Rin’s Start Line

Life is writing your own story. You have a start, an end goal, now you just need to fill in the rest.

My name is Rin Asuka. At the time of writing, I am an aspiring Creative Writer. Hopefully, as this page develops more, I can drop the word “Aspiring” and truly live out my dream of being a creative writer.

All my life, I’ve spent my time staring out windows, dreaming, and fantasising about what could be. I watch films and TV shows, wondering what other stories could be told, and what stories I could tell if I was a character within them. What super powers would I have if I was in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? How would I handle myself if a Jurassic Park released dinosaurs into the world? How would I survive a Zombie Apocalypse? I want to tell my stories, I want others to get others dreaming and writing their own stories.

While dreaming and fantasising are all well and good. Getting it down on paper is what really matters for my dream. I first started writing five years ago. It was my first attempt at writing anything, and being a young teenager at the time, I had no real clue what I was doing, It had no structure, no planning. Just a fan story from the game franchise “Left 4 Dead” and I’m glad to say, no one is ever going to read it since it is a horrible piece of work. However, it’s a good start.

Using the same characters, I built up more books, exploring Zombie Apocalypses to fantasy worlds. The narrative of the story was incoherent. However, I have learnt a lot from my early books. I call them “Books” but in reality, they could be called short stories. they were 15,000 to 20,000 words maximum. And I’m proud of my younger self for being able to write so much. I do hold the characters close to my heart still, and I know I want to rewrite their stories one day and show off the characters to the world.

After two years of writing the four short stories following my Apocalypse survivors, I moved onto something new. Laying those characters to rest once their stories were over. Much like the last series, this new book had no real planning. Inspired by the Anime “Angel Beats” The story followed a group of children trying to escape from an evil leisure resort. The concept of the book wasn’t made on solid foundations, but the characters were much more refined. At 26,000 words, I was happy with the length across the seven chapters, one for every day of the week. The story had conflict, strong main characters, and an interesting concept. Within the last couple of months, I have even thought about writing it anew.

Using these characters, I did build a small series out of it. consisting of three books. Following the main four characters. I’ll spare you the horrors of the sub-par plot of the second and third books, But one scene in the third book still motivates me to this day. A fight scene between two of the main characters. Over the course of the books, the two characters had been sparing partners, one adopted a more Assassin type of fighting method, one hit for a kill. The other a much more head on fighter. During this fight scene, I am proud that I managed to write over 1,000 words just for the fight. Describing strategies that the two used in their fight. The Assassin character adopting a much more distract and then sneak attack, and the other holding her ground.

After I finished this book, I stopped writing again. I became busy with exams and coursework that I didn’t really look back. I didn’t think about writing any stories for years. That changed in summer of 2016. During a summer holiday from school, I visited the Leisure Resort that I had based the location of my first book on, as well as the start of the second series. I started to remember the stories I had written, and how much I enjoyed creating the Zombie Apocalypse story. Once I returned home from the Resort and was back at my computer, I set myself a project. over the course of the rest of the summer, I would write a new zombie book!

Four months later, three months longer than I had originally planned for the book, I had finished it. almost 70,000 words, 16 chapters, and just over 100 pages. This book was the biggest I had ever written. and it’s working title was Killing Days. But I still wasn’t as proud of it. I could do so much more. So after a few months break. I started to rewrite it.

I only was able to write it for about three months, working on it once or twice a week. Due to personal issues in my life, I put down the pen and stopped writing again. it took half a year before I picked up my pen again in January 2018, but this time Art was my goal. I started drawing fairly regularly. I did have a fair bit of talent at it too. I still didn’t know who I was, so most of art revolved around self portraits or friends. I did get two unpaid commissions, and thought I was destined for art.

By June 2018, I was fairly established in my large community of friends as one of the best artists of us. although, the majority of them were a few years younger than me. But I hit a wall and creative blocks with my drawing. It was at that time, I thought again about Killing Days. I skimmed through the original draft, picking out plot points that I loved and noting them down. I then dived in with actual planning for the first time. I planned my story, re-envisioned plot points, redefined the characters, wrote a paragraph or two explaining each chapter. and by the end of June, I was able to start writing. At this point, it was more of a side project. One of my friends proof red the chapters as I wrote them. A lot of the time, I would hit blocks or lose motivation to write. not filling out chapters as I liked.

Almost one year later, Killing Days still isn’t finished. I have however learnt a lot more about writing. As I reach the end of the story, I’ve got roughly three chapters left and I recently hit 100,000 words, I realise that there’s so much more I can change to the story already to make it even better. I still want to try and get Killing Days published. but I might have to re-write it one more time before I think it’s perfect. My debut novel has to be my best work.

Looking back at all I’ve written, each book has inspired me to write more. My early books taught me how to explore a world and you own ideas. for the sake that they were mostly fan stories of existing media, such as games, with my own characters added in. It helped me start to set the ground works. The next series of books taught me more about character progression throughout the course of a story. and Killing Days has taught me the importance of planning, the joy of building my own world and characters to explore that world. I’m sure that I will re-write Killing Days, or at least continue to explore the world I’ve created with different characters.

From here on out, I’m going to be posting my thoughts about stories. How different media tells stories. What I think makes a character great. How I think a story is told in a good way. As well as posting updates on my own work. This is my starting line.