Why I Wrote... The Endeavour Series

By Andy Cooke.

The editor asked me to write a short article on “Why I wrote…” any of my SLP books. Naturally, I turned in an article on an entire series.

The Endeavour series began as a single book with an open-ended plot-hook (The End and Afterwards). This turned into a trilogy (adding Diamond in the Dark and Beyond the Sunset), of which a fourth book is due to be published imminently by SLP (Holding Hope) and a fifth book is in the early stages of brewing. Given this, I don’t think I had much alternative than to cover all of them.

The End and Afterwards grew out of a couple of things. Firstly, I’d noticed that books involving an apocalypse generally had it occur at the end (the story involving trying to avoid it – and failing), or at the beginning/before the book (post-apocalyptic stories). In my obtuseness, I determined to have one with the apocalypse occurring close to the middle of the book.

On top of this, I’d argued with a colleague over “Just-In-Time” logistics (let no-one say that story hooks can’t come out of “interesting” sources like this) where I’d pointed out that unforeseen major events could screw up entire interrelated chains that form an overarching tapestry (mixing metaphors ruthlessly). And, one day, when suffering from the flu, a scene popped into my head where people were arguing on top of a low grassy hill which I somehow knew was on board a starship, and that it was about rescuing people from a stricken Earth.

The End and Afterwards came together after that. It ended with Endeavour just heading into the void and whilst self-contained, it did hint at potential expansion. A natural trilogy would include “the journey” and “the arrival” as books – but this doesn’t give any clues as to the actual story in either. This needed to wait for later.

How I write

At this point, I need to take a detour into writing techniques. I think every author is different here. George R. R. Martin famously describes there as being two camps: architects (who plan everything out first) and gardeners (who start with a sort of destination, some characters, and a stage, and see how it develops from there).

These are also described as “planners” and “pantsers” (from “seat of the pants”) by some.

Each has some negatives. Architects/planners are sometimes seen as being too formulaic and writing without any wonder as to what might happen. Gardeners/pantsers are sometimes seen as too unformed and likely to end up with plot-knots that result in long-expected books being delayed by many years…

Personally, I suspect that it’s more of a spectrum rather than a binary choice. I certainly know that I’m not at either extreme. I start with a story idea and then develop it down to end up with a short description of what happens where. I then end up with “parts” to a book (which I later learned are described as “Acts” and you usually have either a “three act structure” or a “five act structure” – naturally, I usually end up with four). And from there, with the characters separately developed and a bunch of work done on the world itself, into a sentence or two for each chapter. From there, I expand out.

I am, though, not remotely attached to the original structure. If it develops differently to the original design, I’ll run with it – as long as I can still see a way to the ending. Or an ending that is as satisfying as the original (or better).

Coupled with this is the fact that some of the earliest drafts of the chapter sentences are somewhat… terse. I do usually assign these chapters to specific characters, which gives a hint or two.

Looking at the original design for The End and Afterwards, Chapter 10 (Pip PoV) was simply “Tour.” Chapter 15 (“Tom” PoV) was “Expectation and plans.” Chapter 28 (Tom again) was “Shuttle to the Moon.” Chapter 30 (Erica PoV) was “???? On the ship.” And it finished with three consecutive chapters (Erica, then Tom, then Pip) just with “Into the Void.”

Those who’ve read the book will not only have picked up that Tom didn’t appear in this volume (Tom was renamed as Charlie, because I used the name Tom in another book and didn’t want to recycle it so quickly), but there was no shuttle to the Moon with Tom/Charlie on board. This is because whilst the beginning usually goes more or less as planned, the characters and setting take on their own will and move the ending and the bits in between. At least it did end with Endeavour heading into the Void, even if that was a single chapter. God only knows what I thought was going to happen on the Moon diversion.

In any case, I tend to expand the terse original descriptions into a paragraph or two (changing as I go, based on what has happened to date and how the characters let me do it), and then sometimes into three or four paragraphs, before launching into the entire chapter. Usually, it resembles what I started with and simply develops a whole lot. Occasionally it goes off in another direction and I roll with it.

This is why I disagree with the simple binary. Either there’s a spectrum, or I’m a writer who simultaneously cheats at both: I’m a pantser who works to a structure, whilst also being a planner who can’t follow his own plan.

Feedback

One specific factor in these books has been audience feedback. Each of them was first serialised online – the first two on alternatehistory.com and the latter two here on SLP. This had two main effects:

1 – It made me get into a routine of writing, because I needed to have the next chapter set up to post weekly

2 – It let me know how it was coming across

The latter meant that I could not only adjust the style and what was being covered (sometimes things are obvious to an author but left confusing to the reader, who is inevitable reading what was written rather than what was meant), but even respond to things that hit a chord and those that fell flat. The latter could be adjusted until they worked or abandoned; the former could be followed up.

That became crucial during Diamond in the Dark. A plotline that became fundamental to the entire series originated when I fell flat on expanding a chapter heading of “Pip PoV – tennis match” and randomly decided to let people know what it was like back on Earth. A minor character from the Starship Foundation turned out to have survived and started to wander, and we caught up with her as she found a possible group to take her in. It went down amazingly well, so I revised the chapters to have a regular stop-by with her and worked out what happened there (story beats, then chapter headings, then paragraphs, then writing them and changing as we go). And the entire overarching story of the series changed – she turned out to be the missing thread that bound it all together and made the future story.

In other areas, the names of lands and oceans have often come from reader feedback; even the calendar structure itself.

What’s the Story?

Leaping back in the writing process to the start (which is fitting, because the process itself tends to skip all around the place), we have the key bit. The abiogenesis part to the evolution part I’ve described. Those who’ve read Chapter Nine of Beyond the Sunset will understand (and if you haven’t, go and read the book and come back. I’ll wait).

When asked after when the next book will start, I often reply that I don’t know the story yet. The seed out of which the book will grow (where I glossed over it earlier with “I start out with a story idea”).

Getting ideas isn’t difficult. Getting one that “fits” where I want to go and can support a full book – that’s more of a challenge. And it turns out that challenges are the way to get the story idea.

Or, more specifically, constraints and difficulties. Coupled with characters. Plus pushback – usually an antagonist (or two or three), or simply the world itself. Antagonists, by the way, need to believe that they’re not the baddies. Very few people ever do think of themselves such, so you need to have an idea as to why they’re causing such friction or hassle. They’ll either have a different set of beliefs and assumptions, or have rationalised something, or have ended up going step by step down a path where they believed they didn’t have much in the way of alternatives. Sometimes, they’ll even have a point. If this doesn’t come out (and here’s where feedback is crucial), you need to make it come out.

For book two, I knew that they’d be travelling between the stars for years, but that was about it. So – what are the challenges? They’re locked up in a comparatively restricted space, totally dependent on the on-board systems of an experimental vessel, with over three thousand people under various levels of stress with various drives and from various backgrounds – including three very clear differences. Some are from the original hand-picked crew. Some were rescued from a small town in northern back-country America. Some were rescued from a US Air Force base. All are traumatised and suffering from survivor’s guilt.

Having thought it through, it became a murder mystery in deep space, with some serious social frictions developing and needing to be handled. A couple of scenes came up in my head (as they had for The End and Afterwards, only with less flu). The story needed to fit these in and the beats needed to let them emerge. The characters developed and I found out what happened and then developed the story beats and the chapters and the scenes, and away we went. Plus, of course, a sort of novella set on Earth and interwoven that became crucial that grew out of feedback, as mentioned before.

For book three, it was obviously going to be an exploration-of-alien-world story, but that’s a huge vista. Then I considered the social frictions that had developed, the characters as they were at the end of the previous book, the news coming from Earth thanks to that sub-plot that emerged, and the world itself, and the story idea emerged. A sort of blend of gardening and architecture, where you build on what has emerged, work out what comes from that nascent building, and build upon that.

“Lore” – the draw, the trap, and the utility

I’ve mentioned the way that I go from a story idea to the story beats and plot, and about constraints, but I can’t emphasise enough: constraints drive creativity. Problems drive plot. Whenever you come across something that causes issues, in the real world, it causes stress. In writing, you should be rubbing your hands in glee. Your characters handling problems, overcoming challenges, and dealing with constraints is what a story is.

I didn’t know what the story for Holding Hope was until I stopped and thought “what happens to the situation left over from the previous book? The one where they were trying to find a long-term solution?”

This was what happened. In a very real sense, the situation at the end of the previous book was part of the “lore” and worldbuilding of the setting. But there was much more to it than that.

In The End and Afterwards, I worked on the effects of a relativistic projectile impacting Earth and its consequences, as well as the consequences of a worldwide pandemic (yes, the irony that we’d all be doing that five years after writing the book is not lost on me), and the effects of collapsing supply chains worldwide, as well as the realistic-as-possible design of a colonising starship to Alpha Centauri and what would need to be on board and who would be on board. And, like many geeky people, I had a blast doing so.

In Diamond in the Dark, I further elaborated on the starship design, worked on the social effects and on-board economic effects, on the developing consequences of the damage to Earth and its effects on the poor survivors, and started on the development of the Alpha Centauri system. Again, I really enjoyed it.

In Beyond the Sunset, I worked much more on the development of the planet Elpis and its biosphere, geosphere, and how Endeavour would approach colonisation, as well as more on the social effects on Earth and details on long-term bunkers. The number of maps I drew was, frankly, excessive.

You get the picture. Literally, if you look at my maps. But there’s something that needs to be emphasised: this entire area is what people so often call “lore.” The background. It’s what Tolkien did so well – but it’s also what stopped him from ever publishing the Silmarillion in his lifetime.

Because it’s so enjoyable to do it that you forget that you’re actually working on the props and the stage rather than the play itself. Without the story, the lore is meaningless. It can be a trap for your time and effort.

But the flip side, and the reason you can fall into that trap even when you’re fully aware, is that when you have fleshed it out, not only does it add so much to the realism of the story, it provides the story. It gives you those constraints. It develops those problems. It establishes those challenges. And then it gives you what you need to fire at the page to give you elements for your story ideas and to help you go from those single lines to paragraphs to entire chapters.

I’ve noticed that for both of the most recent two books in the Endeavour series, the writing went so smoothly and rapidly that I finished the online draft way ahead of schedule both times. This was because I had that “lore.”

But I have to emphasise again – be very aware of the trap. It’s so, so easy to get drawn into just expanding the background and developing the world. Whenever you’ve spent a while on this, remind yourself: why? What’s the story that can grow out of this? Make a note or two on that. And then, days, weeks, months, or even years later, you’ll have all the ammunition you need for your story development.

Otherwise you’ll end up with the most detailed and well-painted stage backdrop in history – that will be seen by precisely no-one. Moreover, the story then develops the lore in a feedback loop. Lore without story is sterile.

Summary

I was asked to answer the question of “why did I write…” [a specific book] and I sort of dodged it by answering why I wrote four books. I then went off into an entire diversion on how I write – which did, to be fair, give a lot of details on the writing of those particular books.But the question was why I wrote them. Not how I wrote them.

The answers were intertwined, though. And if I’d been completely straightforward, the answer would have been “Because I wanted to do an apocalyptic book that wasn’t really pre- or post-apocalyptic, but sort of in the middle,” followed by, “Because people (including me in particular) wanted to know what happened next.”

That would have been a pretty short and disappointing article. Moreover, it would have been hugely incomplete – which is something I’ve only learned myself by writing this down. Yes, that was why I started thinking about each of the books, but it isn’t why I wrote them. I wrote the Endeavour series because I wanted a reason to play in the “lore” of them. Because I needed an excuse to delve deeper. And then to share it all with likeminded people, and to make it a fertile world instead of a sterile one.

I rather suspect this is the real reason behind many stories.

The Endeavour series is available on Amazon, Smashwords, and Draft2Digital now.

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