In my last blog entry, I mentioned that for my story that is set within the Unity Macroverse canvas has the log line: A tired man from Kedah on the Malay peninsula who has lived since the 4th century still has to go back into battle in the 24th century against a group that is bent to exterminate normal humans from the solar system.
I submitted my first micro story to the guys at ESA, namely Azlan and Adely, the creators and owners of the Unity Macroverse franchise. It was about 500 words long, and they printed it. That was a personal milestone for me. Originally, my draft had no title. So Adely gave it one: “Abadi”, which I was able to retrofit in a meaningful manner into the story. I then proceeded to write the next micro story, simply writing as I went along with nothing really planned out except for using the premise laid down by the log line.
Then they told me that instead of handing in more micro stories for what was to be a series of micro stories, I should write a mini story, which should be about 2,000 words or four micro stories combined. So, I went ahead and wrote a mini story that included the first micro-story, gave it to them, and my Abadi mini story was printed. By then, the theme of the Abadi story began to expand in my mind and I began to seriously think about crafting a much bigger story.
On a roll and with a larger story in mind (when I began to write down notes, define characters, did some historical and cultural research), I proceeded to write not only the second, but also a third and fourth mini stories in the series. However, at this point, they informed me that their focus was on printing short stories, about 10,000 words long, or about the length of five mini-stories. The short stories will be text on a larger format (A5), glossy and full colour page backgrounds. Okay, I just had to write what would have been the fifth mini-story and when completed, I had a short story. So, this is where I am now.
But there was another challenge. The main setting of the Unity Macroverse story canvas already contains major factions that have less-than-simple relationships with each other. Namely, these are the Asia-centric United Natijhhons of Earth (UNE) and the Mars Administrative Corporation (MAC). Later along the way, the guys at ESA created a third faction called the Traders.
The main graphic novels have stories of human drama and conflict, intrigue, and politics, with normal humans as characters. But in my story, there is yet another faction, the main antagonists (The Eternals), whose members are physically enhanced, whereas my protagonist survives by drinking blood. Those factors are a bit way off from the Macroverse canon.
Video: An introduction to the Unity Macroverse : Malaysian Made English Sci Fi Stories
After they had read my draft short story, the three of us discussed Abadi. The guys thought that it had became a story that has quite a larger scale than they first realised. And the blood-eating character as well as the enhanced-strength rivals was a departure from the normal humans that made up the characters in the macroverse. Nevertheless, they were kind enough to indulge me, and I also suggested that Abadi can be said to be a fan fiction and disclaimers can be attached.
So, the other issue was, if it were to happen during the same period as the graphic novels, readers may raise questions about how come in the main graphic novels and other short stories, there were no appearances or contact made with the factions and characters that are in Abadi. Things can get complicated. The solution that we arrived at was for me to rewrite Abadi’s storyline to occur earlier, by about twenty years before Marooned, the first Unity Macroverse graphic novel.
Promo video for “Marooned”: Click Here!!!