Wildebyte has 10 Books: Lessons Learned

While I write this article, the 10th book of the Wildebyte Arcades is just about done. All the covers are done too, and so are the marketing blurbs and any other work. This means I can confidently say that Wildebyte Arcades now has 10 books!

I wanted to write this article to look back and see what I learned. And to take a sneak peak at the future.

Beware! There are (very) slight spoilers in this article (for books 1–10). And yes, I know, at time of writing only books 1–5 have released. I’ll talk about that more at the end of the article.

Figuring out the Wildebyte: a journey

The plan

The first Wildebyte Arcades book was also my first novel in English. I thought this would be some major moment … but it really wasn’t a big deal. I’d been writing in English for over a decade, but all that work was simply non-fiction or for university. Switching to fiction, especially after also reading English books for 15+ years, felt smooth and not that consequential.

The entire idea of the series, though, was special.

Until that moment, I’d written a few novels here and there. Some for a writing competition, some just out of the blue. I’d also created some picture books, tried an interactive picture book, and was hired for some handful of chapters in non-fiction books.

I had been writing and self-publishing, yes. But at an inconsistent and slow pace, with projects all over the place.

With Wildebyte Arcades, I purposely planned the project to change this.

• They’d be short books.
• Each book would tackle a different game.
• They’d be episodic in that way: I didn’t need to worry about large story threads or major arcs across multiple books.
• And with the endless supply of interesting games, and my own experience/skill as game developer, I thought it’d be “relatively easy” to find topics and work on it.

For about 50% of that list, I was right. I had no trouble listing the many games I could visit (or “parody”), nor the technical aspects behind it that I could explain in the story. I wrote the first few books rather quickly because I was motivated and saw a lot of possibilities. The fact that I wrote those first 10 books in basically a single year says enough.

The issues

Buuuut I was also wrong in some major ways.

• Because it’s about someone stuck in a video game, it was really hard sometimes to find stakes, tension and varying types of plots. Games have a lot in common, and when all the entities are just code, it’s hard not to repeat the same plots about things the reader doesn’t care about.
• I wanted to sort the games based on complexity, but this just didn’t work. If I’d stuck to that, the first 10–15 books would’ve been very simple and very similar games. I ended up choosing variety and interest over a nice sorted list from simple->complicated.
• Every single book, about halfway, I asked myself: “What on earth am I even doing?” The plots and worlds can get so bizarre. Because when you take a game, and you take its rules seriously (or take them to an extreme), you can end up with a story that’s, let’s say, absolutely different from anything else :p

At some point, there was even a running gag where I’d talk (to friends/family) about starting a new Wildebyte book … and then next week they’d ask, “So, Tiamo, want to give up writing again and start a different book?”

This isn’t necessarily a specific issue with the Wildebyte. This happens to almost all writers, with almost all books. But because the books are so short, and there is a clear planning ahead, it’s more tempting to just start the next one when the current one doesn’t flow.

In the end, though, I worked through it. That’s what you always do. You think ahead just enough to not be completely stupid, and then you just do it. Because we can’t predict the future anyway, and a series of books is just too much story to keep solely in our head.

Some solutions

For example, my file with the planning and structure of Wildebyte Arcades has much clearer guidelines now.

I have a few simple rules that must be true for every book. (Such as including a Lost Memory.)

I have a few simple rules about what I will not ever do in these stories. (Either in general or because it’s the type of thing I planned for a different “disk”. The current one is the Handheld Disk, about handheld/phone/portable games.)

Similarly, if you read my diaries, you’ll notice I simply became better at structuring and planning stories on the fly. I learned techniques such as “cutting the story into 4 shorter stories” (or “chunks”).

Most of all, though, I realized a few things about story, tension and stakes. And how to apply that to Wildebyte.

You see, the reader knows that Wildebyte isn’t dying. If you’re reading book 3, and you know book 10 is coming out, well, yeah, they’re surviving alright :p

At the same time, we follow the stories almost exclusively from Wildebyte’s perspective.

As such, the strongest method for really deep and tense stories that I’ve found, is to have Wildebyte really care about something which they can actually lose. For example, Wildebyte joined forces with Pirate Sweettooth from book 5 onwards. Their friendship could be lost, Sweettooth is not guaranteed to survive. And they did this because they felt very lonely and hated by everyone.

Another example would be the Outsiders. Other living beings, mostly animals, that were also put inside the device. They will not ever play a huge role in the Handheld Disk—that’s another one of those guidelines/rules for myself—but they interfere from time to time.

Wildebyte will survive. But can they make sure another Outsider, another living being, also makes it out alive?

Those are just some ways I’ve discovered to make these stories actually work. Yes, it’s all just code, and the game worlds can be bizarre. But I try to give every story this “heart” or “soul” that’s about a very relatable, human, tense desire from Wildebyte and the potential of losing that.

Oh! Almost forgot! Another major skill I got to practice with these books was making them standalone while also having some cliffhangers or overarching threads. With the first few Wildebyte books, you might notice that I struggle to make them really standalone. But because I try to make it episodic, the books also aren’t that strongly connected. It’s a lose-lose situation, really.

Over time, though, I got better at

• Introducing the general idea of Wildebyte in chapter 1
• Repeating “what you need to know” just before it becomes important.
• Having one or two clear connections that reward you for reading books in order, which don’t get in the way.

Though, admittedly, writing for The Saga of Life also trained this muscle. That project is basically “episodic but connected stories” on steroids, and it’s already entering the 4th cycle now, which means nearing 40 short stories.

Figuring out the structure

Besides the specific content or plot, the structure around the Wildebyte was also in flux. That’s what you get when you don’t plan anything ahead and basically think “yeah sure I can learn that on the fly”. And so I stumbled through some things and learned valuable lessons.

Covers

When I made the first book, I basically just wanted a “cover that looks okay and communicates it has something to do with games”. That’s not a very specific and actionable style guide, is it?

If you look at the covers, you can see a sort of evolution taking place.

• I sometimes go for more realism; I sometimes go for something much simpler.
• I sometimes involve (image) AI a bit; I sometimes do the cover entirely manually.
• I sometimes go for a clear focal point; I sometimes just “create” a screenshot as if it were from the game played.

I tried a lot of things. I got better at designing covers in general, but that didn’t always mean much. It’s just really hard to create a cover that isn’t too busy or weird, but also distinct and communicates the type of game that will be played instantly.

If anyone played an actual game (in that genre), I want them to instantly recognize it from the front. At the same time, a random screenshot from a game (without context) is usually either busy/overwhelming or nonsensical.

And so I bounced back and forth, trying different things, slowly settling on a style.

I’m still not sure, but at least the style guide became more concrete.

• Create a clear focal point. A single character or item from the game; the environment/other items/UI can be very faded or lacking contrast to push it back.
• Focus the details on the lower middle. The rest is either hidden by the title or too close to the edge of that tablet that frames it.
• Pick a specific style for each individual cover (based on the style of the game), instead of going for a generic “fantasy, cartoony, digital painting” style.
• Add simple elements (such as stripes, sparkles, outlines) to indicate an animation, or particles, or something happening. It looks more natural and communicates the game better than a static image.
• A thick outline/glow around major elements is nice for standing out … but don’t overdo it. As it also sets objects apart from the background/surroundings, which quickly makes the cover look like some “cut-and-paste collage” instead of a cohesive whole.
  • This is where I struggle the most. Video games are often very aggressive in their outlines/coloring/shadows because you need to instantly identify your main character and where it is. But when you do that on the cover … it looks unbalanced, because that thing draws so much attention you don’t even see the rest of the cover.
• AI is great for quick textures or backgrounds. But for specific elements, I should opt for manual work. Especially characters look much more natural and expressive if I draw them myself, as then I can give them the look and pose and very specific attributes that work for this game.
  • AI tends to give you good-looking characters … in a very basic default pose, with dead eyes staring forward. At first glance, you think “looks great, I can use that”. But then you quickly realize it’s just meh.

With the next stories (books 11–20), I already have a clearer “unique style” written down. I intend to keep experimenting and try new stuff with each cover, at the risk of making a few weird or ugly ones in the process :p

Coding for the win!

One very time-consuming and annoying aspect of self-publishing is all the stuff around it.

So … about halfway through the first 10 books, I decided to take the time and automate most of that.

• I have a “cover generator”. It simply takes the unique painting I did and puts it into the general “template” for Wildebyte covers. Then it resizes everything to have the exact margins, spine size, etcetera needed for the book wraparound on different services. In other words: I copy-paste that unique image, load the webpage, and 10 seconds later I get PNGs/PDFs of the perfect dimensions that I can instantly upload to the distributors.
• I use Pandoc to instantly turn each book into an epub, and a Hugo static website to create a PDF. In other words: I copy-paste all chapters to a folder, run two commands, and I have my files.
• I have a few files with the exact description and metadata to add to each book, sometimes different per service. (For some reason, these services stress the importance of good tags or categorization, but then provide absolute horrible UIs to set or remember those.)
• I can add “custom metadata” to chapters, which will then nicely display underneath the chapter heading in the PDF. (For example, book 10 is about a drawing game, so I wanted to give each chapter a cryptic little icon. Thanks to my code, I only need to draw the icons and throw them in the same folder, and they’re added everywhere in the right place.)

Over time, as I found bugs or had new ideas, these tools improved (such as with the last bullet point). It means I can fully focus on writing the book and creating a single cover painting, and everything else is as efficient and painless as it can be.

I can’t stress enough how valuable this is. Everything around writing is also a pile of work. And it’s a very boring, repetitive, slow pile of work.

It’s so annoying, in fact, that it demotivates you before you even start. You almost think, “Well if I write another book, then I also have to go through all that again, so meh!” By optimizing it this way, I felt far less resistance to writing the books and making them available for pre-order on time.

How to keep it fresh?

The biggest danger here, really, is to become repetitive. Despite all the tricks I’ve learned, we’re still quite restricted in terms of what stories we can tell. Yes, I can let my imagination run wild and invent whatever game rules the plot needs. Suddenly the player gets a 1000 points! Suddenly the code works in a different way! Suddenly a new level unlocks!

But … is that actually a good thing? I don’t think so. (In fact, with these first 10 books, I might have relied on this one or two times too many, I believe.)

I’ve always said that restrictions breed creativity. That you need some upper limit, some rules on what you’ll never do, otherwise you’ll make your stories too long/complicated and you’ll “fake” your way out of problems with deus ex machinas all the time.

I don’t want absolute freedom, so I have some clear guidelines on how I approach each game. I am allowed 5 core rules, which are explained at some point and never broken, and not more. I try really hard to make the games actually work like the real games they’re based on, and to make the technical explanations sound and truthful. (Of course, it’s heavily simplified and often twisted to keep the plot moving along better.)

With those rules in place, maybe you can see why I say it’s sometimes very restricted. A game of genre X just can’t suddenly have any ideas or rules from genre Y. A game that has only one playable character can’t suddenlty introduce another host of characters because I think the plot needs it. A game with a certain objective, or one input/action, can’t suddenly do whatever else I require.

Similarly, Wildebyte can’t become too powerful too fast. They become slightly more powerful over time, because they—together with the reader—learn more about code and how to manipulate it. If I went too fast—if I suddenly gave Wildebyte clear, controllable, repeatable, major powers—then all stories would lose meaning. The reader would just be like, “Well Wildebyte can just change the code again and fix everything! What does it matter?”

And, of course, you have nowhere to go from there. It’s the typical problem of power creep, which is especially present in a world where the main character can literally tap into the universe’s code.

So, how do we keep it fresh? How do we keep searching new or challenging plots?

• I have that “metadata” I can attach to chapters, which I try to use from time to time.
• I force those different visual styles, which can sometimes influence the possible plot (or general “vibe”) of a story.
• I wrote a simple list of possible plot types, and then assigned that to stories to get as much variation as possible.
  • For example, a question that each book needs to answer is: “When/how does Wildebyte get their Lost Memory? And what’s inside?”
  • One book might give it very early. Then the next book gives it late. Then the next book has the memory broken and cut off, so you only get half of it. Etcetera.
  • By planning it in this way, I ensure that I must do something different with subsequent books. Without restricting myself too much.
• Most of all, I try to remember that there are many ways to tell a story. Chronological, with 1,000 word chapters, one after the other … is just one way!

The first 10 books already saw one interactive book. I wanted to do more, but my ideas that would allow it are simply placed later in the series.

I can tease that an upcoming book (probably 11) will play with time.

I am tempted to do a book where one perspective (from a main character) is just code or some cryptic message.

There are loads of different ways to tell a story, and the Wildebyte is perfectly positioned to try them. So I should.

What’s next?

As stated at the start, I wrote 10 Wildebyte books in one year.

It’s not a “calendar year”, technically speaking. No, the first two books were written last year. But when I say that, I mean “I wrote half the chapters in a few days and then completely left the project alone”. Partially because I had to finish other projects, partially because of that feeling of “this is such a bizarre plot, what am I even doing?”

The next year, though, I finished all my other things and told myself to “choose” Wildebyte Arcades as my next big writing project. To really go for it, despite the doubts. So, setting aside some stumbles and breaks, I practically wrote the 10 books in one year.

I did become faster over time. This is due to general writing skill, general improved productivity habits, and a better idea of what the Wildebyte is and where it should go.

In any case, this is a tempo I can surely maintain. The books are short enough, I know what I’m doing now, and there’s a strong planning until the end of the Handheld Disk.

The books will only release, though, 5 times a year. I think releasing 10 books a year would overwhelm people and stress me out. Now I can work ahead and create a nice buffer in case things go wrong or I feel the need to take a break.

So, the general planning is incredibly simple: write books 11–20 next year, then 21–30 the year after, and the Handheld Disk is done.

I think my biggest lesson is to keep it simple. Because I grew up with my brain, obviously, I only discovered a few years ago that not everyone is like me. My brain and body are extremely hyperactive and hypercreative. I latch onto any new information or skill, then work really hard to understand it all, find solutions or train it. It’s the typical hyperfocus of people with ADHD: you either do nothing and feel tired just from being, or you work tirelessly for hours and will not stop until you understand/solve it.

To me, this is the only way to live. It just feels normal to be “on” basically all the time. When I read something I don’t understand in a book, I work extra hard to understand it, because that’s just how my brain naturally works. It never even occurred to me to say “this book is too hard/this author writes too vaguely, I’m done reading”, until people told me they did that. I just re-read something a thousand times!

I learned all the basics of programming—which I spread across those 30 books in the Wildebyte Arcades—in literally a weekend. I don’t remember eating food or sleeping a lot that weekend :p

So, yeah, my earliest stories … were a bit too hard to follow for neurotypical people.

Too much happened. I relied on very subtle clues scattered throughout a story to make readers predict the right killer. I had 7 main characters with interwoven plot lines, all of which were important every scene.

It’s just too much. Year after year, book after book, I’ve learned to simplify, to reduce plot lines, to ask feedback from non-hyperactive people to make sure I didn’t go down the wrong path again.

I still think these first 10 books try to do a little too much each time. That’s partially fine, of course. It fits the general demographic of the books, it’s the writing style I chose (fast, actiony, plot-heavy), and the best books are the ones that slightly challenge the reader.

But in my never-ending quest to improve and reach more people, I do try to simplify a bit further. Looking at my notes for the next 10 Wildebyte books, I am confident I can create more streamlined and focused stories from that.

At the same time, many of those ideas are more … general plots you could also find in any other book. They’re losing some of the bizarreness or specificity from being inside a game/smartphone.

I guess those are my two major “warnings” to myself: don’t make it too hard, but also don’t forget you’re inside games.

If I have a good idea for a general story, I don’t add it to the Wildebyte. I only want ideas that can only work because of this unique setting. I want an idea that is so specific to that game, or to manipulating code, that it has to be a Wildebyte book!

Conclusion

I don’t know what I’m doing. But as always, by doing it, you get better and maybe one day do know what you’re doing. (That’s a beast of a sentence, but hopefully you catch my drift.)

Reaching 10 books is no small feat. I call the books “short”, but they’re still 40,000 words, which is half a typical book. (That means the total word count for Wildebyte Arcades, if you also include my notes and such, is now nearing half a million.)

It gives a lot of confidence, of course, that I can continue this and the series will be finished in a few years. I still think “what on earth am I doing? What is this bizarre plot?” halfway every book, but I have enough experience to just ignore that and finish the book anyway. You have no idea how many major stupid mistakes I’ve caught and fixed in the revision :p

I’ve also been thinking about possible adaptations or creating the actual video games in the stories. And I don’t know.

Until I get a better computer, video game development is just impossible or too painful. Additionally, the mobile market is absolutely horrible, don’t go near, and I don’t see it changing soon. I can probably rework many of those games so they’re not exclusively for mobile, and just release on PC. But that feels a bit … weird? Why even make games for the Handheld Disk if they don’t release on mobile?

I also think the stories are a bit too experimental and weird to ever be adapted to film or anything else. Those who’ve followed me for a while will also know that I automatically write music for any stories I do, so anyone who wants to pick it up basically get a soundtrack/musical for free most of the time :p

Of course, that’s a big if in any case, and the books need to be way more successful and popular to even be considered that way. But I recently talked about this with some people and they said that the Wildebyte is great for adaptation and that I should maybe write my stories to make them more suitable.

They are somewhat right: they’re short enough to turn into series/films without cutting too much, they’re very well-targeted to children’s interests (in games), they have a lot of action and fast-moving plot by default, etcetera.

As I stated, however, they’re also a bit risky because they explain technical game/coding aspects too, and I believe children are smart enough to understand heavy themes. If you take that away, I don’t know what you’re left with.

When I ever have an actual income, I could buy a proper computer and/or an artist to create the covers. I’m writing this article around midnight, after creating 4 of the Wildebyte covers today.

It’s a reaaaal struggle, let me tell you, to get anything that looks good when you can barely move an image without the computer threatening a crash :p I’m (weakly) considering redoing all covers anyway once the series is done.

Anyway, we’ll see about that in the future. I’ll just put in the work, write the best books I can, and we’ll see where it leads.

Until next time,

Tiamo