The Story of My First Story
By John Bachkosky (3/15/22)
Hello again!
This week I wanted to provide a writing update (which will come at the end) and talk a little about The Last Wizard and Kingdom’s End. Let’s start there!
I had already written The Last Wizard when the pandemic started over two years ago. The idea came from reading—and enjoying in other mediums—so many amazing stories. As I mentioned in a previous post, my list of inspirations is a lengthy one. Somewhat out of boredom, and in between books I was reading, I decided to try my hand at writing a short little story of my own.
That didn’t last long.
The Last Wizard just kept growing and growing until, months later, I had written over 100k words…and the story didn’t feel even close to done! I decided to cut the story off at a certain point and set the rest aside for later. I took what I had sectioned off and really focused on the details, massaging it into what became my first ever completed draft. At that point, I showed it to a friend, who told me that while the story and characters were engaging, my writing skills lacked. I was unsurprised by this feedback. I went to school for engineering, not writing.
After getting a little bit of grammatical and editorial help, I published The Last Wizard on my own in 2020. It was a truly awesome feeling to have something with my name on it out there for people to read, but the book still had some technical shortcomings. As I began work on the sequel, Kingdom’s End, I decided that if I was really going to keep doing this, I needed to get better at the whole “writing” part. I had cool ideas I wanted to write about, but if it wasn’t done well, the ideas would flop. I wanted to do them justice.
I searched around for a while before finding that Brandon Sanderson, who is one of my favorite authors, is a professor of writing science fiction and fantasy at BYU, and his entire lecture series is available on his channel on YouTube. So, in an ironic twist for anyone who knows me and my education history, I “took” his class on my own. I learned a lot about writing novels, and along with a ton of resources I found for improving the more technical aspects of my writing, I gained a whole new toolbox to use for Kingdom’s End.
Going back to the draft I had started, I began applying my newfound skills and realized that The Last Wizard was going to be left behind by its own sequel! So before I finished the draft for Kingdom’s End, I went back and rewrote The Last Wizard. It was tedious work, but the story was far better off and matched up much better stylistically with its sequel.
When Kingdom’s End was released in October of 2021, I breathed a massive sigh of relief. Not that it wasn’t an amazing experience, but it was just so nice to be done with developing that story. Not only had I written two books, I had rewritten them many times over and taken a lot of time to improve personally as a writer. I started writing The Last Wizard in late 2018, and three years later, the whole—nearly 200k word—story was available for everyone to enjoy.
I know that as I write more, my skills will continue to improve, and one day I’ll look back at these two books and notice things I can’t see now. For now though, it’s onwards to my next book!
While I don’t want to reveal it just yet, I will say that this next book will be shorter than either The Last Wizard and Kingdom’s End. My third book will be a standalone fantasy novel set in modern day, inspired by a story I created with a friend a long time ago. I’ve written the first draft, and I’m currently getting feedback on it. I hope to have it ready by the end of the year! Stay tuned!
As always, thanks for reading! A more musical update is coming your way next week.
JB6
