Discovering my Way to a Universe
My Writing Journey Vol. 5
Welcome to the fifth post in this Writing Journey series. Last week I talked about meeting the YouTuber DanTDM, and how that led to my first self-published book, novelising his Diamond Dimensions series.
When the paperback of that first volume was published in August of 2015, I must’ve already been working on Volume 2. I gave Volume 1 the generic subtitle of Exploration, as Dan was starting to explore a new world, and Volume 2 I called Discovery. It matches what I did with the story, adding a lot to Dan’s modded Minecraft gameplay.
Discovery was something I also experienced as I really delved into making the story my own in new ways, not just finding impactful ways to modify what was happening on screen, but actually adding completely new events and new characters, moving beyond the monster fighting. This started right from the get go with the first chapter.
In the videos, as I’ve previously talked about, Dan could summon different familiars. One of these was based on an old character in the game of Minecraft, Rana, that was removed very early on in the game’s history, a fun nod. I only found out later that the name of this red-haired girl in green raincoat and frog hat actually meant frog in other languages. In Dan’s gameplay having the familiar around gives the player a jump boost, which I interpreted into ‘energising’.
I introduced Rana, though, as a deity of sorts to the dryads, a flying light that would leave behind a sort of magical neon green dew goo (somewhat inspired by Shakespeare’s line “to dew her orbs upon the green”). As a peace offering, the dryads invite Dan to their fairy mound in the middle of the forest, where there’s a stone circle (a theme across my writing it seems). This is the spot where lucky dryads see Rana, who actually convinced the dryads to extend an olive branch to Dan. We eventually learn that Rana knew humans when they inhabited this world, before a zombie apocalypse that turned everyone into the undead, or forced them to flee to different worlds - we’ll get there eventually.
But Rana is shot down by skeleton bowmen as Dan visits, though he saves her. Still, she loses her light, and is forced to take a new form, the form of a floating teddy bear-sized elfish girl who vows to help Dan get home.
The other major character introduced was Dan’s clone. Through some bizarre science and magic, Dan creates a clone of himself to help him get home. The moral implications of this I only explored later. Writing the scenes at age twelve, working from the events of the series, it didn’t seem too bad. Of course, this clone wants to get home too. His story, though, proved invaluable years later.
Through some mishaps, he comes out of the magical egg as a teenager, and mute. So Dan makes another, who goes on to die a few chapters later. I did give them their own chapter though, inventing some character building events as the second clone lacked the memory of all of Dan’s life like the first one did. It was the first chapter I’d written from a different POV, apart from the Back at the Lab sections with Dan’s scientist friend Dr. Trayaurus.
Speaking of, I kept up with those sections too, revealing who was behind the malfunctioning of the machine that stranded Dan in The Diamond Dimensions, and what he evil plan might be…
Anyway, adding these characters was my major way into a much larger network of stories with a whole cast of characters beyond Dan, to a whole universe much larger than novelising the series could be.
Another major discovery in this volume was the reveal, to Dan at least, that there were more Diamond Dimensions. If you remember Companion Cube from last week’s ramblings on my plot, his consciousness went into Dan’s book, and searched itself for information on other worlds, in hopes that exploring them could provide more opportunities for Dan to get home.
The introduction of Atum, a world Dan explores in the last two chapters of the book, was perhaps the most important, for the future of my whole Diamond Dimensions-inspired universe, and for my storytelling beyond the series. It was a desert world, based on Ancient Egypt, with undead mummies and pharaohs in little pyramids, wraiths, and some nomadic human survivors of the zombie apocalypse. I’ll let twelve-year-old me, or should I say Companion Cube, tell you more:
Hello Dan, it’s me, your companion. I’m sorry I have been so absent, but I have been fighting a battle between my conscience and my coding’s limits to what I can know in here. I have been trying to breach my constraints of knowledge and I have found, or it has been released to me, new information detailing two dimensions: Atum and The Eternal Frost. These two dimensions contrast. Atum is a desert dimension and The Eternal Frost is well, frosty at best. Now, all you have to do is think these names, and a page will come up with basic information on the certain dimension and how to get there. I am still trying to find ways for you to get home!
Good to be able to write freely again to you.
Goodbye again, Companion…
Then the writing was gone. Dan felt saddened. However, he was excited about the concept of new dimensions. His companion wasn’t keeping information—it was fighting to help him get it. Dan thought in his mind first of Atum and a page appeared.
Atum is a desert dimension ruled by a supernatural Egyptian civilisation and is an eternal world of sand and temples. Ancient artefacts of weapons and armour of the gods lie in pharaoh-owned trap-filled pyramids with undead guards.
To enter the dimension, a golden scarab of the finest materials must be made as an offering to the gods of Atum. Then, create a frame of four pillars of cut desert sandstone, equally spaced close together around a centre point, with room for the gods to see. Place the scarab in the centre, so the gods can pinpoint the offering and strike to life the orange glowing portal that will take you there.
That’s the first excerpt I’ve included, hopefully it’s appreciated. It’s somewhat illuminating on my writing at the time anyway. Let me know if that’s something any of you would like to see more of…
October 4th 2015, I released Volume 2: Discovery, both formats at once with the same cover this time. And it was met with a decent readership! People who had read the first had enjoyed it enough to read the next book in the series! Without that I don’t think I’d have carried on going, so I’m so grateful to all the kids that wanted to keep reading.
Kindle Direct Publishing says I sold 324 books by the end of that year, in the kindle and paperback forms, and had a total of 27,800 pages read. That’s still crazy to think about. The books average at about 100 pages.
At that time of course, Dan, and Minecraft, were reaching one peak of many, well really they’re both still growing, just at a slower rate. Season 3 of The Diamond Dimensions had started in October of 2014, so had been going for a whole year, more than two years of the series as a total. It was popular, although Season 3 dealt with a whole new set of worlds, a reboot of sorts I’d have to address eventually.
When I reached 1000 copies sold, my parents made me a custom T-shirt with the covers of the first two books on. I don’t know when that was. It took me longer to release the third volume, but we’ll get into that, and the origins of the second main series in the Diamond Dimensions Universe, next week.
Thank you so much for reading! Once again I’ll link the omnibus volumes that collect all 22 books in the universe that sprouted from Dan’s videos, if you fancy checking them out in any form. (Most of my first books actually make up the second omnibus volume, as there’s a lot of prequel stuff.)
Cheers,
Harvey