This is a collection of 24 flash fiction stories in a variety of genres.  From horror to action to romance there is something for everyone.

Life only have true meaning seconds before death.



Note:

I am writing this "novel" for me and the other people which is probably a few that like this style 

True Genres: Humorous Fiction, Absurdist fiction, Dark comedy

I'm trying to tell a story here also Life only have true meaning seconds before death.



Note:

I am writing this "novel" for me and the other people which is probably a few that like this style 

True Genres: Humorous Fiction, Absurdist fiction, Dark comedy

A novel not just written by the author's fictitious mind but experienced the game itself. Confused feelings, mixed emotions and temptations. A story not just to entertain, inspire, share and gain popularity but to remember the tragic events until the author will lose memories about the game.

24 students and players
12 boys and 12 girls
From 12 different schools

A game with three levels, different stages and distinctive game categories
A goal to be the triumphant and claim the tri-prize...
But only one victor

Not your ordinary survival game

***

Date Written: April 24-25, 2016 - May 26, 2016 
Date Edited: May 27, 2016 - May 28, 2016

Genres: Adventure, Fantasy, Mystery, Thriller
Sub-genres: Action, Humor, Science Fiction, Teen Fiction

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Triumphant Game Copyright © 2016 by Otanteiku オタンテイク

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without prior permission of the author.

A novel not just written by the author's fictitious mind but experienced the game itself. Confused feelings, mixed emotions and temptations. A story not just to entertain, inspire, share and gain popularity but to remember the tragic events until the author will lose memories about the game.

24 students and players
12 boys and 12 girls
From 12 different schools

A game with three levels, different stages and distinctive game categories
A goal to be the triumphant and claim the tri-prize...
But only one victor

Not your ordinary survival game

Heya! Welcome to my book! I do hope you enjoy your time here! Do let me know what you think! :))

~**~

BLURB:

As far as Timothy Carter knew, his parents were dead. They died in a fire when he was eight years old. He has lived in an orphanage throughout his childhood years. But when he runs into a mysterious girl, and a band of curious people, he finds out that his parents are alive and that they want him to come home. 

Home. A place he had never known before. 

The girl claims that they were sent by his parents to find him. Could she be telling the truth? Or was it all a plot just to get him to come with them?

As they near the world where Timothy was born, they come across deathly challenges, games of trust and deception, and strange phenomena he only saw in dreams and imagination. 

Everything that Timothy thought was fake and were only found in myths and science fiction stories were true.

He learns the answer to why they were sent to bring him back, and why he was cast away in the first place. 

As he dives deeper into the truth of his identity, he finds himself in the middle of an ancient war, in a world he didn't know he played a huge role in, until now. His choices would define peace and conflict, life and death, order and chaos.

In a world he barely knew at all, he must decide what is right in order to protect it.

He must find a way to put an end to this war, at all costs. 

Only then will he be able to come home. 

~**~

WARNINGS (PLEASE READ!!!)

If you get triggered by the things that will be mentioned below, please do not continue reading this book (recommend it to your friends instead :D)

The genre of this book is pretty confusing. Generally, it is categorized as Fantasy. However, this book also has two other genres: Science Fiction and Romance so if these genres do not fit your taste, then don't continue to read.

I am also not that good of a writer so please feel free to throw me some constructive criticism. I do appreciate that greatly. I also apologize in advance for typographical errors. Please understand that when I edit, I mean edit some stuff that I wanna add and take out some stuff that I don't like. 

And no, I haven't gone to that part in the editing phase that actually focuses on grammar and wording and stuff like that. I do edit some of that whenever pointed out and when I feel like it but other than that, please bear with me. Hehe.

Note: This is also the first draft. Any edits I say I make are minimal.

Focus When Writing: Plot progression, dialogues, concepts, exposition. 
(I won't be focusing on grammar and wording a whole lot tho xD. I'll gladly appreciate critiques of any kind tho, they are really helpful for me :D)

Trigger Warnings: This book contains fight scenes, emotional traumas (such as grief, heartbreak etc...), moral dilemmas, death, graphic violence (although shown later in the book), violence, war, phobias, mental disorders and the likes. 

~**~

COPYRIGHT

© 2020 by Clarissa Archello
(aka. @/dessertChapman)

book cover words and layout by Clarissa Archello

Disclaimer: The image is not mine. If the owner wants proper credit or wants to take it down, please contact me immediately. 

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

©All rights reserved 2020

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author

~**~

Social Media:

Facebook: Clarissa Archello

Tumblr: @clarissa-archello

PLAGIARISM IS FROWNED UPON.
PLAGIARISM IS BAD.
IT IS WRONG.

Enjoyy!! Comment down what you think, I'd love to hear your feedback!! Let me know if you like my book by leaving votes!! Thank youu!!

-axeli❤️

As far as Timothy Carter knew, his parents were dead. They died in a fire when he was eight years old. He has lived in an orphanage throughout his childhood years. 

But when he runs into a mysterious girl, and a band of curious people, he finds out that his parents are alive and that they want him to come home. 

Home. A place he had never known before.

The girl claims that they were sent by his parents to find him. Could she be telling the truth? Or was it all a plot just to get him to come with them?

As they near the world where Timothy was born, they come across deathly challenges, games of trust and deception, and strange phenomena he only saw in dreams and imagination. 

Everything that Timothy thought was fake and were only found in myths and science fiction stories were true.

He learns the answer to why they were sent to bring him back, and why he was cast away in the first place. As he dives deeper into the truth of his identity, he finds himself in the middle of an ancient war, in a world he didn't know he played a huge part in, until now. 

His choices would define peace and conflict, life and death, order and chaos.

In a world he barely knew at all, he must decide what is right in order to protect it.
He must find a way to put an end to this war, at all costs. 

Only then will he be able to come home. 

~**~


| Genre: Fantasy | Sci-Fi | Romance |

Becoming a Starter Level Author 

Webnovel
Pragati_Singh_2744
Book of Authors
Novel - Magical Realism
Book of Authors
WEBNOVEL_OFFICIAL
Ongoing · 1.1M Views
24 Chs
CONTENT
4.7
136 RATINGS
NO.200+
SUPPORT
Synopsis
If you're confused about how to write a popular webnovel, perhaps this book will be able to help you out.

This book contains articles written by the best editors in the Chinese webnovel industry. There are introductory guides, intermediate guides, and assorted topics, with different numbers of guides in each type. Each week, we'll be publishing three guides. If you believe that these guides are useful, please let us know by leaving your reviews. We can adjust the update rate based on your feedback.

Author introduction:

314 (Yang Chen): He is China Literature's general manager, Xiaoxiang Academy's general manager, Qidian's head editor, China Webnovel Literature Committee member, Jiangsu Province Webnovel Author Committee vice-chairman, and a qualified expert on all internet literature. He has discovered many popular topics and greatly helped the industry to expand, along with having personally advised many top-tier authors. He is from the first generation of webnovel researchers. Yang Chen started working in the webnovel editing industry in 2005, and is highly skilled at summarizing and analyzing the business theories behind webnovel literature and is famed for his outstanding creativity in the industry.

Small Team Leader（Zhou Binglin）:Small Team Leader is a high-ranked general manager for China Literature, as well as the head editor for chuangshi.qq.com. He is originally from Guilin, Guangxi.

Small Team Leader is a top-ranked editor for original novels as well as a veteran web novel expert. He has helped to discover countless popular topics as well as frameworks and has advised numerous platinum-ranked authors. He's also one of the first generation of web novel reviewers as well as authors.

Chapter 1
Becoming a Starter Level Author
by : 314 (Yang Chen)

Previously, in the general article on "Webnovel author levels' standards", I separated webnovel authors into five different levels. But actually, there's a hidden sixth level – total beginners that aren't even at starter level. This refers to complete newcomer authors that have zero experience and have never written a single word for a webnovel.

Still, not everyone needs beginner level guides, even if they're a pure newcomer. Of course, if you're an established author who has experience writing long novels, feel free to ignore this article and move on to the next one, regardless of whether or not your story was successful. Or, perhaps you've never written long novels, but have the natural talent to write as easily as you drink water. In that case, there's no need for you to read this beginner level article anymore.

In fact, there's even plenty of newcomer authors that feel like it's incredibly difficult for them to write a short, several hundred word long essay, or to write an end-of-year reflection. But, when such newcomer authors try writing webnovels for the first time, they find their minds clearing up, with the ability to write like they are possessed, with storyline flowing out from under their proverbial pens just like a stream of water. Newcomers like these naturally don't need to read a beginner level guide like this one, either.

Those who truly need to read this article are those who put their hands at writing webnovels, but find that their minds are empty or filled with mud the moment they open up their computer documents. Perhaps you're a newcomer author who tried thinking for an entire day but only managed to write a few hundred words that even you think is garbage.

In such a case, for newcomers like you, how should you improve your writing, and write your first thousand, ten thousand, or hundred thousand words? How do you take the first step in becoming a god of writing?

I personally believe that you can try the several following tips.

1: Adjust your mentality and create a precise writing goal for yourself.

Unlike most other jobs, success as a webnovel author doesn't always come step by step. Some sufficiently talented newcomer authors are completely capable of earning hundreds of thousands, or even millions, on their very first novel. A single novel can make an author into a master, or even a grandmaster. There are also veteran authors who have been stuck at a certain level for a long time who might one day have an epiphany and find a new writing style more suitable for him or herself, turning them into a master overnight.

However, the cruel reality is, no matter if it's a newcomer becoming a master overnight, or a veteran suddenly improving, there's one condition that's an absolutely necessary prerequisite—

The author needs to already have strong writing skills. This means that such a wonderful thing is unlikely to have anything to do with you who's reading this article, as you're not even at the beginner level.

For authors who aren't even at the starter level, there's only one goal that you should be setting for yourselves. That goal is to be able to naturally write a long novel. To be more specific, there's two major goals within this goal.

The first goal is to be able to imagine and finish a story that's approximately 500,000 words. Simply speaking, you have to be able to write long novels.

This is because the natural way how webnovels work makes it so that only a longer novel can bring greater benefits for the author. The novel's ranking, influence, and author's fame are all affected by the novel's length. To achieve a respectable degree in these areas, the novel will typically need to be at least 1.5 million words or longer.

Of course, from a professional standpoint, a story written for the sake of practice doesn't really need to have that many words in it. That's because in theory, an author who's capable of finishing a 500,000-word long novel has already learned the foundational writing skills necessary. As long as such an author has a complete outline for their story, writing two or three million words will no longer be so difficult.

The second goal is to be able to write approximately five thousand words every day. Simply speaking, you must be able to write quickly.

This is because there's a huge number of webnovels out there, giving you immense competition. Based on webnovel readers' typical reading habits, only stories that have consistent updates will be able to obtain and maintain popularity. For a super consistent release, the lowest requirement is to update at least two chapters per day.

One chapter might have an average of around 2500 words. At the very minimum, they should at least be longer than 1500 words. This is why, for a webnovel author to become successful, their writing speed must be at minimum three to five thousand words per day. When calculating this by months, this means that you need to write at least 45,000 to 75,000 words per month. This is the most basic requirement.

Those are all the prerequisite conditions for newcomer authors to develop into starter level webnovel authors. At this level, the quality of your writing isn't that important. Nor is the popularity of your novel important, either. Being able to write a long novel and write quickly are the two main goals that you as a newcomer author should strive for.

Something that should be noted is that at this level, you should pay more attention to improving your own ability, rather than worrying about your story. There are no tests for you, nor are there any grades. By the time you're in the middle of the story, if you notice that you're having an easy time writing and can easily write five thousand words per day, in addition to having a clear outline for your entire novel, then congratulations. This means that you're now a starter level webnovel author.

2: Choose an appropriate genre and topic.

With the development of webnovels, there's so many genres out there already – eastern fantasy, high fantasy, martial arts, xianxia, modern, mystical, historical, military, gaming, competitions, science fiction, fan fiction…

All these genres have their own specialties, and have different popularity factors and important things to keep in mind when writing. Also, they all have different degrees of difficulty when writing them. Still, what needs to be noted is that these different genres will have varying degrees of difficulty for different authors.

Perhaps one author will find it incredibly painful to write historical fiction, while writing a mystical story is fun and relaxing for him. Meanwhile, another author might find it incredibly easy to write historical fiction, while writing a modern day novel feels all sorts of awkward for her.

Obviously, for authors that are total beginners, you should choose the easiest type of story to write for you. But, what if you don't even know what genre you should be starting out in?

Allow me to recommend a few easy genres for newcomer authors.

1: Fan fiction

Fan fiction refers to using an already existing story's characters and setting as the basis to create new stories. This is a type of story modification.

For example, you could write a story and call it "Harry Potter and His Adventures". This story could be about how Harry Potter ended up with Hermione, or how he has multiple girlfriends. This is an example of a fan fiction about Harry Potter.

What needs to be noted is that in the large majority of situations, fan fiction authors don't actually have the copyright to their own stories. Even if you wrote every single word of your fan fiction novel by yourself, you still have zero right to use your novel for any commercial purposes.

But, even so, fan fiction is still one of the best choices for total beginner authors. The reason is that they are quite simple to write.

When writing fan fiction, you don't need to think about a complicated world background or any detailed settings. Nor do you need to create a large amount of characters. Even the fan fiction's story can be inspired from the original novel. All these things, especially creating the setting and characters, are what newcomers typically have the most trouble with.

Basically, writing fan fiction will greatly simplify the writing process, directly avoiding the most difficult part of all. Without a doubt, this is the easiest way for newcomer authors to get started.

As for what story to base your fan fiction on, it first needs to be a story that you as an author have already read and are familiar with. Also, it's best if it's a story you truly love, perhaps even reading it several times over. This is the basic requirement for writing fan fiction.

On top of all that, I would recommend choosing to write fan fiction about a story whose copyright has already expired, such as "Romeo and Juliet" or "Don Quixote" and so on. Or, it would be best if you could somehow obtain permission directly from the author of the work that you intend to write fan fiction about.

Of course, even if you have no way to contact the author or obtain their permission, it's still fine to write fan fiction. This just means that you can only write for free, without earning any profits, and also respect the original author of the work. After all, for newcomer level authors like you, learning and improving your writing is the most important part. Since your novels are unlikely to be commercially viable at this stage, it's not all that important even if you write a fan fiction novel that you're not allowed to profit from.

2. Modern novels

This genre refers to novels that take place in a modern day urban setting. The city background is typically where the author has lived and is familiar with.

Compared with fan fiction, modern novels have the added difficulty of having to create your own characters. Still, it does decrease the amount of trouble you have to go to in creating a setting. Not only that, when writing character introductions, you can save a lot of effort in having to explain a lot of common knowledge, such as what a character's job entails, or their social status. Saving all this effort is quite precious for newcomers.

And compared to fan fiction, modern novels have their own advantages as well. That is to say, the author can more easily write themselves into the main character, making the storyline easier to think about. Normally speaking, all you need to do is to give the main character a special cheat, or a unique advantage, and the rest will flow as naturally as water.

For example, there's a very popular modern novel with a reincarnated main character. The protagonist has only a very simple cheat—being reincarnated to several years in the past. This is quite an easy scenario for newcomer authors to insert themselves into. Just think about it, if you can reincarnate back to the past with all your memories intact, what will you do?

Most authors can probably imagine it. If you return to several years in the past with knowledge of the future, there's just far too many ways of earning money. Even if you have zero business skills, can't remember a single stock market pick, and don't remember who won the World Cup of Soccer, at the very absolute minimum, shouldn't you know something like what company you should invest in?

Apart from earning money, don't you, the author, have any other regrets as well? For example, do you regret not treating your parents better while they were still alive? Do you regret choosing the wrong major in college? Are you embarrassed at your awkward attempts to get a boyfriend/girlfriend?

And so on, and so forth. Why are you afraid of not being able to think of plots for your storyline and making it longer?

As for the specific details, those are quite easy as well. For example, if you intended to sell off everything you owned back in the day and take out a huge loan to invest in one specific company, what would your parents say, and how would they react? How would all your other friends and relatives react as well? Who would you try to borrow money from, and how would they respond? What's the specific process of investing in a company, and what procedures are necessary? What if the company you invest in temporarily loses value after you invest in it? Would your parents complain at you and tell you to retract your investment? And how will people react after the company you invested in suddenly does super well and you make a huge profit? And, what will you do with the money…

Just this one storyline arc about investing in a company has plenty of content to write about even simply by following the natural process of how people would act. And if you use that as the foundation and intentionally write some conflicts, such as how the protagonist discovered that his friend who he wanted to borrow money from is actually investing in a different company, how he pretended to have a casual attitude when opening up an investment account made the investment company female employee misunderstand him to be someone really rich, or how people scoffed at him after investing in a company and he made a bet…

Wouldn't you agree that all these related events can add plenty of content to your story? Not only that, it shouldn't be all that difficult even for a newcomer author to write such a story arc.

Even if you're one of the few who feel like you lack imaginative prowess, and you don't have the confidence to create interesting scenarios and conflicts, well, there's still one more advantage of writing a modern story—you can borrow ideas from plenty of sources.

The most direct sources of all would be television dramas, especially those set in the current day. This should be easy to understand.

Apart from television shows and movies, there's also hot topics in society, the news, or local gossip and family conflicts… These are sources that are easy to overlook or maybe often considered boring. But actually, it's quite common to make some modifications and write them into your own novel and borrow from such sources.

This is why, from a certain standpoint, modern novels are the easiest novels for newcomers to begin with and to write a long story about.

3. Imitations

Imitation type novels aren't a particular genre, but they can belong to any genre. While this may seem rather contradictory, it actually means that a newcomer author could try selecting one of his or her own favorite and most familiar novels and imitate it. This isn't limited by genre.

Imitation could be shallow, or it could be a close imitation as well.

To give a theoretical example, perhaps the original story has a main character named Zhang San, who's the son of the sect leader of Green Castle. Your imitation novel could try having a main character named Li Si, who's the son of the sect leader of the Wudang Sect. The original story had Zhang San falling off a cliff and miraculously surviving while also obtaining a book containing a miraculous cultivation technique. After he successfully powered up, Zhang San was sent by his father to go undercover in the Demon Sect, where he fell in love with the Demon Sect leader's daughter. Your story could try having Li Si being ambushed while cultivating and becoming seriously injured, but miraculously having a great breakthrough in cultivation due to overlapping coincidences. Afterwards, Li Si went undercover in the Demon Sect in an effort to investigate who ambushed him, and fell in love with the Demon Sect leader's granddaughter…

This type of imitation requires even less creative effort from the author compared to fan fiction. From a certain standpoint, this is really cutting it close to becoming plagiarism. Yet, it's still undeniable that this is a usable method for newcomer authors to improve their own skills.

But, please note that this type of writing style is only suitable for practicing your writing. If your story is too much of an imitation, it'll be impossible to even make it public. That's because unlike fan fiction, even if you don't use it for commercial purposes, you've still plagiarized and violated the original author's copyright. It might even spoil certain plots from the original story and affect its sales and popularity.

That's why this type of learning via imitation, in principle, isn't really one of the better ways to learn. More accurately speaking, this is the final way to learn available to total beginner authors that have failed at attempting all other self-training methods.

In normal circumstances, after half a month to a month of imitation practice, the author should have some more insight into writing. The author can learn how to design storylines and write descriptions. At such a time, the author can stop trying to imitate and begin developing a completely original novel on their own.

!! Thankyou !!

Where to start?
So I had taken a long break from writing, a very long one. I hadn't simply the fire/motivation/inspiration/daemon/that things that make you write.
If an idea came I trowed it into the trash bin: too bad, too unoriginal, to banal, this is not even a story, this is just boring.
I didn't write at all for most weeks.
Then I was very inspired by an idea, I had a calling to it. I decided to transform it into a novel, I was writing it even!
But I kept rewriting and editing the first few chapters, mostly because I wasn't sure what the story had to be about or what happened when at what moment. Was this event here appropriate? Was the character consistent? While this paragraph read so bad? What is the story about?
It didn't finish it.
One day something strange happened, I had a dream, a very interesting dream. That would make for a very interesting short story. Keyword short. It was too light-hearted for my standard so I create another fiction for it. The story was finished in a few days.
When I finished writing it something strange happened, I saw the November writer challenge announcement. I decided to participate in with my new fiction. Now I am writing daily more than I was writing monthly.
I never felt so tired and content in my life. This is not an exaggeration, I am feeling content after a long time.
I just like how simple it's. You write 1.6k daily and... stop, that is the entire challenge. It's good? Are you sure that you want to publish it? Does it fit your genre? Is it original? Who cares! This is the beauty of this challenge for me, you just need to write.
If you are wondering: Yes those stories are a mix and match of genres and ideas. And yes: there are also horror and Lovecraftian one, hope that you like them.
I will rewrite those stories after December, after that I will mark this fiction as complete. In the mid-time, this fiction is in hiatus.
Thanks to everyone who has been waiting for an update in a long time and all the people who support and supported me.

A black monolith stands before my eyes, images and letters of all sort are engraved, some normal, other bizarre, many confuse and contort, pictures of beasts and monsters confuse themself in the thin white letters that are all over the monolith, I realize that they are stories, stories on the Eldrich and unknown.

This is not a single story but a collection of short stories inspire by H.P. Lovecraft, E.D. Poe and other writers of strange fiction.

Read them in every order that you like.

hello there....


I m Trisha from India and I'm here to entertain all of u..

the story here is not realistic but fiction ....

u will get all type of genres....


so hope u enjoy it.....

Dear readers
This is your author. I thought of sharing this to you before you go ahead with the story. 
First of all thank you to everyone who dropped by this book and also the one's who are reading this note right now.(Well Idk if you checked this out bcoz you wanted to or just clicked on it accidentally) 
It's almost six months since I have started writing this story and I am really enjoying the writing so far. I hope you are doing the same while reading.This book is on realistic fiction genre and I know it's not one among those popular genres on the platform. However I am still here to give it a shot. This story is not something you would like to binge upon (maybe!) but if you really wanna understand it, you need to get into the characters mind(s). 
Each character has their own back stories and at times I will have to include their point of views too. So be patient while reading them , as they are all related to the main plot. 
I am not aiming high on this book because the genre already has lesser audience as compared to other genres. That doesn't mean I would drop the book halfway because this story is really special to me. 
TBH I have always wanted to write something like this. So when I started the book the ideas came automatically. And let me tell you, when you start doing something you wanted to do desperately and finally it happens that feeling is incomparable. 
Hope you understand this and show some love to this amateur author by supporting the book. Your opinions are always appreciated. Let me know how you feel about the story in the paragraph or chapter comments. Now I don't want my reader's to be those silent one's, okay? 
Share your thoughts;that helps a lot honestly.Okay now I won't waste much of your time... ;D
                               ~Love, Your Author


Mr. Dayal, an investigation officer is trying hard to solve his very last case as he'll soon retire from his service. It was not only the last mission for him but also a sort of justice to his daughters culprit that he tells about at the end. Everything seemed to end as he got no information or clues against the culprit until  one day he coincidentally collided with Jake who has connections with this politician that Mr. Dayal assumed to be the main culprit.Jake promised to help him along with the other 3 officers who were selected for the team. 

***
 "I'm planning on switching sides. Again! "

Mr. Hussain and his brother widened their eyes.

"Did you just.. " Mr. Hussain, the politician asks.

"Yes you heard it right" Jake smirks.

"Then tell us what they are exactly planning? Tell us everything. " Mr. Hussain asked.

"You just need to go meet them and the rest,you guess!"

"Huh! As if I'm going to blurt everything out to them. I never thought Dayal could be this naive."The politician laughed.

***

Will they be able to last as a team till the end? 

Will they succeed in the last mission? Find out more about this last mission by reading the story further. 


Find me:
Discord: Juman12#1675
Join my discord server for more updates!!
https://discord.gg/k4muFv2P

(A/N: With Volume 2 kicking off in just a week, I thought it would be fun to explore the inspirations and ideas that led me to write "Conscious, Conscientious." Here's the story behind this story!)

Conscious, Conscientious exists thanks mostly to Super Smash Brothers: Brawl.
Thanks for reading! Next time—
Alright, alright. I'll give some more context. 
It was back in my college days, roughly eight years prior to writing this (wait—it's been THAT LONG ALREADY?!?!). I was home for the weekend, as usual, but since it was early in the fall semester I didn't have much homework to do. So instead, I found ways to be a productive member of society!
…Not really. I just played too much Wii. Specifically, Super Smash Brothers: Brawl.
I had played the game so much with a friend in high school that I fell into a routine approach: I'd always do two-on-two team battles. As I dodged and spammed the A-attack for hours, my creative gears began turning. Ever since I was a kid, my brain has interpreted everything as some sort of story or narrative, and apparently playing a mindless game was no exception.
I began competing as the same team combinations over and over again, on all kinds of different stages. Before I knew it, I was forming fake little storylines for these teams in my head. 
(Apparently, at nineteen years old I wasn't old enough to stop playing pretend. But anyways…)
All this overly-specific gameplay got me thinking: this could literally BE a story. Fighters with special powers that always fought in teams of two…traveling to extremely diverse types of locations, to the point where they cross genres when they cross borders…
This could be fun to write.
As a Toonami kid back in the day who had recently returned to the anime world like some sort of Prodigal Weeb, I had seen my share of powered-up fighting anime. But I hadn't seen many concepts where the characters always fought as duos.
(I had yet to watch Pacific Rim, which had just released months earlier…but that's Pacific Rim. It just…doesn't count.)
On top of that, I thought it would be fun to implement a Pokémon-type culture. Hence, the Consciousness League: a fighting league where teams of two would travel around and challenge each other for money and potential stardom.
As for where they would all be adventuring, the idea of attributing genres to actual locations intrigued me. These power-enhanced duos would travel a vast world filled with virtually every possibility, much like the randomness of all the Super Smash Bros stages. It wouldn't be constrained to science fiction, fantasy, or realism alone.
While initially I had no idea what that would look like, it has since evolved into the story's setting and system: the Multiverse, containing Fiction Country, Realistic Fiction Country, Fantasy Country, Science Fiction Country, Normal Country, and Horror Country—all connected by No Man's Land.
(I understand I haven't explored this very much in the first Volume, but it's addressed much more in Volume 2, which starts next week!)
Similar to the limitless settings in the Multiverse, the characters would be just as diverse. In Smash Bros, I had been playing as two teams consistently: Link and Shiek, and Zelda and Lucas. These four characters were my initial inspirations for the main cast: Deon, Skrili, Zayza, and Lammy. 
And when you spend too much time fighting as Link, you start to question things.
Namely: how does he carry so much stuff around at once?? It always looks like he's pulling it out of his butt. Is his butt an infinite pocket of items??? Like, where is this all coming from?!
That gave me the whole "Imaginer" idea: a power where consciousnesses can create objects with their mind alone (Momo Yaoyorozu from My Hero Academia didn't exist to the public yet so don't come at me). Originally, all consciousnesses were going to be Imaginers. Instead, I landed on over a hundred consciousness types, like the original 101 Pokémon in Gen 1. 
To be fair, I can't really say Super Smash Bros: Brawl and OG Pokémon were my entire inspiration. As I mentioned, I was the Prodigal Weeb: returning to anime as a bright-eyed manchild and absorbing every second of shows like Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood and Bleach (the latter of which hasn't aged nearly as well as the former). As a reborn anime fan, those long-running shonen epics excited me. I wanted to try and make my own story like them, paying homage to my favorite anime.
And I kid you not: I genuinely, naïvely thought I was doing something unique by starting an anime-inspired ongoing novel. I had no idea the communities on Webnovel or other sites existed. Honestly, I wasn't even planning on showing anyone my work—I was going to use Conscious, Conscientious merely as writing practice.
So by this point, I had paused my game. I turned on my Toshiba laptop (Old Faithful…you will be remembered forever) and opened a Microsoft Word Document.
I'd been writing fiction for nobody since I was very young, but hadn't worked on anything in quite a while. This gave me the push to get back into it.
As I typed the first few words, it all began magically coming together into a pure masterpiece.
Just kidding, it sucked.
Throughout my college years, I went on to write around 26 chapters (which I called "episodes") of my original story. My ingenious approach was to write on the fly each time, with no idea of an overarching plot. I was winging it, just to keep my writing muscles exercised.
That caused A LOT of stupid plot issues. I DON'T recommend writing this way.
Eventually, I began emailing the chapters to close family and friends. One is a fellow aspiring writer, and you may see their work on this site one day…I'll let you know ;-) Over the years, after I realized I had a legitimate idea on my hands, this friend helped me flesh out the overarching story and characters.
This led to about a year ago, when I finally decided to try sharing my stories with the world for the first time. I had a clear beginning, middle, and end in mind, with all of the plot and character arcs conceptualized. 
The only problem was: my original 20-something chapters were in ROUGH shape. So I spent quite a while reworking and rewriting chapters, while planning what the overall release of the project would look like.
Aside from writing fiction for nobody to read, my other passion has always been making music. As a longtime Sonic the Hedgehog fan (the casual kind, not the questionable-fan-art-kind), I always loved how the 3D games would feature actual theme songs for each character. Plus, I discovered the immersive art of concept music from rock bands like Falling Up, who released an album called Hours with a corresponding audionovel of the same name. This was something I'd always wanted to try.
And so, as I prepared Arc 1 of Conscious, Conscientious, I also began writing and recording theme music for it. 
(Shameless plug: check out the first theme EP Conscious, Conscientious 1 wherever you stream music!)
And now, after several months of writing, recording, posting, and mostly just learning from dumb mistakes, we have the first 20 chapters of Conscious, Conscientious. I'm pleased to say: starting next week, we dive right into Volume 2 with Chapter 21.
In the next arc, you can expect a lot more exploration of the Multiverse and how it works, a lot more powers and types, and most importantly: you'll see the main characters forced to grow and change with new challenges, both physical and emotional. I'm excited to raise the stakes, as well as bring you some more theme songs. I hope you'll come along for the journey!

If Deon could spend his life pitting his powers against all kinds of opponents in all kinds of places, he would.

But he can't. Instead, he's trapped inside his impressively boring village. Then one night, after he and his cousin Lammy share an oddly vivid dream, that all changes...

...And they find themselves in a Multiverse far stranger, and more dangerous, than they could have ever imagined: one filled with diverse mind-based powers, countries defined by genre, and ambitions both humble and vicious.


~Character art created by the talented Weiicart on Fiverr!~

This story has theme music! Check out the first theme song, "Imaginer" by Circlebrooke, wherever you stream music or at circlebrooke.bandcamp.com

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