Meeting my Hero
My Writing Journey Vol. 4
Welcome to the fourth of these Writing Journey Posts. This is a continuation from last week's look at the inspiration behind my first self-published work. This week we’ll delve more into how it came about and the full motivation behind its release.
To cut last week’s long story short, I’d been inspired at age twelve to start writing a book novelising one of my favourite Minecraft YouTuber’s series. I’d added in a few story elements of Dan’s other characters, but basically had just sat in front of the TV. written down what was happening, up until partway through Dan’s third episode of The Diamond Dimensions, or my chapter three. I’d typed that up, been helped to draw a cover, and with a little note had prepared to give it to Dan at the British gaming festival called Insomnia in November of 2014.
We started queuing pretty early to be in the first twenty or so kids to meet him that day - the queue was so long that he actually started the signing early to try and get through everybody. I went back this morning and watched the video of me meeting Dan - he was so kind, actually taking the time to sign about four things, and read through some of the first page before flicking through the rest. It’s weird to think that then he’s not that much older than me now and he’d been married the year before…
Dan had just started a vlogging channel as well, but I was still surprised when he brought out a camera, and asked if he could record me. I was one of the four children out of hundreds he met that day to make it into the vlog because of the quality of our gifts - which seemed like a huge deal at the time. I wonder where the other three are now…
Skip to about 45 seconds for something somewhat embarrassing. (And now I’m wondering whether I actually should link this!)
Both Dan and myself have changed a lot since November 2014. (He’s gone from less than two million subscribers to 28 million, released two of his own books, done two world tours and had two kids.)
But it was wonderful! Not only would I be featured in one of his videos, but ‘the world’ could see what I’d done, the work I’d put into my writing! Dan had said I’d done the full Diamond Dimensions Volume 1 in a storybook. It was the first three chapters novelising the first three episode of season 1, and I think at the time I wanted each volume to be 10 episodes, so 10 chapters. Season 1 was 72 episodes long, so thinking about season 2 that was into the 120s at that point was a long way ahead.
But Dan had said it was incredible and that meant a lot, so I carried on going. He’d given me the motivation to find the courage to commit to the project. In the notebook I talked about last week, I carried on with the same sitting in front of the TV and transcribing, Obviously I cut out the majority of Dan’s game commentary, but I did write in that he was wearing goggles recording his movement that would eventually send back footage of what he was doing to his scientist friend back in his home dimension.
There was part of the modpack where you could summon familiars, one of which was Companion Cube from the game Portal, and this was where I drastically changed the story. I gave this floating cube a backstory, and a screen on its face where it could talk to Dan through text. In the videos, Dan had to gather resources to craft a book to summon the familiars with, but I had him meet the amnesiac magical/robotic cube, which then told him how to instead prepare a book to be his guide to The Diamond Dimensions - my way of getting the stuff Dan would look up online about the modifications he’d added to his game, and to explain and give some sort of exposition to the new worlds, artefacts and creatures he’d come across.
Episode 5 of The Diamond Dimensions became perhaps the most important to the history of my version of the story. Dan discovers a note, obviously one he put there himself to introduce an element of mystery and story to his series - one he didn’t pick up again until 4 years later and the series had finished.
The note, written by The Watcher, just says ‘I’m watching you.’ I linked Companion Cube to The Watcher, as the cube’s first memories were of the room in the middle of a cave system where Dan finds the note, sort of a gift to this human that appeared in this dimension. In my head I always imagined The Watcher was the wraith seen in the series title card. Years later, in 2016 I think, Dan confirmed to me that this was the case. So luckily I was right!
In my little notebook I got to the end of chapter five. Dan had his first companion, a book to help him learn about this new world he was trapped in, and had the knowledge he was being watched by some mysterious figure.
I had a couple of pages left in the notebook, and filled them with a Back at The Lab section, with Dan’s scientist friend reliving the events that brought Dan there, wondering why the machine had not brought him back. So I gave the real insight into the inciting incident after five chapters of Dan running around. I also introduced my first look at the villain of Dan’s homeworld, Denton, the evil scientist, that had appeared in a few of Dan’s videos - half of which I hadn’t seen, and wouldn’t until years later - but also in a live story Dan played through at Insomnia.
From then on I think I just wrote at my laptop, flicking between video and Word document. I finished the book with a second Back at The Lab, but before then had actually added my own story events, adding some lore to random Shaman and Hunter monsters found in the jungle, something about the farlanders - beings from another dimension - setting up rebel camps in this world, finishing with Dan actually going on a killing spree of the local dryad and spriggan tree spirits because they oppose him living in their forest - but he’s already built a house there. He realises the error of his ways though - the fact that he’s a human come into the magical world and already chopped down trees and killed the natives. Chapter ten ends with a message of love of home.
I later tweaked elements of Volume 1 for my omnibus collections of 2021, taking out some unnecessary novelisations of cave after cave of monsters and adding in more of Dan’s homesickness, ties to his love back in his homeworld (who I based on his wife), and adding some logic and consistency to the workings of his crafting and inventory technology - basic features of the game - that might as well be magic.
Anyway, by sometime in spring of 2015, I had my first book - kindly proofread by my parents. And there was another Insomnia convention! I ended up meeting Dan (first in the queue!) as he did an impromptu signing on the steps of the stage controls. By then I think he’d already grown a lot - spot the TDM jumper he’s wearing, the T-shirt and beanie I’m wearing.
My second time meeting Dan was just as rewarding as the first. I think he just about remembered me, and was impressed that I’d finished the first volume, not that he really knew what it was. Also perhaps not really knowing what he’d started, he said I could self-publish the book on Amazon. So later that month, I did.
My dad helped me work through Amazon’s KDP site, inputting the word document, a blurb and creating a cover. We first just put it on Kindle, not really knowing about using the now-extinct Createspace - Amazon’s paperback company. And to my sheer joy, even without a shout-out from DanTDM himself, the book began to sell. Of course, people only found the book because it was based on something highly searched for by primary school children. But I think parents bought it because it was a book, not some other off brand merch trying to make some money on Amazon. My father and I made sure to put a clause in the blurb that Minecraft was copyright of the game makers, and this book was based purely on a fan’s inspiration.
I don’t think anybody really cared because there was already a massive marketplace of Minecraft fanfiction on Amazon - more Diary of a Wimpy Zombie, Creeper, Enderman… etc. than episodes of Diamond Dimensions. The cover used a free Minecraft image-maker, where I could input Dan’s username and just put his in game character into a background with two clicks.
The fact that the book sold (there were some reviews bullying my twelve-year-old self, but also plenty of nice 5-star ones from kids who loved it and its connection to the series), was so rewarding for me. In August of that year, we released a paperback version, with a better cover that would serve as the basis for the rest - until Createspace died.
Of course, most of the sales came from people reading the book for free because they were members of Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited - but I still got paid per page! My book started to be sold on other sites - something I later rectified - got quotes and reviews on Goodreads, and I was already starting work on volume 2, with some homework on the side.
If any of my lovely readers here are considering checking out the book, I’d recommend the omnibus volumes that collect all 22 books in the universe that sprouted from Dan’s videos.
Thank you so much for reading. Hopefully this proved somewhat insightful. Next week I’ll continue the journey with volume 2 and beyond!
Cheers,
Harvey