic replica of the Smash-Hypo’ logo from the door, two concentric circles with an arrow bursting forth from the centre; Danny presumed it symbolised transmission to and from the Empty World. The arrow formed the pointer of the switch, which was encircled by Roman numerals like a clock.
Rasmus grasped the arrow switch and spun it, first right, then left, then right again, finding preset positions like a safe lock, careful not to let Danny see the sequence. The ring of dormant lights that encircled the door sparked into life, illuminating the corridor with bright white light and almost blinding Danny with its harshness. There was a rush of escaping air, a sound like exhaled breath, which tugged at Danny's hair briefly. He took a step back and gripped his canvas bag tight.
Rasmus turned to him with a smile. ‘Ready?’
Was he? Ready to see his Mum and Dad? What was he going to say to them – after all the pain he and Jayney had been put through? How could he forgive them? Did he want to? Shakily he indicated the warning on the door. ‘If it’s safe, why does it say danger of transmission?’
‘Questions, questions. I hate questions! Don’t be afraid, your father designed this.’
Rasmus depressed the switch with a theatrical push and the huge round door abruptly swung towards them. It was ten feet wide but being set ten feet into the wall, even fully open it didn’t encroach into the corridor. Danny tried to imagine the Smash-Hypo’ itself, some colossal great shining machine, perhaps accessible via a bridge over an enormous chasm. Maybe an impossible puzzle needed solving before a person could enter.
But there was only darkness beyond, a pipe-like tunnel stretching away into shadow, giving no indication of where it might lead. Danny looked at Inambau and Rasmus for support. Inambau flashed him his toothy grin and Rasmus urged him forwards.
Tentatively Danny stepped into the mouth of the tunnel. As soon as he crossed the threshold, rings of bright white lights pulsed into being around the curvature of the walls, like a ribcage one by one, until the entire length of the tunnel was lit.
Danny could just make something out at its very far end, an object of some kind.
‘Age before beauty,’ he quipped, standing back.
Rasmus cocked his head. ‘Why not?’
He led Danny down the pipe-like tunnel, which had a flat grated metal floor but was otherwise perfectly cylindrical. ‘You’re accepting this very well. You don’t seem afraid.’
‘Why would I be afraid?’ To his own surprise Danny’s fear was turning to excitement, and an odd sense of destiny. ‘I’m going to see my Mum and Dad,’ he said.
‘On another world,’ Rasmus reminded him. ‘In a parallel reality.’ Danny felt like Rasmus was trying to intentionally freak him out, so he ignored him.
At the far end, the tunnel swelled into a bulb- shaped chamber, in the centre of which was the strangest looking object Danny had ever seen, lashed together from countless disused machine parts, seemingly anything the maker could get his hands on. Car radiators. Pipes. Engine odds and ends. Spark plugs. Carburettors. Copious quantities of junk, like some monstrous motor from another world. It had no real shape or meaning, like an alien work of art. An unfathomable sculpture of industrial waste, bristling with car aerials poking out from between the seams. A satellite receiver dish or two rested amongst the explosion of metal protrusions.
Taken as a whole, it was rusty, old and dangerous looking, like something pieced together at a scrap yard. Out of its front jutted a most unusual handle, very large and nearly dominating the entire construction. It was like one of those handles used to wind up early cars, only ten times bigger.
‘What the hell is this?’ Danny said.
‘This,’ replied Rasmus proudly, drawing himself up to full height, ‘is your father’s Smash-crastiplated Hypo’eccentri-gestor.’
Danny cast his eyes over it in disappointment. ‘This is the Smash-Hypo'? What if it breaks, who mends it?’
Rasmus sighed. ‘It’s not going to break. Your father has told us everything we need to know in the event of an emergency. He’s waiting for you.’
Danny tried to swallow, but his throat was dry. ‘So if this thing is the transmitter – what’s the receiver?’
‘There’s another one on the other side. An exact clone of this. This is Smash-Hypo' One – your father’s original. Its counterpart, Smash-Hypo' Two, is on the Empty World.’ He said it as though they had no time to waste. ‘They’re hooked up together across the space time foam - so nothing can go wrong.’
Famous last words, thought Danny. ‘How many Smash-Hypo's are there?’
Rasmus gave an unreadable look. ‘Just the two... for now.’
‘And what do you do to make it work?
‘The handle. Take it. Crank it.’
Rasmus stepped back and Danny grabbed the outlandish handle. It was huge and completely out of place, bent in the middle - no, it had been snapped in two and re-attached, but at the wrong angle, which only made it look more clumsy. The handgrip was bulbous and dirty, scuffed and old, and the whole thing looked like a mistake. Unsure, he twisted it clockwise and after a creak of complaint, it began to turn quite smoothly. He pulled at it with more weight and it suddenly broke free of his grip, gaining velocity rapidly, spinning round and round.
As if in reaction, the rest of the machine kicked into life. A deep throated hum issued from the morass of salvaged junk and radiators rattled, aerials quivered and the smallest satellite receiver dish began to rotate as the handle spin increased. Danny stepped back, intrigued but apprehensive.
The handle lost definition and became a propeller, a whirling shimmer which kicked up a swift wind that forced him back. The ribcage of white lights along the pipe tunnel dimmed briefly, as if the machine was sucking the power from them, but then they grew in intensity, brighter than before. Danny turned to see Rasmus halfway down the tunnel, breaking into a run towards the circular hatch, where Inambau nervously hopped from foot to foot.
Danny’s eyes went wide. ‘Rasmus? What’s happening?!’
Rasmus threw him a giddy look and kept on running.
The wind was vicious now, blowing Danny back. The handle blurred before the machine, producing a thunderous roar as round and round it flashed. Danny eyed it fiercely, wanting to run. The force of its blast was nearly pushing him off his feet. And then, with a shock and a jolt, the handle stopped, shuddering like a flicked fork. Danny didn’t move. In the tunnel, Rasmus stopped running and turned to watch.
Silence.
‘Why d...?’ Danny began.
And then it happened. The handle whizzed back the
other way, impossibly fast. The Smash-Hypo' shook at the seams, threatening to come apart, smoking from its vents, the wind fearsome, the thunder deafening. But there was a marked difference now. This time, it wasn’t repelling him.
This time... it was sucking him in.
Rasmus set off running again, full pelt. Inambau panicked at the door, wide-eyed and desperate. ‘Come on, Rasmus man!’ Danny’s feet slid along the metal grating, helplessly attracted by the terrible machine. His hair whipped around his face and his screams were lost to the roar. It must have malfunctioned. If he stayed here a moment longer he would be killed, hacked into a million pieces by the whirling propeller – and if that happened, what would become of Jayney?
Desperately he turned and took off after Rasmus, stretching his legs as far as he could to maximise every step, confident his newfound power would help him out. Inambau was straining with the heavy metal hatch, struggling to keep it open until they reached him.
But the ferocious suction at Danny’s back was growing stronger and he had to fight to keep his feet from being sucked off the floor. He screamed out for help.
Rasmus reached the doorway and Inambau pulled him through, to the safety of the corridor beyond, but they’d only be truly safe once the door was closed tight. Danny had to hurry. It was supremely difficult - his upgraded strength was fading fast. He had seconds to reach them before his body would give in.
He ran harder, his muscles burning, but adrenalin gave him the power to succeed. He was twenty feet from the door. Fifteen feet. Ten feet. Rasmus shouted something, but his words were lost in the breath of the storm. Five feet from the door. Two feet. He reached out his hand, yearning to be pulled to safety.
But no one helped him. Inambau eyed him with meaning and retreated from sight, and Rasmus gave him a short, sharp nod... the sort of look Danny imagined was reserved for condemned men. And then Rasmus stepped back too, allowing the storm to suck the door shut with a huge resounding clang. Danny was sealed in.
His eyes went wide. His fingers were an inch from the metal, then brushing tantalisingly across its surface, but suddenly his feet and legs were lifted out from under him and he was sucked screaming down the tunnel.
He would be mincemeat in the blink of an eye.
Closer... closer... closer...
‘Jayneyyy!’ he yelled in remorse, and then he disappeared into the Smash-Hypo's furious maw, with a blinding flash and a deafening screech of metal.
Abruptly the propeller lost velocity, grinding down the gears until it stopped. The deafening furore ended, the tunnel lay empty and still, falling into darkness once more, and the handle on the Smash-Hypo' ground to a halt with a final rusty creak.
But Danny was gone.
*
At first he was sure he was dead, mashed by the terrifying propeller. Oblivion met him... but not the kind he had been expecting. Instead of darkness, there was light. Instead of fear, there was warmth. Beautiful, comforting warmth. He had visions of psychedelic colours. Of weightlessness. Timelessness.
A sense of freedom from reality...
A trillion hues washed over him, images, feelings and thoughts. He smiled. Somehow he knew it was going to be okay - because if this was death, then death was good.
He had no sense of how long, if any time at all, he lingered in this state. It felt both momentary and eternal. What was that in the distance? A blinding light, and he was travelling towards it. He had no time to be afraid. Time didn’t seem to exist where Danny was now.
Only feelings.
Without trying he moved towards the light, into its touch, aware of another whirling torrent in its midst.
And then he was through, and in the next breath...
FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENS TO DANNY ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE SPACE TIME FOAM, AS HE SEARCHES FOR HIS MOTHER ON HIS FATHER'S EMPTY WORLD OF SEGNIMEDIA! BUY THE EBOOK FROM AMAZON - only £0.99/$0.99!
http://hyperurl.co/d8b0qo?IQid=qr
He marvelled again at the cool air being constantly flushed around in the spooky breathing motion. He saw pipes like the ones he had hid behind from D.A.N.I.E.L. and he reached out to touch them in interest. They hissed – one hot, one cold, but whereas earlier they had scalded him, now they just tickled his skin.
He held his fingers there a moment, a pipe in each hand, and inhaled deeply, as D.A.N.I.E.L. had done, his body refusing to feel any pain. This was incredible. He released his grip and his fingers merely tingled; he smiled, thoroughly pleased with his upgrades.
And then they arrived at the Smash-Hypo’ door, and Danny grew nervous. What was he getting himself into, trusting Rasmus...?
He watched as Rasmus unveiled a large switch within a hidden access panel on the wall - a metallic replica of the Smash-Hypo’ logo from the door, two concentric circles with an arrow bursting forth from the centre; Danny presumed it symbolised transmission to and from the Empty World. The arrow formed the pointer of the switch, which was encircled by Roman numerals like a clock.
Rasmus grasped the arrow switch and spun it, first right, then left, then right again, finding preset positions like a safe lock, careful not to let Danny see the sequence. The ring of dormant lights that encircled the door sparked into life, illuminating the corridor with bright white light and almost blinding Danny with its harshness. There was a rush of escaping air, a sound like exhaled breath, which tugged at Danny's hair briefly. He took a step back and gripped his canvas bag tight.
Rasmus turned to him with a smile. ‘Ready?’
Was he? Ready to see his Mum and Dad? What was he going to say to them – after all the pain he and Jayney had been put through? How could he forgive them? Did he want to? Shakily he indicated the warning on the door. ‘If it’s safe, why does it say danger of transmission?’
‘Questions, questions. I hate questions! Don’t be afraid, your father designed this.’
Rasmus depressed the switch with a theatrical push and the huge round door abruptly swung towards them. It was ten feet wide but being set ten feet into the wall, even fully open it didn’t encroach into the corridor. Danny tried to imagine the Smash-Hypo’ itself, some colossal great shining machine, perhaps accessible via a bridge over an enormous chasm. Maybe an impossible puzzle needed solving before a person could enter.
But there was only darkness beyond, a pipe-like tunnel stretching away into shadow, giving no indication of where it might lead. Danny looked at Inambau and Rasmus for support. Inambau flashed him his toothy grin and Rasmus urged him forwards.
Tentatively Danny stepped into the mouth of the tunnel. As soon as he crossed the threshold, rings of bright white lights pulsed into being around the curvature of the walls, like a ribcage one by one, until the entire length of the tunnel was lit.
Danny could just make something out at its very far end, an object of some kind.
‘Age before beauty,’ he quipped, standing back.
Rasmus cocked his head. ‘Why not?’
He led Danny down the pipe-like tunnel, which had a flat grated metal floor but was otherwise perfectly cylindrical. ‘You’re accepting this very well. You don’t seem afraid.’
‘Why would I be afraid?’ To his own surprise Danny’s fear was turning to excitement, and an odd sense of destiny. ‘I’m going to see my Mum and Dad,’ he said.
‘On another world,’ Rasmus reminded him. ‘In a parallel reality.’ Danny felt like Rasmus was trying to intentionally freak him out, so he ignored him.
At the far end, the tunnel swelled into a bulb- shaped chamber, in the centre of which was the strangest looking object Danny had ever seen, lashed together from countless disused machine parts, seemingly anything the maker could get his hands on. Car radiators. Pipes. Engine odds and ends. Spark plugs. Carburettors. Copious quantities of junk, like some monstrous motor from another world. It had no real shape or meaning, like an alien work of art. An unfathomable sculpture of industrial waste, bristling with car aerials poking out from between the seams. A satellite receiver dish or two rested amongst the explosion of metal protrusions.
Taken as a whole, it was rusty, old and dangerous looking, like something pieced together at a scrap yard. Out of its front jutted a most unusual handle, very large and nearly dominating the entire construction. It was like one of those handles used to wind up early cars, only ten times bigger.
‘What the hell is this?’ Danny said.
‘This,’ replied Rasmus proudly, drawing himself up to full height, ‘is your father’s Smash-crastiplated Hypo’eccentri-gestor.’
Danny cast his eyes over it in disappointment. ‘This is the Smash-Hypo'? What if it breaks, who mends it?’
Rasmus sighed. ‘It’s not going to break. Your father has told us everything we need to know in the event of an emergency. He’s waiting for you.’
Danny tried to swallow, but his throat was dry. ‘So if this thing is the transmitter – what’s the receiver?’
‘There’s another one on the other side. An exact clone of this. This is Smash-Hypo' One – your father’s original. Its counterpart, Smash-Hypo' Two, is on the Empty World.’ He said it as though they had no time to waste. ‘They’re hooked up together across the space time foam - so nothing can go wrong.’
Famous last words, thought Danny. ‘How many Smash-Hypo's are there?’
Rasmus gave an unreadable look. ‘Just the two... for now.’
‘And what do you do to make it work?
‘The handle. Take it. Crank it.’
Rasmus stepped back and Danny grabbed the outlandish handle. It was huge and completely out of place, bent in the middle - no, it had been snapped in two and re-attached, but at the wrong angle, which only made it look more clumsy. The handgrip was bulbous and dirty, scuffed and old, and the whole thing looked like a mistake. Unsure, he twisted it clockwise and after a creak of complaint, it began to turn quite smoothly. He pulled at it with more weight and it suddenly broke free of his grip, gaining velocity rapidly, spinning round and round.
As if in reaction, the rest of the machine kicked into life. A deep throated hum issued from the morass of salvaged junk and radiators rattled, aerials quivered and the smallest satellite receiver dish began to rotate as the handle spin increased. Danny stepped back, intrigued but apprehensive.
The handle lost definition and became a propeller, a whirling shimmer which kicked up a swift wind that forced him back. The ribcage of white lights along the pipe tunnel dimmed briefly, as if the machine was sucking the power from them, but then they grew in intensity, brighter than before. Danny turned to see Rasmus halfway down the tunnel, breaking into a run towards the circular hatch, where Inambau nervously hopped from foot to foot.
Danny’s eyes went wide. ‘Rasmus? What’s happening?!’
Rasmus threw him a giddy look and kept on running.
The wind was vicious now, blowing Danny back. The handle blurred before the machine, producing a thunderous roar as round and round it flashed. Danny eyed it fiercely, wanting to run. The force of its blast was nearly pushing him off his feet. And then, with a shock and a jolt, the handle stopped, shuddering like a flicked fork. Danny didn’t move. In the tunnel, Rasmus stopped running and turned to watch.
Silence.
‘Why d...?’ Danny began.
And then it happened. The handle whizzed back the
other way, impossibly fast. The Smash-Hypo' shook at the seams, threatening to come apart, smoking from its vents, the wind fearsome, the thunder deafening. But there was a marked difference now. This time, it wasn’t repelling him.
This time... it was sucking him in.
Rasmus set off running again, full pelt. Inambau panicked at the door, wide-eyed and desperate. ‘Come on, Rasmus man!’ Danny’s feet slid along the metal grating, helplessly attracted by the terrible machine. His hair whipped around his face and his screams were lost to the roar. It must have malfunctioned. If he stayed here a moment longer he would be killed, hacked into a million pieces by the whirling propeller – and if that happened, what would become of Jayney?
Desperately he turned and took off after Rasmus, stretching his legs as far as he could to maximise every step, confident his newfound power would help him out. Inambau was straining with the heavy metal hatch, struggling to keep it open until they reached him.
But the ferocious suction at Danny’s back was growing stronger and he had to fight to keep his feet from being sucked off the floor. He screamed out for help.
Rasmus reached the doorway and Inambau pulled him through, to the safety of the corridor beyond, but they’d only be truly safe once the door was closed tight. Danny had to hurry. It was supremely difficult - his upgraded strength was fading fast. He had seconds to reach them before his body would give in.
He ran harder, his muscles burning, but adrenalin gave him the power to succeed. He was twenty feet from the door. Fifteen feet. Ten feet. Rasmus shouted something, but his words were lost in the breath of the storm. Five feet from the door. Two feet. He reached out his hand, yearning to be pulled to safety.
But no one helped him. Inambau eyed him with meaning and retreated from sight, and Rasmus gave him a short, sharp nod... the sort of look Danny imagined was reserved for condemned men. And then Rasmus stepped back too, allowing the storm to suck the door shut with a huge resounding clang. Danny was sealed in.
His eyes went wide. His fingers were an inch from the metal, then brushing tantalisingly across its surface, but suddenly his feet and legs were lifted out from under him and he was sucked screaming down the tunnel.
He would be mincemeat in the blink of an eye.
Closer... closer... closer...
‘Jayneyyy!’ he yelled in remorse, and then he disappeared into the Smash-Hypo's furious maw, with a blinding flash and a deafening screech of metal.
Abruptly the propeller lost velocity, grinding down the gears until it stopped. The deafening furore ended, the tunnel lay empty and still, falling into darkness once more, and the handle on the Smash-Hypo' ground to a halt with a final rusty creak.
But Danny was gone.
*
At first he was sure he was dead, mashed by the terrifying propeller. Oblivion met him... but not the kind he had been expecting. Instead of darkness, there was light. Instead of fear, there was warmth. Beautiful, comforting warmth. He had visions of psychedelic colours. Of weightlessness. Timelessness.
A sense of freedom from reality...
A trillion hues washed over him, images, feelings and thoughts. He smiled. Somehow he knew it was going to be okay - because if this was death, then death was good.
He had no sense of how long, if any time at all, he lingered in this state. It felt both momentary and eternal. What was that in the distance? A blinding light, and he was travelling towards it. He had no time to be afraid. Time didn’t seem to exist where Danny was now.
Only feelings.
Without trying he moved towards the light, into its touch, aware of another whirling torrent in its midst.
And then he was through, and in the next breath...
FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENS TO DANNY ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE SPACE TIME FOAM, AS HE SEARCHES FOR HIS MOTHER ON HIS FATHER'S EMPTY WORLD OF SEGNIMEDIA! BUY THE EBOOK FROM AMAZON - only £0.99/$0.99!
http://hyperurl.co/d8b0qo?IQid=qr
January 11, 2017
Official Trivia Quiz: THE EMPTY WORLD
Have you read my novel THE EMPTY WORLD? Why not test your knowledge with a quiz? If you haven't, why not get your copy today and go hunting for the answers? It's just a bit of fun!
1) What is the name of the unique substance discovered beneath Danny's town?
2) What is it used for?
3) What is the name of the colossal machine which extracts and processes this material, plugged into the heart of the world's largest stalactite, which just happens to be situated two miles and ten feet beneath Danny's house? A coincidence? No!
4) The space time transmitter linked to this machine is known as the Smash-Hypo'... but what is Smash-Hypo' short for?
5) What is the name of the inter-worldly substance through which a person is transmitted to the Empty World?
6) What is the name of the Empty World?
7) What is the name of the sub-process which gathers everything up to be replaced at the arrival zone and transmits it across space and time to a set of pure vacuum coordinates where it can exist without repercussion?
8) What is the name of the scientific process which saw Danny's father laughed out of the military?
9) What, in simple terms, does it describe?
10) What is the name given to the sprawling expanse of refinery-like madness constructed to create the atmosphere on the Empty World?
11) What is the name of the great glass dome in which it is housed?
12) What is the name of the smaller dome, roughly one fifth its size?
13) What is the purpose of this smaller dome?
14) What is the name given to the machines which create breathable air for use inside these domes?
15) What is the name of Danny's school?
16) Who is the teacher replaced by Rasmus Creece?
17) Why did she leave (allegedly)?
18) Who is the huge dreadlocked scientist Danny spies poking his head out from the single pit on the building site beside Danny's house?
19) Why is this man so large?
20) What is the name of Jamil's father who used to work as lead architect on the building site... before he was unceremoniously removed?
21) What is the name of Danny's Aunt, who is hiding a great truth about Danny and his sister?
22) What is the name of Danny's sister?
23) What is the name of Danny's mother, lost beyond the dome?
24) What is the name of Danny's father?
25) Who is Danny's father's assistant?
26) What affiliation does this person have with Rasmus Creece?
27) What is the name of Rasmus' planned invention?
28) What will be the fate of Mankind if Rasmus is allowed to construct his terrible Machine?
29) What is the name of the bio-mechanical nano-implants which give Danny his superhuman strength?
30) What is the name of the mysterious power plant where Rasmus claims his design for the Mother Universe is but one button click away?
If you found these questions interesting but haven't bought your copy yet, why not grab THE EMPTY WORLD for yourself and have a go! YOU could add more questions to the list :D
http://hyperurl.co/d8b0qo?IQid=qr
1) What is the name of the unique substance discovered beneath Danny's town?
2) What is it used for?
3) What is the name of the colossal machine which extracts and processes this material, plugged into the heart of the world's largest stalactite, which just happens to be situated two miles and ten feet beneath Danny's house? A coincidence? No!
4) The space time transmitter linked to this machine is known as the Smash-Hypo'... but what is Smash-Hypo' short for?
5) What is the name of the inter-worldly substance through which a person is transmitted to the Empty World?
6) What is the name of the Empty World?
7) What is the name of the sub-process which gathers everything up to be replaced at the arrival zone and transmits it across space and time to a set of pure vacuum coordinates where it can exist without repercussion?
8) What is the name of the scientific process which saw Danny's father laughed out of the military?
9) What, in simple terms, does it describe?
10) What is the name given to the sprawling expanse of refinery-like madness constructed to create the atmosphere on the Empty World?
11) What is the name of the great glass dome in which it is housed?
12) What is the name of the smaller dome, roughly one fifth its size?
13) What is the purpose of this smaller dome?
14) What is the name given to the machines which create breathable air for use inside these domes?
15) What is the name of Danny's school?
16) Who is the teacher replaced by Rasmus Creece?
17) Why did she leave (allegedly)?
18) Who is the huge dreadlocked scientist Danny spies poking his head out from the single pit on the building site beside Danny's house?
19) Why is this man so large?
20) What is the name of Jamil's father who used to work as lead architect on the building site... before he was unceremoniously removed?
21) What is the name of Danny's Aunt, who is hiding a great truth about Danny and his sister?
22) What is the name of Danny's sister?
23) What is the name of Danny's mother, lost beyond the dome?
24) What is the name of Danny's father?
25) Who is Danny's father's assistant?
26) What affiliation does this person have with Rasmus Creece?
27) What is the name of Rasmus' planned invention?
28) What will be the fate of Mankind if Rasmus is allowed to construct his terrible Machine?
29) What is the name of the bio-mechanical nano-implants which give Danny his superhuman strength?
30) What is the name of the mysterious power plant where Rasmus claims his design for the Mother Universe is but one button click away?
If you found these questions interesting but haven't bought your copy yet, why not grab THE EMPTY WORLD for yourself and have a go! YOU could add more questions to the list :D
http://hyperurl.co/d8b0qo?IQid=qr
May 19, 2016
SCIENTISTS HAVE CLONED PLANET EARTH
Ex-military scientist Robert Ringrose has today announced a historic plan to extend the lifespan of the human race beyond the physical demise of Planet Earth.
Scientists have long pondered on the future of humanity and the possibility of discovering other worlds we can call our own. Scientific breakthroughs in recent years have cast light on many distant solar systems which may contain a planet much like ours, worlds with water and a breathable atmosphere which, once colonised, may offer humans a second place to hang its hat. But the logistics of moving the human race to another planet has so far relegated such a concept to science fiction.
Ringrose, infamous for his involvement in the British military's controversial Human Enhancement Program which was outlawed as immoral at the turn of the century, has unveiled what he calls 'a truly historic breakthrough in the battle to secure longevity for Mankind.' Since departing the worldwide scientific community fifteen years ago, following controversial revelations he was working on a project which would allow instant mass production of inanimate objects without raw source material - by effectively cloning stones - Ringrose has now revealed a fifteen year secret science Project he has been working on in secret beneath the streets of Sphagnum Moss, an unassuming town not far from London, where a deep mining corporation owned by billionaire businessman Rasmus Creece has reportedly discovered a unique fuel element deep inside the Earth.
The element, known as ptostrinosil, has allowed scientists working on the Project to harness the natural negative energy it contains and create a wormhole in the space time foam, hitherto thought to be impossible. Coupled with Ringrose's successes at cloning stones - a process he describes as non biologic particle multiplicity - the team have managed to create a manmade parallel universe. 'It occurred to me,' says Robert, of the time spent attempting to reproduce atoms in the lab, 'that if you can clone a stone, you can clone the world. And that's exactly what I've done. A complete carbon copy of Planet Earth. The re-Creation ... of Creation.'
No mean feat, Ringrose has given birth to a brand new world, identical in every way to Planet Earth, but minus the atmosphere, minus the animals, minus the life. 'It will take many years before the Empty World (affectionately named Segnimedia after a world Robert created as a child in his head) will be able to support human life. Many species of plant life will need to be introduced. We're far from the day when humanity will be able to move there, but we're one step closer with every new dawn.'
Where is this brand new planet? I hear you ask. Ringrose explains:
'It isn't possible to place our Empty World in the Mother Universe. It would have to be at the same distance from the sun as us, in our orbit. The results of adding such an object to our solar system would be disastrous, it needs a brand new system of its own in which to exist.' (And a brand new sun). Ringrose claims to have created a carbon copy of everything - yes, everything - and placed it next to our everything, sitting side by side in the space time foam, the name given to the chaotic subatomic state that exists within all particles, as tiny wormholes flash into and out of existence, binding one point in space and time to another in random fashion. So far it hasn't been possible to forcefully manufacture such a wormhole, or keep it open long enough to consider a journey to the other side (wherever it may lead); now, with the discovery of ptostrinosil and the negative energy it contains, such a process is now possible.
Ringrose promises ptostrinosil will be made available for other uses once the Project is complete - the rights to the element's usage is currently owned exclusively by the corporation owned by Rasmus Creece - but Ringrose has been able to construct a transmitter which can be pointed at the other end of his manufactured wormhole, so designed to transport a person from Earth to his empty world of Segnimedia. 'The transmitter itself is admittedly rather daunting,' Ringrose admits. 'In its present state it's certainly a risk, but scientists have been sent to my newborn world. Work has begun there on cultivating a breathable atmosphere. Soon there will be swathes of us, moving in unison across the land, exploring, developing, preparing for the day humanity can make Segnimedia its home.'
It sounds like science fiction. It's science fact. 'Today marks the first day of the future of Mankind. Today the human race is secured survival beyond the end of Planet Earth. And if we can clone one world, we can clone a million.' It's obvious from one conversation with Robert Ringrose that he has saved the human race. But what of the man behind the money? Next we speak to Rasmus Creece, the man behind the discovery of the super-fuel, and the possibilities ptostrinosil holds for other causes ...
More information on this startling event can be found here: http://hyperurl.co/d8b0qo?IQid=qr
Scientists have long pondered on the future of humanity and the possibility of discovering other worlds we can call our own. Scientific breakthroughs in recent years have cast light on many distant solar systems which may contain a planet much like ours, worlds with water and a breathable atmosphere which, once colonised, may offer humans a second place to hang its hat. But the logistics of moving the human race to another planet has so far relegated such a concept to science fiction.
Ringrose, infamous for his involvement in the British military's controversial Human Enhancement Program which was outlawed as immoral at the turn of the century, has unveiled what he calls 'a truly historic breakthrough in the battle to secure longevity for Mankind.' Since departing the worldwide scientific community fifteen years ago, following controversial revelations he was working on a project which would allow instant mass production of inanimate objects without raw source material - by effectively cloning stones - Ringrose has now revealed a fifteen year secret science Project he has been working on in secret beneath the streets of Sphagnum Moss, an unassuming town not far from London, where a deep mining corporation owned by billionaire businessman Rasmus Creece has reportedly discovered a unique fuel element deep inside the Earth.
The element, known as ptostrinosil, has allowed scientists working on the Project to harness the natural negative energy it contains and create a wormhole in the space time foam, hitherto thought to be impossible. Coupled with Ringrose's successes at cloning stones - a process he describes as non biologic particle multiplicity - the team have managed to create a manmade parallel universe. 'It occurred to me,' says Robert, of the time spent attempting to reproduce atoms in the lab, 'that if you can clone a stone, you can clone the world. And that's exactly what I've done. A complete carbon copy of Planet Earth. The re-Creation ... of Creation.'
No mean feat, Ringrose has given birth to a brand new world, identical in every way to Planet Earth, but minus the atmosphere, minus the animals, minus the life. 'It will take many years before the Empty World (affectionately named Segnimedia after a world Robert created as a child in his head) will be able to support human life. Many species of plant life will need to be introduced. We're far from the day when humanity will be able to move there, but we're one step closer with every new dawn.'
Where is this brand new planet? I hear you ask. Ringrose explains:
'It isn't possible to place our Empty World in the Mother Universe. It would have to be at the same distance from the sun as us, in our orbit. The results of adding such an object to our solar system would be disastrous, it needs a brand new system of its own in which to exist.' (And a brand new sun). Ringrose claims to have created a carbon copy of everything - yes, everything - and placed it next to our everything, sitting side by side in the space time foam, the name given to the chaotic subatomic state that exists within all particles, as tiny wormholes flash into and out of existence, binding one point in space and time to another in random fashion. So far it hasn't been possible to forcefully manufacture such a wormhole, or keep it open long enough to consider a journey to the other side (wherever it may lead); now, with the discovery of ptostrinosil and the negative energy it contains, such a process is now possible.
Ringrose promises ptostrinosil will be made available for other uses once the Project is complete - the rights to the element's usage is currently owned exclusively by the corporation owned by Rasmus Creece - but Ringrose has been able to construct a transmitter which can be pointed at the other end of his manufactured wormhole, so designed to transport a person from Earth to his empty world of Segnimedia. 'The transmitter itself is admittedly rather daunting,' Ringrose admits. 'In its present state it's certainly a risk, but scientists have been sent to my newborn world. Work has begun there on cultivating a breathable atmosphere. Soon there will be swathes of us, moving in unison across the land, exploring, developing, preparing for the day humanity can make Segnimedia its home.'
It sounds like science fiction. It's science fact. 'Today marks the first day of the future of Mankind. Today the human race is secured survival beyond the end of Planet Earth. And if we can clone one world, we can clone a million.' It's obvious from one conversation with Robert Ringrose that he has saved the human race. But what of the man behind the money? Next we speak to Rasmus Creece, the man behind the discovery of the super-fuel, and the possibilities ptostrinosil holds for other causes ...
More information on this startling event can be found here: http://hyperurl.co/d8b0qo?IQid=qr
December 29, 2015
CALLING ALL CONCEPT ARTISTS! FANCY HELPING BRING A BOOK TO LIFE...?
Some of you may remember me as Several Sided Sid; I used to build downloadable multiplayer levels for Lucasarts' PC game Jedi Academy, way back in its heyday.
You can check my portfolio out here:
https://www.facebook.com/SeveralSidedSid
Since then I have returned to my original love of writing, and have written and self-published my debut sci-fi novel, THE EMPTY WORLD (The Segnimedia Project Book 1). I had agent representation for this for quite a while but it's so hard to get into traditional print that I have put it out on Amazon and have been trying to tell people about it ever since. I've built some locations from the book using the Doom 3 editor, showing the dark metal corridors that my teenage hero Danny Ringrose discovers beneath his garden.
(Intrigued? Check the book out here:)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/EMPTY-Andrew-...
Young Danny's father was a world renowned scientist who went missing a year ago. He had been laughed out of the scientific community shortly before Danny's birth, for claiming he had discovered the secret of cloning stones. Since then Danny's father Robert Ringrose has been working in secret in a hidden facility known as Project Control underneath his garden, the entrance to which is disguised as a long-delayed building site right next to Danny's house, unbeknownst to Danny and his little sister Jayney, and Robert hasn't just succeeded in cloning stones... he has created a carbon copy of Planet Earth (called Segnimedia), 'the Re-Creation of Creation', which he has had to house in its very own manmade parallel universe (also created by his cloning process, known as ‘non biologic particle multiplicity’) to keep it secret until it is ready to become a brand new home for all Mankind!
It's exciting stuff, the science in it explains that it's entirely (theoretically) possible to do what Robert's done (okay, a little suspension of disbelief is required, as with all science fiction) and the book will give way to a whole series in its wake. I've already drafted out the plots for Books 2 and 3, THE BIG BANG MACHINE and SPACE TIME ZERO, in every detail, and I'm well on with the manuscript for THE BIG BANG MACHINE.
What I'm looking to do next is create a compelling trailer for the book, and maybe use it to plug the screenplay adaptation which I have also written. I've put seven years plus into this project so I'm not about to stop! If any environment modellers, mappers, 3D artists or traditional artists of any medium would care to help me conceptualize the locations, incredible machines, or even the central characters, it could be an amazing thing.
It's not something I could pay you for, but it would be something you could put in your portfolio, and who knows, if THE EMPTY WORLD ever became the success I have always believed that it can be, then wouldn't it be great to say you'd been a part of it from the start? There's a lot of fodder for invention in its pages.
As far as the locations and machines that you would be building (just picking one would be fine, if I end up with several designs of the same location or machine, that's not a problem, it might help me to arrive at a final concept) here's a list of the things I am looking for plans for. They might not make a lot of sense without reading the book, but will hopefully pique your interest nonetheless:
Earth-based:
The building site and the entrance pit (beside Danny’s house).
The abandoned terraces on Ravenstone Crescent.
The brand new retail complex which suddenly replaces the building site almost overnight (beside Danny’s house).
Danny’s house interior.
Danny's back garden and the boarded up outhouse (another secret entrance to the research facility below).
The corridors beneath the garden (Project Control).
The modifications chamber where Danny is biologically upgraded.
The medical suite where Danny awakes.
The Rec Room and adjoining conference room for the Project Control scientists.
The Smash-Hypo’ hatch and pipe tunnel area (the Smash-Hypo', which is an abbreviation of Smash-crastiplated Hypo'eccentri-gestor, is the terrifying transmitter which sends a person to the Empty World of Segnimedia).
The Smash-Hypo' itself (a detailed description is included in the book).
Empty World-based:
The elevator station and touch-activated staircase to the woods.
The hidden entrance in the woods.
The house at the edge of the woods.
Machine Town (a crazy refinery which creates the atmosphere on the Empty World) and the Sanctum Tower (a tall communications turret at the centre of Machine Town).
The Sanctum Tower medical room where Danny awakes.
Comms control room at the Sanctum Tower.
ATMOS’ control room at the Sanctum Tower.
The Northern Airlock of the great glass habitation dome known as the Bubble, which keeps Machine Town’s residents safe from the deadly air outside.
The Botany Bubble (about one fifth the Bubble's size and housing vegetation).
The Blast Steeple platform and stalactite caves (housed two miles beneath the ground in a sunken chasm known as the Throat of the World, this is the power source for the Smash-Hypo', drawing natural energy from the planet's Core).
Atmospheric Reporting Post ARP Slash Seventeen (a lonely shelter lost on the moors).
The Eye (control room underneath the Empty World's Bubble Complex facility housed beneath the woods).
The Sanctum Tower foyer and lifesuit locker room.
The Buggys and the Auto bots in the fog (all is explained in the book).
Bubble Two - the L-shape pipe cell.
Bubble Two – Jayney’s prison block.
Bubble Two – the electric courtyard.
Bubble Two – the buggy chase route through Machine Town Two.
The wormhole crater (the only possible route home from the Empty World)...
Reading the book is the only way to get a feel for these locations and how they fit together. I am hoping some of you might want to get on board...?
Looking forward to your thoughts,
Andrew Reeves
(aka Several Sided Sid)
You can email me on:
sssid@hotmail.co.uk
Or DM me on Twitter:
@AndrewReeves_
or
@SeveralSidedSid
Many thanks for reading!
You can check my portfolio out here:
https://www.facebook.com/SeveralSidedSid
Since then I have returned to my original love of writing, and have written and self-published my debut sci-fi novel, THE EMPTY WORLD (The Segnimedia Project Book 1). I had agent representation for this for quite a while but it's so hard to get into traditional print that I have put it out on Amazon and have been trying to tell people about it ever since. I've built some locations from the book using the Doom 3 editor, showing the dark metal corridors that my teenage hero Danny Ringrose discovers beneath his garden.
(Intrigued? Check the book out here:)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/EMPTY-Andrew-...
Young Danny's father was a world renowned scientist who went missing a year ago. He had been laughed out of the scientific community shortly before Danny's birth, for claiming he had discovered the secret of cloning stones. Since then Danny's father Robert Ringrose has been working in secret in a hidden facility known as Project Control underneath his garden, the entrance to which is disguised as a long-delayed building site right next to Danny's house, unbeknownst to Danny and his little sister Jayney, and Robert hasn't just succeeded in cloning stones... he has created a carbon copy of Planet Earth (called Segnimedia), 'the Re-Creation of Creation', which he has had to house in its very own manmade parallel universe (also created by his cloning process, known as ‘non biologic particle multiplicity’) to keep it secret until it is ready to become a brand new home for all Mankind!
It's exciting stuff, the science in it explains that it's entirely (theoretically) possible to do what Robert's done (okay, a little suspension of disbelief is required, as with all science fiction) and the book will give way to a whole series in its wake. I've already drafted out the plots for Books 2 and 3, THE BIG BANG MACHINE and SPACE TIME ZERO, in every detail, and I'm well on with the manuscript for THE BIG BANG MACHINE.
What I'm looking to do next is create a compelling trailer for the book, and maybe use it to plug the screenplay adaptation which I have also written. I've put seven years plus into this project so I'm not about to stop! If any environment modellers, mappers, 3D artists or traditional artists of any medium would care to help me conceptualize the locations, incredible machines, or even the central characters, it could be an amazing thing.
It's not something I could pay you for, but it would be something you could put in your portfolio, and who knows, if THE EMPTY WORLD ever became the success I have always believed that it can be, then wouldn't it be great to say you'd been a part of it from the start? There's a lot of fodder for invention in its pages.
As far as the locations and machines that you would be building (just picking one would be fine, if I end up with several designs of the same location or machine, that's not a problem, it might help me to arrive at a final concept) here's a list of the things I am looking for plans for. They might not make a lot of sense without reading the book, but will hopefully pique your interest nonetheless:
Earth-based:
The building site and the entrance pit (beside Danny’s house).
The abandoned terraces on Ravenstone Crescent.
The brand new retail complex which suddenly replaces the building site almost overnight (beside Danny’s house).
Danny’s house interior.
Danny's back garden and the boarded up outhouse (another secret entrance to the research facility below).
The corridors beneath the garden (Project Control).
The modifications chamber where Danny is biologically upgraded.
The medical suite where Danny awakes.
The Rec Room and adjoining conference room for the Project Control scientists.
The Smash-Hypo’ hatch and pipe tunnel area (the Smash-Hypo', which is an abbreviation of Smash-crastiplated Hypo'eccentri-gestor, is the terrifying transmitter which sends a person to the Empty World of Segnimedia).
The Smash-Hypo' itself (a detailed description is included in the book).
Empty World-based:
The elevator station and touch-activated staircase to the woods.
The hidden entrance in the woods.
The house at the edge of the woods.
Machine Town (a crazy refinery which creates the atmosphere on the Empty World) and the Sanctum Tower (a tall communications turret at the centre of Machine Town).
The Sanctum Tower medical room where Danny awakes.
Comms control room at the Sanctum Tower.
ATMOS’ control room at the Sanctum Tower.
The Northern Airlock of the great glass habitation dome known as the Bubble, which keeps Machine Town’s residents safe from the deadly air outside.
The Botany Bubble (about one fifth the Bubble's size and housing vegetation).
The Blast Steeple platform and stalactite caves (housed two miles beneath the ground in a sunken chasm known as the Throat of the World, this is the power source for the Smash-Hypo', drawing natural energy from the planet's Core).
Atmospheric Reporting Post ARP Slash Seventeen (a lonely shelter lost on the moors).
The Eye (control room underneath the Empty World's Bubble Complex facility housed beneath the woods).
The Sanctum Tower foyer and lifesuit locker room.
The Buggys and the Auto bots in the fog (all is explained in the book).
Bubble Two - the L-shape pipe cell.
Bubble Two – Jayney’s prison block.
Bubble Two – the electric courtyard.
Bubble Two – the buggy chase route through Machine Town Two.
The wormhole crater (the only possible route home from the Empty World)...
Reading the book is the only way to get a feel for these locations and how they fit together. I am hoping some of you might want to get on board...?
Looking forward to your thoughts,
Andrew Reeves
(aka Several Sided Sid)
You can email me on:
sssid@hotmail.co.uk
Or DM me on Twitter:
@AndrewReeves_
or
@SeveralSidedSid
Many thanks for reading!
November 23, 2015
FROM THE CONCEPT TO THE PAGE (and a million miles of struggle in between) A look at the writer's journey by Andrew Reeves, author of The Empty World
Some of you may be familiar with my YA sci-fi novel The Empty World, and my young hero, Danny Ringrose, whose genius dad has cracked the secret of cloning stones and created a brand new Earth in a manmade parallel universe, as an intended second home for Mankind. It’s exciting stuff. What you won't be aware of is how difficult it has been for me to get the novel off the ground. I’d like to tell you a little bit about that, to give you some idea of the incredibly difficult journey my book's creation has had me on. It may help you prepare for your own epic struggle, or at the very least give you some idea of the expectations put on writers by the industry.
A few years ago I reckoned up all the emails I’d sent to literary agents, publishers and production companies regarding the many manuscripts and screenplays I had written. Probably 95% of those people either never replied or were kind enough to write back and say they had no time to read my work. Those emails totalled between 3 and 4 thousand - my only consolation at the time was that at least I hadn't paid for all the postage stamps!
After a lifetime of trying to find myself a publisher, I finally seemed to strike it lucky. I'd completed my final draft of The Empty World, after three months of fleshing out preparatory notes (my favourite way to work) and a further eighteen months spent working on the manuscript, and as soon as it was completed - literally that day - I emailed a short synopsis of the plot to several hand-picked agents I’d chosen to approach from the Writers' & Artists' Yearbook. I knew in my heart it would meet the same fate as everything else I’d written: some interest (if I was lucky), a few near misses, but in the end a big resounding NO.
Imagine my utter delight when a nice man at a London publishers who don't usually publish fiction excitedly replied to my email about two hours later, requesting I send it to no one else and give them a week's exclusivity to decide whether or not to publish my beloved book! I was ecstatic. And proud. And hopeful. He emailed the manuscript to his Managing Director who was currently at a meeting in America. The excitement grew and I waited a week until their decision had been made... they wouldn't be publishing my book. I was devastated - of course - but familiar with the feeling. This had been the closest I’d ever come to a yes and I had allowed myself to dare to hope. He said it wasn’t his decision and if it was up to him he would have said yes - this lifted my spirits and convinced me it was worth sending the story out to others. So I carried on submitting.
To my excitement, the literary agent who would become my agent emailed me back and said, “Why don't you send over the first three chapters and I'll take a look?” This was really exciting. I sent him the first three chapters and sat and waited. It was at this time I also lost my job, when the call centre I was working for got relocated and the recession of 2008 descended, making work very hard to find. The Empty World was no longer simply a novel to me; it felt like my only ticket to a future. My agent replied a couple of weeks later, with frustrating, and potentially devastating news. He said my writing was good, and everything necessary for a really good book was there... but I’d made the classic mistake that every new writer makes: I’d written too much.
I know now that as writers we should put on the page only what is absolutely necessary. This doesn't just apply to overlong sentences or unnecessary character history, but right down to lines of dialogue, facial expressions, anything which detracts from the point. If it's action, write concisely what happens, if it's dialogue, have your characters say only what the reader needs to know. My agent said I’d written about three times more than I needed to and that it would need a hefty redraft before it was okay. Being unemployed I had time on my side and enough enthusiasm to roll Planet Earth a little closer to the Moon, so I wrote straight back to him and said I would cut it by two thirds and send it back. My enthusiasm must have excited him because he said he'd show me what he meant and sent me a redline document showing his corrections, so I could see exactly where he thought I’d gone wrong. Fired up by this, I made the changes I could stomach making to my beloved first three chapters and sent them back, accompanied by the next little chunk.
This was how work progressed for the next few months, the manuscript being pored over right down to the comma level on every single page. It was fun but exasperating, frustrating but exciting. Finally someone was taking my writing seriously. And it wasn't just an exercise in proper sentence structure; my agent suggested I lose whole chunks where I’d followed the adventures of lesser characters than the hero, insisting I stick with the hero at all times, to give the reader one focal point. This was especially important, he said, with a YA book.
He suggested where I should treat the reader to further explanations of the incredible science I had created in my world, and the machines that made this weird science possible; I was free to agree or disagree with anything he said, but I knew he was on a mission to have the book read like it was written by a seasoned author and I trusted him implicitly.
The first time I deleted a scene it almost killed me. Now I love identifying bits of story that are unnecessarily clogging the page, absorbing the most important aspects of a scene or conversation into its proper position in the story, and axing the rest with a resounding plop! Any deletion of word chaff is an improvement, and for me it’s the most enjoyable part of the process. Writing is rewriting.
The whole exercise was akin to adapting a movie from a TV series. By the time we had finished, my original manuscript, which had stood at 728 pages (147,000 words) was now roughly half the size, but was definitely twice the book it had been. The process was long and painful, but when we'd finished, when all the reworking had been said and done, when I was preparing myself for submission of my far superior manuscript to the publishers... a second pair of eyes at the agency took a look. And said it couldn't possibly be submitted to a publisher in its present state!
I felt the whole world yanked from underneath me. I needed explanation. The explanation was simple: we'd done a great job of identifying all unnecessary junk and scenes and characters and descriptions, we'd shortened the plot and made it jump out from the page, capturing everything I was striving to capture with my very first draft. And all in the name of keeping a steady pace. Timed everything correctly. But in agent number two's opinion, one very simple (and probably the most important) rule had been slightly overlooked.
And that was suspension of disbelief. No matter how far-fetched an idea is, so long as you present it in a way that makes sense... then anything will work. But there was one scene in The Empty World that agent number two felt stretched suspension of disbelief a little too far. That's okay, you might think, just change it. But that one scene was the springboard scene for everything that came after. Which meant a potential rewrite of the entire second half. I was crushed.
Unemployed and desperate for a sale, believing the past few months of blood, sweat and tears were finally at an end, I was suddenly given this new dilemma. The transitional part of the novel didn't work. I could have given in right there and then, I don't normally fight so strong, but my story and its sequels meant everything to me, so I buckled down and forced myself to fix it. It turned out not to be so bad. Took a few weeks work to incorporate the changes; if you're familiar with my book it concerned how young Danny actually ends up being underground when he least expects it, in his father's research facility that has been hiding beneath his garden all his life. I'd spent whole chapters just to get him there, whereas now it happens all at once, and to the story's benefit.
Once that was fixed, we were pretty much done. Everything - and I mean everything - was theoretically believable. Just another draft and all Easter weekend on the phone to agent number two, going through the manuscript word by word. Eventually we all agreed it was finally ready for submission to the publishers. This nicely coincided with me finding work so everything seemed on the up, as I waited for offers of publication to come flooding in.
I was in for disappointment, in the form of some very nice rejections from some publishers. Silly me for thinking getting an agent was a deal signed, even after several exacting redrafts. The most annoying rejection, from a huge publisher indeed, informed me my book was well written and well plotted but their list was presently full in that genre, a comment which still has me tearing my hair out of an evening. (A metaphor. If that were true I would be bald. I'm not bald). After these rejections, when it seemed all our very hard work had been for nothing, my agent gave me the most tortuous six weeks of my entire creative life. Here's how she did it: she said, “Make the book better.”
“Better how?” I asked her.
“I don't know. Just better.”
I couldn't believe it. I'd been through so many redrafts and such a lot of tears and frustration, and here I was faced with yet another setback. And this time I had to sort it out completely by myself. No one was going to be giving me any input. Maybe they were testing my mettle as a writer. Perhaps, like me, they’d drawn a blank. But I had to turn a failing manuscript around, one which I couldn't understand why no one would buy, and make it something no one could refuse. So I sat and stared and thought and stared and sat... then stared and sat and thought and sat and stared. It took so much out of me, those six weeks, but I was determined my book would be loved by anyone who read it.
Eventually, after drawing a total blank as to what was needed, I was able to get some distance from the story and look at it again - yet again - from someone else's point of view. The most important part of the writing process is the time spent away from the page, in those moments when inspiration just kind of floats into your brain. And the answer hit me. Suddenly I realised the only way to improve the story, and it was obvious.
Basically my young hero Danny had previously never known anything about his father being a ridiculed scientist, or any of his father’s work for the military, but it struck me the only feasible improvement I could make would be to have Danny well aware of his father's past from the outset, and in fact give Danny moments of unexplainable strength, where he worries his father's old work on the Human Enhancement Program for the military may have been performed on him at birth. This leaves Danny an unwitting superhuman, and far more able to deal with the truth of what his father has created when he is eventually told about the Empty World.
This actually makes Danny a far more interesting and important character from the get-go, and has gone a long way I think to involving the reader more deeply right away. I'm so glad my agent told me to 'make it better'. I never would have chosen to do so at the time... but I'm very thankful that she did. So I set about incorporating Danny’s new knowledge-set throughout the entire manuscript, which meant knowing every sentence and how everything would be affected by the change. Staying on top of that was mind-numbing... like rewriting an entire book by hardly changing anything at all, just being aware of all the little things that had to change, inner thoughts of characters at any point in the tale.
My agent approved of my shiny new draft and it went out again. What was so infuriating for me was that I had no idea which publishers they were sending it to, or how soon these publishers normally responded; I had to play the waiting game as I eagerly worked on the plots for the next two instalments, The Big Bang Machine and Space Time Zero, and tried my hardest to be patient. When the inevitable rejections started to arrive, still the same replies - everybody thought my book was well written, well plotted and well edited, some simply didn't feel it was in their genre (that's their prerogative) and nobody offered me a deal. It was sooo disheartening.
I personally think the major reason no publisher said yes at the time was down to timing, and unlucky timing at that. This was around 2010-11 and Twilight was all the rage, all you ever found on shelves was vampire stories; my agent even said, “Wouldn't you like to write a vampire story?” but I think it was a joke. I actually have a great plot for a vampire story.
Eventually the agent who had discovered me moved on from the agency and my involvement with the agency soon after ended, though on great terms; I'd pitched various other ideas to them for my next book and written the first draft of a new YA sci-fi novel, plus two drafts of a psychological thriller screenplay (currently doing the rounds of the relevant agencies and production companies). I went on to write that second novel whilst in between jobs again, and it was as important for it to succeed as The Empty World; as soon as I’d finished work on the first draft I returned to work, and a fellow writer there suggested I self-publish using Amazon.
I hadn't heard of the concept, it had never been mentioned to me by my agent, as it was still a relatively new phenomenon for independent authors. I dragged my heels and took my time, whilst completing the plot for Space Time Zero and redrafting my thriller screenplay another two times, this time under the excellent guidance of an independent movie producer. Eventually I got myself in gear, researched what I had to do... and self-published The Empty World through Amazon. The response was delightful. People were finally reading and reviewing it - after all my hard work - and although it wasn't quite the outcome I’d been chasing (it wasn’t traditionally published) what mattered more was the great support from the readers.
Even if I knew nobody would read a book that I was writing, I'd still make sure it was the best thing I could write - because ultimately, an author needs to write for his or her own enjoyment; such passion will always show in a person's writing.
As soon as The Empty World was available on Amazon, my former agent was kind enough to put me in touch with the commissioning editor of a major UK publisher, who was so behind the novel and its planned sequels that he championed it to his International Office. This was all very exciting... yet again. Now I had a publisher interested in my finished product, and it seemed that surely now things would really happen...
Nope. Their ultimate decision was unfortunately not to publish, despite the commissioning editor's big plans for the story. Once again I'd hit a brick wall, except this time I'd learned that even finding an interested publisher was not a deal signed! Since then I have submitted the book to a gamut of literary agents. The response has been almost non-existent. I feel a writer’s biggest hurdle in getting noticed these days is the amount of competition; it’s like blowing a dog whistle in a thunderstorm and hoping somebody will hear. It's been a long and arduous journey bringing The Empty World to life, and has required the utmost self-belief on my part.
I know the journey isn't nearly over - the challenge that faces all self-published authors is the quagmire of self-promotion. I'm still trying to get my head round that little beauty, but I hope in some way this little article explaining my personal experiences has given you some understanding of the obstacles all authors face.
But like all battles, you're fighting for an outcome - or an income (if you’re lucky). That said, the possibility of making money from writing should never be your catalyst. It's getting read that has always been important. I have now adapted my book into Danny Ringrose And The Empty World, a movie screenplay and episodic TV series. I've no idea what the future holds, but knowing I've done my all to make it better makes me smile every day. So the upshot of my time here is... never give up!
If you have a book in you, write it! If you have a story to tell, tell it to the world! It's always worth the hard work you put in.
Find me on Twitter at:
@AndrewReeves_
and:
@SeveralSidedSid
And on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/AuthorAndrew...
A few years ago I reckoned up all the emails I’d sent to literary agents, publishers and production companies regarding the many manuscripts and screenplays I had written. Probably 95% of those people either never replied or were kind enough to write back and say they had no time to read my work. Those emails totalled between 3 and 4 thousand - my only consolation at the time was that at least I hadn't paid for all the postage stamps!
After a lifetime of trying to find myself a publisher, I finally seemed to strike it lucky. I'd completed my final draft of The Empty World, after three months of fleshing out preparatory notes (my favourite way to work) and a further eighteen months spent working on the manuscript, and as soon as it was completed - literally that day - I emailed a short synopsis of the plot to several hand-picked agents I’d chosen to approach from the Writers' & Artists' Yearbook. I knew in my heart it would meet the same fate as everything else I’d written: some interest (if I was lucky), a few near misses, but in the end a big resounding NO.
Imagine my utter delight when a nice man at a London publishers who don't usually publish fiction excitedly replied to my email about two hours later, requesting I send it to no one else and give them a week's exclusivity to decide whether or not to publish my beloved book! I was ecstatic. And proud. And hopeful. He emailed the manuscript to his Managing Director who was currently at a meeting in America. The excitement grew and I waited a week until their decision had been made... they wouldn't be publishing my book. I was devastated - of course - but familiar with the feeling. This had been the closest I’d ever come to a yes and I had allowed myself to dare to hope. He said it wasn’t his decision and if it was up to him he would have said yes - this lifted my spirits and convinced me it was worth sending the story out to others. So I carried on submitting.
To my excitement, the literary agent who would become my agent emailed me back and said, “Why don't you send over the first three chapters and I'll take a look?” This was really exciting. I sent him the first three chapters and sat and waited. It was at this time I also lost my job, when the call centre I was working for got relocated and the recession of 2008 descended, making work very hard to find. The Empty World was no longer simply a novel to me; it felt like my only ticket to a future. My agent replied a couple of weeks later, with frustrating, and potentially devastating news. He said my writing was good, and everything necessary for a really good book was there... but I’d made the classic mistake that every new writer makes: I’d written too much.
I know now that as writers we should put on the page only what is absolutely necessary. This doesn't just apply to overlong sentences or unnecessary character history, but right down to lines of dialogue, facial expressions, anything which detracts from the point. If it's action, write concisely what happens, if it's dialogue, have your characters say only what the reader needs to know. My agent said I’d written about three times more than I needed to and that it would need a hefty redraft before it was okay. Being unemployed I had time on my side and enough enthusiasm to roll Planet Earth a little closer to the Moon, so I wrote straight back to him and said I would cut it by two thirds and send it back. My enthusiasm must have excited him because he said he'd show me what he meant and sent me a redline document showing his corrections, so I could see exactly where he thought I’d gone wrong. Fired up by this, I made the changes I could stomach making to my beloved first three chapters and sent them back, accompanied by the next little chunk.
This was how work progressed for the next few months, the manuscript being pored over right down to the comma level on every single page. It was fun but exasperating, frustrating but exciting. Finally someone was taking my writing seriously. And it wasn't just an exercise in proper sentence structure; my agent suggested I lose whole chunks where I’d followed the adventures of lesser characters than the hero, insisting I stick with the hero at all times, to give the reader one focal point. This was especially important, he said, with a YA book.
He suggested where I should treat the reader to further explanations of the incredible science I had created in my world, and the machines that made this weird science possible; I was free to agree or disagree with anything he said, but I knew he was on a mission to have the book read like it was written by a seasoned author and I trusted him implicitly.
The first time I deleted a scene it almost killed me. Now I love identifying bits of story that are unnecessarily clogging the page, absorbing the most important aspects of a scene or conversation into its proper position in the story, and axing the rest with a resounding plop! Any deletion of word chaff is an improvement, and for me it’s the most enjoyable part of the process. Writing is rewriting.
The whole exercise was akin to adapting a movie from a TV series. By the time we had finished, my original manuscript, which had stood at 728 pages (147,000 words) was now roughly half the size, but was definitely twice the book it had been. The process was long and painful, but when we'd finished, when all the reworking had been said and done, when I was preparing myself for submission of my far superior manuscript to the publishers... a second pair of eyes at the agency took a look. And said it couldn't possibly be submitted to a publisher in its present state!
I felt the whole world yanked from underneath me. I needed explanation. The explanation was simple: we'd done a great job of identifying all unnecessary junk and scenes and characters and descriptions, we'd shortened the plot and made it jump out from the page, capturing everything I was striving to capture with my very first draft. And all in the name of keeping a steady pace. Timed everything correctly. But in agent number two's opinion, one very simple (and probably the most important) rule had been slightly overlooked.
And that was suspension of disbelief. No matter how far-fetched an idea is, so long as you present it in a way that makes sense... then anything will work. But there was one scene in The Empty World that agent number two felt stretched suspension of disbelief a little too far. That's okay, you might think, just change it. But that one scene was the springboard scene for everything that came after. Which meant a potential rewrite of the entire second half. I was crushed.
Unemployed and desperate for a sale, believing the past few months of blood, sweat and tears were finally at an end, I was suddenly given this new dilemma. The transitional part of the novel didn't work. I could have given in right there and then, I don't normally fight so strong, but my story and its sequels meant everything to me, so I buckled down and forced myself to fix it. It turned out not to be so bad. Took a few weeks work to incorporate the changes; if you're familiar with my book it concerned how young Danny actually ends up being underground when he least expects it, in his father's research facility that has been hiding beneath his garden all his life. I'd spent whole chapters just to get him there, whereas now it happens all at once, and to the story's benefit.
Once that was fixed, we were pretty much done. Everything - and I mean everything - was theoretically believable. Just another draft and all Easter weekend on the phone to agent number two, going through the manuscript word by word. Eventually we all agreed it was finally ready for submission to the publishers. This nicely coincided with me finding work so everything seemed on the up, as I waited for offers of publication to come flooding in.
I was in for disappointment, in the form of some very nice rejections from some publishers. Silly me for thinking getting an agent was a deal signed, even after several exacting redrafts. The most annoying rejection, from a huge publisher indeed, informed me my book was well written and well plotted but their list was presently full in that genre, a comment which still has me tearing my hair out of an evening. (A metaphor. If that were true I would be bald. I'm not bald). After these rejections, when it seemed all our very hard work had been for nothing, my agent gave me the most tortuous six weeks of my entire creative life. Here's how she did it: she said, “Make the book better.”
“Better how?” I asked her.
“I don't know. Just better.”
I couldn't believe it. I'd been through so many redrafts and such a lot of tears and frustration, and here I was faced with yet another setback. And this time I had to sort it out completely by myself. No one was going to be giving me any input. Maybe they were testing my mettle as a writer. Perhaps, like me, they’d drawn a blank. But I had to turn a failing manuscript around, one which I couldn't understand why no one would buy, and make it something no one could refuse. So I sat and stared and thought and stared and sat... then stared and sat and thought and sat and stared. It took so much out of me, those six weeks, but I was determined my book would be loved by anyone who read it.
Eventually, after drawing a total blank as to what was needed, I was able to get some distance from the story and look at it again - yet again - from someone else's point of view. The most important part of the writing process is the time spent away from the page, in those moments when inspiration just kind of floats into your brain. And the answer hit me. Suddenly I realised the only way to improve the story, and it was obvious.
Basically my young hero Danny had previously never known anything about his father being a ridiculed scientist, or any of his father’s work for the military, but it struck me the only feasible improvement I could make would be to have Danny well aware of his father's past from the outset, and in fact give Danny moments of unexplainable strength, where he worries his father's old work on the Human Enhancement Program for the military may have been performed on him at birth. This leaves Danny an unwitting superhuman, and far more able to deal with the truth of what his father has created when he is eventually told about the Empty World.
This actually makes Danny a far more interesting and important character from the get-go, and has gone a long way I think to involving the reader more deeply right away. I'm so glad my agent told me to 'make it better'. I never would have chosen to do so at the time... but I'm very thankful that she did. So I set about incorporating Danny’s new knowledge-set throughout the entire manuscript, which meant knowing every sentence and how everything would be affected by the change. Staying on top of that was mind-numbing... like rewriting an entire book by hardly changing anything at all, just being aware of all the little things that had to change, inner thoughts of characters at any point in the tale.
My agent approved of my shiny new draft and it went out again. What was so infuriating for me was that I had no idea which publishers they were sending it to, or how soon these publishers normally responded; I had to play the waiting game as I eagerly worked on the plots for the next two instalments, The Big Bang Machine and Space Time Zero, and tried my hardest to be patient. When the inevitable rejections started to arrive, still the same replies - everybody thought my book was well written, well plotted and well edited, some simply didn't feel it was in their genre (that's their prerogative) and nobody offered me a deal. It was sooo disheartening.
I personally think the major reason no publisher said yes at the time was down to timing, and unlucky timing at that. This was around 2010-11 and Twilight was all the rage, all you ever found on shelves was vampire stories; my agent even said, “Wouldn't you like to write a vampire story?” but I think it was a joke. I actually have a great plot for a vampire story.
Eventually the agent who had discovered me moved on from the agency and my involvement with the agency soon after ended, though on great terms; I'd pitched various other ideas to them for my next book and written the first draft of a new YA sci-fi novel, plus two drafts of a psychological thriller screenplay (currently doing the rounds of the relevant agencies and production companies). I went on to write that second novel whilst in between jobs again, and it was as important for it to succeed as The Empty World; as soon as I’d finished work on the first draft I returned to work, and a fellow writer there suggested I self-publish using Amazon.
I hadn't heard of the concept, it had never been mentioned to me by my agent, as it was still a relatively new phenomenon for independent authors. I dragged my heels and took my time, whilst completing the plot for Space Time Zero and redrafting my thriller screenplay another two times, this time under the excellent guidance of an independent movie producer. Eventually I got myself in gear, researched what I had to do... and self-published The Empty World through Amazon. The response was delightful. People were finally reading and reviewing it - after all my hard work - and although it wasn't quite the outcome I’d been chasing (it wasn’t traditionally published) what mattered more was the great support from the readers.
Even if I knew nobody would read a book that I was writing, I'd still make sure it was the best thing I could write - because ultimately, an author needs to write for his or her own enjoyment; such passion will always show in a person's writing.
As soon as The Empty World was available on Amazon, my former agent was kind enough to put me in touch with the commissioning editor of a major UK publisher, who was so behind the novel and its planned sequels that he championed it to his International Office. This was all very exciting... yet again. Now I had a publisher interested in my finished product, and it seemed that surely now things would really happen...
Nope. Their ultimate decision was unfortunately not to publish, despite the commissioning editor's big plans for the story. Once again I'd hit a brick wall, except this time I'd learned that even finding an interested publisher was not a deal signed! Since then I have submitted the book to a gamut of literary agents. The response has been almost non-existent. I feel a writer’s biggest hurdle in getting noticed these days is the amount of competition; it’s like blowing a dog whistle in a thunderstorm and hoping somebody will hear. It's been a long and arduous journey bringing The Empty World to life, and has required the utmost self-belief on my part.
I know the journey isn't nearly over - the challenge that faces all self-published authors is the quagmire of self-promotion. I'm still trying to get my head round that little beauty, but I hope in some way this little article explaining my personal experiences has given you some understanding of the obstacles all authors face.
But like all battles, you're fighting for an outcome - or an income (if you’re lucky). That said, the possibility of making money from writing should never be your catalyst. It's getting read that has always been important. I have now adapted my book into Danny Ringrose And The Empty World, a movie screenplay and episodic TV series. I've no idea what the future holds, but knowing I've done my all to make it better makes me smile every day. So the upshot of my time here is... never give up!
If you have a book in you, write it! If you have a story to tell, tell it to the world! It's always worth the hard work you put in.
Find me on Twitter at:
@AndrewReeves_
and:
@SeveralSidedSid
And on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/AuthorAndrew...
