Schizophrenic’s Guide: Dreamers Cult…
I, Daniel Trump, have published a novella — The Dreamers Cult. It’s a full overhaul of a previous story that was published a few years ago. I’m trying to go through and rewrite all my old books and make them into stories about which I can be proud. A lot of my books haven’t been great, and I want to change that.
In the novella some people create the Dreamers Cult, a group which wants to hurt people — because they are hurting, scared outsiders. I wanted to show a little bit of the anger and resentment that people who are on the fringe of high school society feel in a large and dramatic way. I don’t think that all of these people run around killing people — not at all. I just looked at all the stories in which the popular kids are vapid and pointless and the outsider loners are legendary heroes, and I decided to flip that: to make the outsider fringe types the angry evil, basic types and the people who are more confident with themselves naturally became a group of wonderful heroes who didn’t hate or belittle anyone: a group that was friends with everyone, led by Easton, who has no clique but is in with every clique. The Dreamers Cult cannot have that and try to destroy him.
Then came Nolan. I wanted an edgy, dark, mentally ill, badass character who is considered popular but who has few real friends. Nolan’s mother hates him because he’s gay, but I sidelined her as boring and stupid and basic. I focused on his father, who actually cares for him and wants the best for him. His father works hard at a physical job, drinks beer, watches football, and raises Nolan to be a good young man.
Kyla is a smart, intellectual girl. She fights for herself and for her family and for her friends. She isn’t perfect, she doesn’t always know what to do, and she’s a teenager so she doesn’t have all of the answers. She’s just a scared girl trying to survive a terrible situation — a brave and scared girl.
I emphasized two things in this rewrite. The first was intelligence: I tried to have sophisticated, smart characters face difficult situations. I wanted wonderful characters people could identify, care about, and want the best for. I wanted the conflicts to not be stupid but instead be about dramatic conflict between hurting, smart, troubled people.
Immaturity and swearing and random sex got cut. I had a lot of stupid stuff in the original story that wasn’t smart or sophisticated or necessary. I don’t know why I wrote that at all. I cut out the immature stuff and the constant swearing — I cut out many swear words — and I tried to respect the characters and their situations.
The second point of emphasis was to listen to the story’s tone and try to write a story that sounded right. I know — it’s a strange concept, tone, but I worked really hard to make this novel sound better. I wanted the actual words to combine in interesting ways and for the story to flow and make sense. I think that just listening to the story helped to make it more effective.
It’s three dollars now or free in a week, or you don’t have to read it. The choice, reader, is yours.
Thanks, and take care, friends.
