The Evolution of Written Stories

I guess it's time to make a new blogpost, Ana thought to herself as she sat down at her computer. But what about? She scrolled through her blogpost ideas, uninterested at the array of mostly randumb ideas in her brain. Then, she came across this one.

Comparing my first draft and my final draft? She scratched her head. I dunno...that leaves me up to exposing my terribly written work all over the internet. But the longer she thought this through, the more appealing it seemed.

Standing up and walking away from her desk, she moved towards her bedroom, and from her bedroom into her closet. She stepped into the slightly cluttered space and reached to the top shelf, bringing down her archives. She unzipped it, reached inside...

And brought out her first draft.

247 notebook pages of penciled, 9-year-old writing, all bound together with a tawny string. Mystified, she blew the imaginary dust off the top page, titled in ornate letters "HIDDEN HEROES: JOURNEY TO TAEBENGORDONJIN". She laughed deeply to herself, feeling like Gandalf with the ten-year-old papers in her hands. Brushing his beard from the page, Gandalf moved slowly, with an old-man like gait, to her large, wooden, ink-stained desk and sat down with a slight grunt, moving large, leather-bound books aside for this new and amazing discovery.

Then, Gandalf opened his computer, and began to read...

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Chapter 1

Harvest

        "Dead." Irmese laughed as she swung her silver sword and stopped mid-air, centimeters from Custis's bare neck. She imitated the sound of a head being chopped off. She leaned on the hilt of her sword.

        "You're head is rolling in the dirt," she said matter-of-factly.

        Custis grinned, flashing white teeth showing under his lips. "I guess it is," he said, pretending to sulk. He threw his hands in the air and fell to the ground, clutching his chest, and screeched.

        Irmese strode over to where he lay, looking lifeless, and our her foot on his chest. "I, Irmese Migani Lestor, have defeated the great Custis!' She let out a loud, spine chilling, howling cackle.

        Custis's heart leapt as a voice said, "Not yet, Fowl Beast!"and he heard swords clang a few times, then Irmese screamed, a cross between a howl and a screech, unearthly and hair-lifting. A thump met Irmese's falling body. Then two hands lifted Custis's shoulders off the ground. "You are free, Young Hero. The Fowl Beast is dead."

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Gandalf chuckled to himself, yet still he was slightly disturbed by the lack of grammar in his old writing. Turning to his final draft, he compared....

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CHAPTER 1

SHROUDED

        Alli stood, transfixed, as she listened to Dirco’s low, captivating voice. His storytelling gift hypnotized people on a daily basis; a crowd had gathered around the seventeen-year-old boy, enraptured by the tale he told.

        Alli often wondered how Dirco did it; she had known him for a very long time—practically her whole life—and his voice never changed so dramatically as it did when he told a story. People stood and listened for hours as Dirco skillfully wove his tales of woe and of hope.

        In half an hour, Dirco finished his tale of the beginnings of Janiza bowed as the crowd applauded and threw small copper coins at him. Alli collected the coppers in her ragged skirt, smiling and thanking those who paid for his story.

        As the audience dispersed, Dirco approached Alli. “How much did we get?” he asked, his voice no longer low and smooth but boyish and somewhat hoarse. He grinned his twisted, cryptic, and creepily-charming grin.

        Alli counted silently. “I’d guess around six or seven coppers.”

        Dirco pushed his pale blonde hair back from his face, his strange whitish eyes wide. “With that crowd?” A frightening scowl replaced his grin. “I oughtta start making them pay to stand there like doltheads and wander off into la-la land!”

        Alli sighed as she tucked the money into her pocket. She would probably hear about this for the rest of the night. “At least we have something.”

        “Might as well have left squat!”

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Not even the same characters. Interesting development. Gandalf stroked his beard, turning the pages of his first draft to the scene where his favorite character, Eadën, first appeared.

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        Unexpectedly, Irmese whipped her head around, hair flying in all directions.

        "What's wrong?" Custis whispered, not doubting her superior elf hearing.

        (Ah, yes, Gandalf remembered. The girl was randomly transformed into an elf while they were randomly attacked by Jzän in the woods, which they were randomly playing in.)

        She didn't answer. She didn't have time to, really.

        A huge, groping Já'nän, walking on two legs, came hurrying towards them.

        Custis didn't have time to draw his sword, for when he looked again, it had transformed into a nimble black cat.

        The only thing that made Custis doubtful is that both of them had sparkling, sky-blue eyes.

        Irmese went into a panic and climbed a tree to the highest branch.

        The....Thing...transformed again into an agile sparrow, flying to Irmese and landing on her thin shoulder. She batted it away with a quick blow and it fell to the ground a cat once more.

        What is it? Custis asked himself.

        The moment he thought that, the Thing transformed into an elf.

CHAPTER 6

EADËN

        "What the..." Custis stammered, staring at the Thing, now a handsome young elf boy.

        Irmese spoke first, jumping out of the tree. "What kinda sick joke is this?!" She yelled, marching up to the tall elf. "What and who are you?! Some kind of freak, if you will, a weirdo, sicko, moron, maniac, WHAT?!" She poked a slender finger in his sharp-featured face. "Some demented, evil-spirit obsessed creature, right?!?!?!?! I say," she paused dramatically, then practically yelled, "YOU ARE AN EMBARRASSMENT TO ALL NATURE ITSELF!!! You creepy, shape-shifting, stinkin'—"

        "Okay, Irmese, let him speak for himself!" Custis interrupted, ruining her meaningful speech.

        "Well for one," the Thing-elf said. His voice surprised Custis. It was cool and clear and crisp, yet filled with an exotic and beautiful accent that was like music in his ears. "I applaud for the well thought of speech that was made up on the spot. That was incredible. And for two, I'm an elf. Whom or what other creature, I ask, is so attached to nature that is can literally change, inside and out, into nature itself?"

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At this point Gandalf was forced to stop reading because his gag reflex had been acting up so badly. He choked away for another five minutes before finally getting a hold of himself, with the greatest of difficulty. "Did I really write that?!" he asked, reading ahead a bit, but reluctant to share how Eadën was born under a tree in a pit in the middle of nowhere, but he did not explain in the book why his queen mother was IN a pit in the middle of nowhere, thousands of miles away from her castle.

Gandalf cleared the bile from his throat with a swig of water and turned to his final draft. Hopefully, this one would be better...

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        Dan didn’t answer. He had approached the door. He straightened his blood-soaked cloak, seemed to mentally prepare himself for...what? Then he knocked.

        For several minutes there was no sound, only the wind. Alli thought that maybe no one was home, until the door opened abruptly and there stood a young woman with long brown hair and large hazel eyes. She shrunk as she stared up at Dan, obviously frightened. Dan’s chest rose rapidly, as if he took a sharp breath upon seeing the woman.

        Alli and Firell glanced at Dan. The woman glanced at Alli and Firell.

        “Can I help you?” she said.

        Dan lifted an arm as if to reach out to her, then hesitated. He slowly touched her cheek with his fingertips, then caressed her face. When he spoke, his voice was no longer dark, whispery, or hoarse. Contrarily, his voice now sounded smooth, like velvet, with an unrecognizable lilt. He said, “Linnea.”

        Linnea, the woman’s, face paled. She swallowed, shook her head, and squinted closer at Dan. Reaching up slowly, as if Dan would attack her at any moment, she pushed his hood away from his face. Dan flinched as his face was revealed.

        Alli gasped the same moment Linnea did. Linnea fell back, crashing into the door. Then her face twisted, and she wrenched around, flung herself upon him, and twined her arms around his neck, shouting, “Eadën, Eadën! Oh, how—you—Eadën!”

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Gandalf finally turned away from his first draft, unable to go on. Oh, how his story had evolved from such trash, to such acceptability! He was shocked at how much his entire PLOT had changed, now that he was flipping through the novel. He could not even believe how so many random scenes could make sense just three drafts later.

Re-arranging his original manuscript papers back into place and tying the string once again, Gandalf reflected how glad he was that he was done with that piece of trashy writing, and that he was now working with his final draft.

That first draft was fun to write, with all the freedom, Gandalf concluded, placing the archives back on Ana's closet shelf, But the final draft sure is worth all the work!

With this thought happy in her mind, along with the freeing thoughts of how bad her first draft was (that left her with all the freedom to make her other first drafts that bad!), Ana returned to her computer and opened the file labeled "Superior Race" to write until 4:00 pm, when she would have to help her mother with dinner.

The End.