The writing process

Yep, a literally woke up at midnight (12:30 a.m. to be precise) and thought up the title and plot to a new story. And yes, it is meant to use all the Sci-fi and fantasy tropes, and other big no no's in story telling. Talking about breaking rules to make it a bit funny!

Wrote 10% of the novel and finally came up with a plot twist, and after possible options, I chose the one that made more sense and had more impact.

I moved forward and just got "bright" ideas to add to the book, pieces falling in as I wrote, unusual approach, with short term planning. Not the usual structure for writing a novel, but I did a "go with the flow" situation, and finally figured out that this was more a romantic comedy, than simply being sci-fi with humor.

The Part 1 and Part 2 felt better, as I reached the end of Part 1, and realized it could use a "break." At that point I figured out how to make part 2 a bit longer, if not, the story would have ended at 10 pages after Part 1, and the "break" would have not made sense.

The plot twist is close to the end, but there is another plot twist that makes more sense to the complete story.

I just sat down and started to write the last chapters, the ideas pouring out at the spur of the moment, on the final days before ending the first draft (Yes, it can be better, and I expect it will).

The epilogue just came naturally.

I finished this manuscript in less than 30 days.

The bonus of adding Alternate Endings was something I considered while writing the Epilogue, something just for fun!

Found a final plot hole that was crucial to fix, after finishing the manuscript. For the type of story it is, It made perfect sense (answered a question presented within the story and gave depth to the aftermath). Go figure.

First draft was completed October 22nd, and will go thru an editing process and Beta readers.

Most recent news. The original manuscript ended at roughly 50K words, but for a sci-fi Novel it felt a bit short, so I added content to bring up word count to 60K, adding a twist to spark up the Novel.

I can now say that I am very pleased with the outcome!

INTERESTING FACTS

Novels are stories about situations, real or unreal, and in fiction, some are so common, and sometimes overplayed, that readers may grow tired of reading about them. these are called "Tropes", and can be used with certain changes so as not to be boring, or slightly avoided, trying a different approach. 

Three most common examples in fantasy characters: The damsel in distress, which only serves to be saved at the end of a story; the dark lord, who is pure evil, but basically just sounds like a terrible guy until he is finally defeated; and the Chosen One, the brave hero who goes on the quest to pass thru trials (kill the dark lord) and get his prize (the damsel in distress). In recent writing, people try to avoid these tropes, or give it a twist (the damsel saves herself and defeats the dark lord, who was secretly her evil twin, and gets her prize, the prince, or something like that). It`s fun to know what you`re dealing with. In my story, most things are a bit overplayed, and some have a twist to make sure the reader won`t yawn all the time thru the adventure. At least, when it is quite obvious, to add some humor to it. 

In modern times, by trying so hard to avoid tropes stories end up being too dark and gritty, the famous edgy stories for the cool readers. Sorry, not the type to go that far, so I might as well have fun with the famous tropes. 

One more thing, the best stories are dark (trials and personal conflict) and find a happy ending, but there has to be some balance, not too much dark, and suddenly (tadah) it`s all good and nice in the very last chapter (In spiritual living, not to take 55 minutes of looking at all the bad things of your past to use the last 5 minutes to say "and now I am a changed person, and the end").

So, there is that too; to focus on character development, and spiritual growth is important as well. 

I could go on about tropes in every other genre (romance, action, spy, thrillers, sci-fi, etc,) but you will see them in the book, with a funny twist.

I hope you enjoy this story!