A scene from scene 8 in the story is my book's front cover.

What is your story, "The Legend of the 10 Elemental Masters", and what is it about?

Last updated: Mar 14, 2009 (complete rewrite)
Level 5 update on Jan 12, 2010 (FAQ section added)
Level 4 update on Jan 22, 2010 (history expanded, book store release details added, general small updates)

1 What is "The Legend of the 10 Elemental Masters" about?

1.1 What the story is about, briefly

Nick Smith (aka ulillillia) writes a captivating story with many unexpected turns. Based on the concept of RPGs (role playing games), follow Knuckles, a powerful, spell-casting wizard, as he investigates a mystery of supernatural proportion. A powerful evil presence seeks after the elemental masters. Knuckles tracks the force's every move as he works on fulfilling his greatest dream. It is unknown what evil act the force has planned.

1.2 Unique design

The formatting is the main unique design. It combined the movie format, book format, and my old play format. The format is explained in great detail in section 3.

One of the key aspects of the story is that it revolves around an RPG-like nature. There are stats, status effects (changes in the state of something such as poison, blind, haste, or defense up), levels, HP, MP, and other common RPG elements. This is because I'm into playing video games and RPGs are my latest interest. It basically combines my greatest interests all into one.

1.3 The front cover image

The top of this page shows what the front cover of the book looks like. It is actually a scene from the story itself and clearly demonstrates what the story is like. Nearly every aspect of the story is included in this one scene. A cloudless blue sky is present and the ocean is visible 10,000 feet below. The ocean is a bit foggy, with a fairly high 30-mile visibility. A platform made of bricks with 3 seats, one of which 1/3 the size of the others, hovers above the ocean without falling (a status effect Knuckles added to the platform causes it to levitate). Knuckles is the orchid-colored, small-sized fur-covered "man" centered in the foreground near the closest edge of the platform. He is viewing a window that shows the stats (strength, speed, HP, etc.) of the blue ball. The blue ball is one of the elemental masters, the one for water. Two of the human characters are sitting in their seats on either side of Knuckles. The text is basically an outline type of style with the colors based on the electromagnetic spectrum (magenta is not part of the spectrum - ultraviolet is further to the right but the human eye cannot see UV light).

I actually created this scene using both GIMP and Excel. GIMP was used to draw the scene. Excel was used to do all the calculations (for lighting, fog, vertex plotting, and the shadow casting). This is, perhaps, the greatest single piece of artwork I've ever done, especially at this kind of size (1800x2700 pixels - click on the image to view the full size version).

2 History

2.1 The origins

This story has 5 versions (as 4 rewrites) to it. I originally wrote this story in June of 1999 and finished it around August of that same year. While the date of it being originally written (95% certainty is my threshold for ranges) is not entirely certain, I know it occurred soon after my eighth grade graduation. I hand wrote the story, all 384 pages of it. It used the old, confusing-to-read play format that I began using in January of 1996, when I began writing stories (inspired by a dream, the second-oldest from late 1995 in my very extensive dream journal*). I had 17 acts and 84 scenes. Scenes are like chapters, in a sense, while acts are groups of chapters, or parts (supposedly). I typed it out a while later. This version of the story became known as "The Rise of Atlantis".

Seeing that the original was way too long and that it had quite a bit of nonsense in it (like walking in mud neck deep on Mount Everest), I rewrote it in 2002, halving the length. It now had 8 acts and 25 scenes. This third version is almost what the current version is and the way it came out was surprising to me so I saw that my story had some potential to it. The title was still unchanged at this point. I still had one big problem - publishers. Either I had to pay $400 up front and essentially gamble that large amount of money away, or make lots of prints myself. I couldn't find anything.

Soon, I was introduced to the movie format and I really liked the style and ease of reading. Its major downside is that it wastes a lot of paper since there's so much white space, and the format is very strict. I made the conversion to the movie format (version 4), changing the title to what it is now since the title was sort of irrelevent. I began submiting it to movie companies and I got two requests. One was turned down because it was too complex (there's a lot of special effects from spells), and the other, mysteriously, never arrived even though I mailed it. I lost interest for a while.

2.2 Writing the current revision

I tried a fifth rewrite, using the book format, but confusion with usage of quotes and commas, along with using a variety of words (I have a weak vocabulary) caused it to come out bad. I soon thought of combining the three formats - my old play format I used, the movie format, and the book format, taking the best of each. The movie format was clean and flowed smoothly so it was my base design. Book format was optimal for the actions and descriptions. My old play format had almost no involvement since the movie format took up most of this, but it's used with parenthicals in character speech, and the way acts and scenes are used.

It still took a few tries to get it going, because I often stopped progress upon reaching scene 4, which is, ironically, one of my favorites, especially the second half of it (along with the adjacent scene 5). It wasn't until April 20, 2008 that I finally finished the story, for the initial draft, but updating my site caused me to not return to it for a few months where I resumed in late October of 2008 and finally finished except for one round of editing that was planned for. I sent the story into copyright for registration on December 19, 2008. On September 21, 2009, I got the certificate from copyright registration.

Once I got the registration, I began releasing my book using Lulu. I encountered troubles with the one-piece cover and PDF converters (CutePDF works wonders here though it seems glitched slightly). It was on September 23, 2009 that the book was officially available for sale. I got a copy for myself and saw just how accurate the color-adjusting really was. The colors were still a tad dark, though extremely close.

I went through the book looking for mistakes. Around late October of 2009, I applied the fixes I found and released the update. After a while, starting in December of 2009, I went through round 8 of editing, as part of preparation for getting my book in book stores. Due to misunderstandings with the "mandatory distribution requirements" and margins, I had to move the footer to within the half-inch margins which resulted in the need of having to move images around and the book being 272 pages instead of 258. If the page count is not a multiple of 4, extra blank pages are added at the end to make it so. It is required that the last page be completely blank. 272 is a multiple of 4 so I needed another page and thus I expanded on appendix 2 to make up for this. After resolving a problem with Lulu's generated bar code (it was a PDF, not an image so I couldn't add it to my GIMP file outside taking a screenshot and resizing it properly), I've released round 8's edits (On January 22, 2010). At this same time, the price increased to $19.95 due to Lulu's requirements. The sky on the front cover was also adjusted (more realistic - I forgot a square root in the formula) along with the edges of the outlines of the spectral text (you'll barely notice the differences).

Once I get the proof copy and approve it (this will be round 9 of editing), it'll be another 6 to 8 weeks before you'll see the book in book stores. I'm estimating the release to be in early April of 2010, though it may be late March if I'm lucky.

2.3 The future

I've been suggested to make an audio book of this story. This is possible; however, I'm not a professional or even advanced so it won't be of great quality as it is anyway. This means I'll have little in the way of sound effects and dramatization. Because of this, the odds of this are about 30%. The more sales I get, the greater the odds are though, though they'll never be 100%.

Another plan is that of writing a prequel to this story, events that occurred before the start of this story, of which is sort of covered in scene 14 (which is my top favorite scene). I'm much more likely to finish and release Platform Masters, a video game I'm making, than I am to even work on the prequel. Other stories, however, are still possible, two of which have brief plans for.

3 The unique formatting

This book uses a unique formatting style. It closely resembles the movie format, but with a few differences.

This is a rough idea on what the format looks like. This is not an actual part from the story, or any of my stories, however. It was a sample that I originally wrote in April of 2008, found in my blog for that date (of which hasn't been proofread either so you'll see a few grammar errors and things). The image above (click on it for the full-size version) represents the actual format design far more closely than the blog entry does. You can also use Lulu's preview feature to view the book itself, both the story's beginning, and the appendix. Not only are margins, page numbers (round 8 of editing required that the page numbers be moved up), proper indenting, and correct amount of white space used, but also the relative size is accurate (it's never exact on computer monitors unless your monitor's pixels are spaced so that 96 of them make an inch). The page size is 6 inches by 9 inches and there are half-inch margins on all sides (the gutter is 1/8 inch), to give an idea on scale. The green dots with the blue numbers inside are not present in the book, they are used to identify the various sections for the following.

There are 7 main design elements, though there are still others but they're not present. Here's what each of the marked items are:

Acts are like groups of chapters, or parts. They use the largest font size of all. Each act has a number followed by the title. Each new act starts on an even page number and is the first element on the new page. The style for acts are also used as appendix headers.
Scenes are a lot like chapters. They use a smaller font size, but are still considerably bigger. Each scene, like acts, have the number (which is continuous) followed by the title. By continuous, let's consider an example. Let's say that the last scene in act 1 was scene 4. The next scene in the story, the first for act 2, is actually scene 5, as opposed to scene 1. There are always three blank lines before the start of a new scene within the same act.
Actions and descriptions use the format of books. They use full paragraph indenting (using a quarter-inch indent) and full sentences. Instead of "main character", however, I'd be using the actual name. Tertiary characters (temporary, one-time, low-involvement characters) don't have actual names assigned to them. Most secondary characters (low or medium-involvement characters that are encountered more than once) do though. I tend to go into a lot of detail describing scenery, a habit formed from years of working on my dream journal. Such descriptions often involve sizes, colors, and arrangements. Minor character movements, such as scratching the head and body language are completely left out, however. Most body movements are often not included, unless it's critical to the story's plot. Sound effects are also left out, unless they are with select spell effects and very rare special cases.
Character names are underlined, centered, and have some blank space. A whole blank line is used if actions or descriptions preceed it, but only a half of a blank line if another character's speech preceeds it. Primary (main characters, those with high involvement and essential to the story) and secondary characters use their actual names. Tertiary characters use basic references, such as "policeman", "clerk", or "bystander 2". A number follows if there are more than one character of this type, used to distinguish between them.
Character speech stands out from actions and descriptions. It is indented as if the margins were temporarily increased by a half of an inch. Character speech doesn't use paragraphs or first-line indenting. Unlike the movie format, you won't see a "(more)" at the end to indicate more speech is present on the next page.
Parenthicals in character speech are actions or descriptions that directly affect speech. In this case, the policeman is in a confused tone and begins speaking the moment he gets his car moving (or at least very close to that moment). Timing directly affects speech, but sometimes, timing details are found in actions and descriptions as well. The most common type of timing detail in character speech is "one-second pause" which means that there is an unnatural, abrupt pause that lasts for about one second (there can be some small variations like 800 milliseconds or 1300 milliseconds) - I don't use a great deal of precision on this. The "one-second pause" is the most common, though there are "quarter-second pause", "half-second pause", and "two-second pause" for the most part. The "quarter-second pause" is rare, used mainly if a pause is intended where one normally wouldn't be, but it's a short pause. Time to cast spells is far more precise as there's a formula to calculate it (the stats and abilities determine this), but still rounded to within 10 milliseconds for the low end, snapping to the same values I do for my dream journal's ratings, only with 4 times the precision.
Page numbers are found at the bottom of every page formated like this. Even page numbers are on the left while odd page numbers are on the right. From editing round 8 and beyond, page numbers have been moved to a position higher than shown, so that they are within a half inch from the edge of the page (as per Lulu's mandatory distribution requirements).

There are 2 other design elements used in the story and another 2 are used with the 10-page appendix that are not included in the sample above:

Occasional images, in grayscale, are centered on the page, with a centered, italicized, one-line caption below it. Most images found in my story are maps, though there are a few diagrams and other images around too. Almost all images are to scale, with the scale indicated in the caption. Captions look something like "Map 4: Rough layout of the building (Scale: 1:40)". The scale indicates that, for every 1 inch on the map, it's 40 inches in the real world scale (1 foot is 40 feet actual). Only two images are not to scale, both of which are just diagrams. I used a program to convert any color images (most were designed in grayscale, though a few weren't) into grayscale using a much more precise brightness-matching algorithm. All images have a whole blank line before them and a whole blank line after the caption.
At the start of each scene is the "time remaining" info, revealing how much time remains for the main event Knuckles senses (you'll see this essentially first thing in the story, seen on Lulu's preview). It's always just a single line.
A style resembling that of actions and descriptions are used for the basic text in the appendix.
Subheaders in the index are bold and underlined, with a blank line above them.

As you can tell by looking at the style, it very closely resembles the movie format, but it doesn't waste anywhere near as much paper. It is also quite easy to read too, even without having to read all the details about the formating used. You can tell who is speaking at a glance without having to read extra words like "he said" and the such.

4 How to buy

If you are interested in buying my book, start here. Lulu has a neat preview feature that allows you to view and read the preface, the first few pages of the book (scene 1 and almost all of scene 2), and all but one of the 6 appendices (you don't want to know about formulas and algorithms, do you?). The preview goes to the point the first two of the strange events occur - what could be behind the mystery causing these strange events? To find out, this is where you'll need to purchase the book for $19.95. Simply click the "add to cart" icon, then follow through the pages to place the order. Do note that it may be about a week or two before you'll see the book arrive in the mail. This is based on printing time (3 to 5 days) and shipping time (2 to 5 days priority; days based on business days). Also, the cover seems different from that on the top of this page. This is because it's brightness-adjusted, allowing the scene to print with almost the same contrast and apparent brightness on paper as it does on your monitor. Lulu won't allow me to upload a separate image just for the preview. The print out will come out almost exactly the way it appears at the top though, keeping the same relative brightness and contrast.

5 Disclaimer - the name Knuckles

I often get a lot of remarks about the story's character, Knuckles and it having something to do with Sega and Sonic. There are so many differences between my version of Knuckles and Sonic's version. Only 3 things are common between the two - the name (I've seen other cartoons from the 1960's or so use it), gliding (the algorithm for the motion is a lot different and much more complicated), and the fact that they are both covered with fur (of a different color and thickness). You can see what my version of Knuckles looks like in the image at the top. I didn't know about the existence of the Sonic series until about 2001 and started playing it during 2002. This book was written well before that (June of 1999 is when I started). There are plenty of differences, however. These are the numerous differences between the two:

	Mine	Sega's
Gliding	Very complicated algorithm*, can go in any direction	Simple algorithm, can only go down
Fur	Orchid-colored, unbrushed, and fairly short	Red, nicely brushed, and long
Spells	Used frequently	No character in the series that I'm aware of uses spells
Skill point	Casting spells	Punches
RPG design	RPG-like (stats, levels, HP, SP, status effects (e.g. poison, blind, slow, sleep, haste, etc.), etc.)	No RPG aspects are used at all
Origin	Another planet	Earth
Intelligence	Very high	Average (note: 70% certain)
Transformation	Cannot transform	Super and hyper forms
Collecting	SP**	Chaos Emeralds and rings
Sensing	Does it frequently	No known character in the series does it though some super heros have it
Scene 3***	Does it	No known character in any story does it
Scene 7***	Does it	No known character in any story does it
Scene 18***	Does it	No known character in the series does it, but very few super heros do

Table footnotes:
* See my December 2008 blog for the formula.
** SP doesn't really count as that's not a physical object - it's used for casting spells, an RPG element.
*** These involve elements that are key to the plot. They will not be directly revealed. For those that do have the book, they are, in order: the first sentence of the last description paragraph on page 25 (page 24 for editing round 7 and earlier releases), the first half of scene 7, especially from halfway down page 64 to a quarter of the way through page 65 (mostly halfway down page 60 extending to the top of page 61 in editing round 7 and earlier releases), and the last sentence of the last actions paragraph on page 174 (164 in editing round 7 and earlier releases).

As you can tell, there are a lot of differences between the two, 13 in all.

6 Frequently Asked Questions

Here's a list of general questions regarding the book in general.

6.1 Book FAQ

This group of questions revolves around the story and content within it itself.

Q. I'm not a gamer and don't know anything about video games or computers. How am I to understand your book?
A. This is why I wrote the appendix at the end of the book. The purpose of the appendix is to explain the basics of some of the terminology used, just enough to get an idea. The first sentence of each field for the stat descriptions is sufficient enough. The additional sentences that follow explain more detail about the stat referenced. For the most part, however, you don't need any experience with video games to understand the basic story.

Q. You stated that the stats windows were made in color but converted to grayscale - what do they look like at full size and in color?
A. The front cover shows one, but it's scaled down due to perspective effects. The stats windows are too big to display directly on the page (1440x960). Here's a half size version of the one seen in the preview on the Lulu site:

Q. If Knuckles is a heavy magic user, why is his magic attack so low?
A. There's an ability called "magic attack for efficiency". This ability sacrifices magic attack but improves magic efficiency. For spells that don't use the stat, such as his most powerful attack and status-effect-removing spells, this ability allows for a seemingly unlimited supply of spell power. Basically, you're actually seeing the square root of what his magic attack would be, with magic efficiency multiplied by what his magic attack now is.

Q. Why does the image on the Lulu site look odd?
A. It's color-adjusted to make the printed version very closely match the original image as shown at the top of this page. The printed version, normally, would've otherwise lost contrast and printed darker than it would have normally done. With most grayscale converters I've seen, the color green (00FF00 or ######) becomes gray shade 153 (or ######). If you were to put this green color against a grayscale gradient and find the point where the two seem to blend together equally, you'll find it's around gray shade 212 (or ######) instead, a significant difference. I wrote a C program to apply this, through numerous experiments I've done years before I started writing the program. Through experiments I've done using my own printer as I guide (all printers seem to have this same "problem"), I've figured out the algorithm needed in order to closely match what I intend on it being. I wrote a program to allow for this adjustment. For those that have the book, you can clearly see how effective it is. It's even more accurate since editing round 8 was released though you won't otherwise notice much of a difference. Lulu's design uses this color-adjusted version as it's source, since I can't upload a separate image myself. This shouldn't be the case with online retail stores, but you know how reliable 30% certainty is....

6.2 Purchasing FAQ

This group of questions revolves around purchasing the book.

Q. You originally had your book for $12.95, but now it's $19.95. Why did the price go up so much?
A. Lulu requires it. Distribution requires that the price be at least that of what the retail price would be for a zero author royalty which is higher than the $12.95 price. To follow the rules, the price had to go up. See Lulu's FAQs for more details on this.

Q. When will your book go into bookstores?
A. This will, obviously, have uncertainty, but it seems like early April is a likely candidate. It's mostly waiting for Lulu to print the copies neccessary. However, 60% certainty isn't very reliable....

Q. When your book goes into bookstores, should I buy from them or from Lulu?
A. That's your decision. The price is the same either way. I'll get more income (nearly triple) for each sale if bought from Lulu, but use of Lulu requires a credit card or debit card. By buying it from bookstores, you'll support your local economy (from sales tax), and you can also use other payment methods like check and cash in addition.

Q. I'm not from the US, can I still buy your book?
A. You should as Lulu seems to ship almost anywhere. Physical bookstore support may be quite limited, however, though this is currently unknown. By "physical bookstore", I mean going into an actual building to buy the book from shelves and paying for it through a cashier instead of doing it online.

Q. I bought your book but it seems to be the wrong story. What do I do?
A. First, check to make sure the cover matches that of the image at the top of this page. Although editing round 8 caused a change, the difference is very slight. If it matches, then check the interior with Lulu's preview feature. If this matches, then you do have the right book. If any of these don't match, then this is a problem I can't address - you'll have to contact Lulu in order to resolve this problem.

Q. Are there any coupons or discounts available?
A. Lulu doesn't seem to have a coupon feature, aside from those that they make themselves (though these often apply to bulk orders, often for 100+). However, by purchasing more than one copy, you will get a discount though it's only a small one unless you buy a lot of copies. If you want one for yourself, a friend, a neighor, or whatever, consider combining the funds and splitting the cost between each other - you'll save more this way. It has no negative effect on the profits I get though.

Q. I want to buy your book, but I don't have a credit card or debit card because I'm not old enough to have one. I do have the money for it though.
A. Give your parents the money and ask them to purchase it for you. Otherwise, you'll either have to wait until you're old enough or wait until the book is available in book stores. It's all I can say.

6.3 Future plans FAQ

This group of questions revolves around the future of this book.

Q. Do you have plans for other books?
A. Sort of. I have 3 concepts in mind, one based off of this book (a prequel), the other 2 are unique and different, though they all use the RPG elements.

Q. Are you going to make an audio book of this?
A. When I get enough sales, yes - it's in my "book of plans". Keep in mind that this will require another 8-month delay for copyright registration, let alone the time to record, edit, and fine tune it. The odds will increase as the sales continue to go up.

Q. Will you turn this book into a movie?
A. The odds are quite low - I'd have to get lucky and hope a movie producer looks at it. The story and descriptions, in a way, are quite optimized for computer-generated animation, in a way, lessening the amount of time needed to create it.

Q. Will there be a hard cover version?
A. I don't know. Lulu has support for it, but there's one major problem - the price nearly doubles. If you think the price change from $12.95 to $19.95 was considerable, try going for $36.95 as that's what hard cover would cost. It's for this reason that it's highly questioned. If there's enough requests for it, then I will get it, though you may not see it in book stores for quite a while considering I'd have to buy another ISBN and probably another "Global Reach" package, a cost of $200).

Footnotes:
* This dream involves me drifting on a log raft through many of the US states, occurring in late 1995. It spawned the series called "The Story of the Wonderful Adventure". This old series is of poor quality and has little potential for sale as is.