I really thought about lying here.  I wanted to lie to you because I thought it’d make me feel better about myself, but I think there’s a value in honesty and confronting things head on, so why don’t we try that first?

It feels almost embarrassing to admit that I’ve been working on After the Rise for four years now.  Having that amount of time invested into one story naturally raises a few questions, namely: shouldn’t you be done by now, and, shouldn’t this be better?

Well, to answer both, it’s getting there.  Over the past few months this ball of clay I call a story has finally molded into something resembling a mug, able to hold water but maybe not quite finely crafted enough to put on full display.  One day, maybe soon, I’ll be able to stand back and say “hey, isn’t this something?”  Or maybe my mug will collapse and I’ll have to start all over again with a new ball of clay, hoping this one goes a little better (and faster!). 

That’s the fun of it though, isn’t it?  Writing is a risk.  It’s a long, solitary act that you occasionally put on display on the off chance that someone connects with it.  You spend all those hours writing and rewriting all in the hope that someone you don’t know might point to your shoddily crafted ball of clay and say “Hey, nice mug.”

I am aiming for the stars?  Not exactly.  Like everyone else in writing I dream of book deals and thousands of adoring fans standing in line for my autograph and a picture, but I don’t think we’re there quite yet. 

But before we fantasize too much about the end, why don’t we start from the beginning?

I’ve been writing stories since I could read, always about people stronger and better than myself, but with the similar flaws, prone to huge mistakes and hiding them to the best of their ability.  After the Rise is my fourth outing, and also my largest, most complete work to date.  At the time of this writing, I have 34 chapters completely rewritten and ready for editing, and the last 10 or so planned out.  Over the years I’ve probably written in excess of 60 chapters due to my “process” (if you can call it that) of running any idea to ground to see if it’s worth anything (most aren’t). 

Obviously, over four years you (hopefully) learn a lot, and while things haven’t veered entirely off course, I’ve made a ton of necessary changes to the story.

My original idea for After the Rise was something of a repudiation of superhero films from the DC Universe which, with the exception of Aquaman, continuously showed their characters descending further into a dark, broody caricature of themselves that I found entirely off-putting.  They say to write a story you want to read, and that’s exactly what I set off to do, dooming myself immediately in the process. 

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

What if, I thought four years ago, I wrote a story where the hero just adores having powers?  

Simple, right? Sounds pretty easy, definitely shouldn’t take almost half a decade.  Unfortunately, though, stories need a little thing called conflict, and having a joyous main character doesn’t naturally invite conflict and interest in the way a broody one does.  DC, for all their flaws, figured that out a lot faster than 

Additionally, I wanted a character with powers that aren’t typically shown and not typically used for combat.  I don’t believe that gaining superpowers would immediately entice you into becoming a violent person.  There should be consequences for violence, changes that happen within you once you feel at liberty to punch another human in the face.  That’s not who I wanted to write, not for this story. 

So, I needed a character who wasn’t a fighter and had atypical powers.  Easy!

I spent a month writing this story with Ethan being a speedster.  Easy to avoid conflict!

That didn’t work, despite the Flash having a billion comics to reference, I found out that I needed something new. 

I looked out my window at the Rockies in the distance, I thought about how cool it’d be to be able to teleport myself onto the top of every mountain peak I could see, and the lightbulb went off. 

Teleportation powers fit the bill perfectly.  It took me nearly a month past my initial conceit, but I had created a superhero character that would be great at running away as the main character for my story.  Never say I took the easy route to get here. 

But something was missing.  I spent the next to years fleshing our concepts and writing the equivalent of sizzle reel chapters, fun, action packed moments with zero connective tissue.  I wasn’t writing a story so much as an action montage going nowhere.  Something was missing.  

Luckily, I found out what.  I was missing our main villain.  Ethan needed someone to fight, someone to push him to continue to make mistakes, to force him to find accountability inside himself. 

Enter Slate.  

Every great hero needs a great villain, and I wanted someone cold, calculating, someone who would put themselves through hell to get powers just like Ethan, but specifically not for any sort of personal gain.  The moment they gain powers together is also the moment they diverge, but, in typical Ethan fashion, it’s also the moment he accidentally ties himself to this person with so much hatred inside her. 

Everything in the story flows from that moment, the one I can picture more clearly than any other in my head.  It’s the moment that kept me writing the last two years, and it’s the moment that’s going to propel me to finish this story and put it on display. 

After the Rise is about the feeling you get when you realize you messed up bad, when your whole body goes cold and sweat runs down your forehead, when your heart starts racing and your hands tingle, every muscle in your body twitching uncontrollably, ready to run. 

It’s about how Ethan responds to the voice in his head when he sees his mistake and realizes, hey, I can just cover this up.  No one has to know. 

Magnify that feeling and couple it with a city full of superheroes and villains barely clinging to a tenuous peace and an unfulfilling life that Ethan would do anything to escape and you have After the Rise. 

Also, Ethan can teleport, but after spending four years with him, I think that’s the least interesting thing about him.  

This is my mug. I hope you like it, and thanks for reading.