The Lost Dreamer

By Andrew Chung

Joe Dreamer is well into its first chapter, so I thought it might be of interest to show its first real incarnation. Initially, it wasn't even called Joe Dreamer but just Dreamer. The name change eventually came about when I realized how common the word was. In addition, I felt it still seemed to be missing something. It didn't say what I wanted it to say. Yes, the main character was a dreamer but it doesn't tell the reader anything more than that. It was too simple. The main character's name was Joe, named in part to imply his average and everyman qualities. And so it dawned on me. He's not only a Dreamer but a Joe Dreamer. He's just like everyone else - his motivation for living comes from his dreams, whatever that may be. It sounded great too, thus the birth of the name Joe Dreamer.

In hindsight it was a deeply flawed story, parts of which I liked and others I despised. The premise I liked, but it was the execution that I loathed, which led me to reinvent Dreamer into Joe Dreamer.

The story was simply about an awkward boy with the typical angst and self doubt that most teenagers feel when entering highschool. He meets a group of bullies and they prove his fears about growing up are in fact true. Persecuted by them for the first week, the story carries on with a series of violent events that forces Joe to confront his inner struggle while the outer struggle continues to torment him. While not the most original of ideas, it was a story that was close to home, which is why it meant so much to me and why it was reworked numerous times (and still to this day).

I started writing the story about five to six years ago. So being a new writer it was plagued by the same flaws that most new writers suffer from. It was rife with pretensions, unnecessary expository dialogue, pacing issues and forced humour. All of which are my pet peeves in any story. I recognized all of these problems after reading the completed first story arc repeatedly. So I attempted to edit it and reedit it until most of these issues were resolved.

But alas it was to no avail. Terence provided the art chores for my pitch to numerous publishers, and in the end they were all rejected. I've provided some samples of the pitch, including the cover mock up and a few pages. I really don't blame the publishers, it is a tough read. It dealt with things that are often too dark and too depressing to appeal to a mass audience. Though many may beg to differ that dark and depressing properties such as Sin City have no problems with success, Dreamer lacked the flash and glitz. It wasn't a hyper reality, it was - reality. Reading the story again, I noticed that it was still overwhelmed with the pretensions, the heavy dialogue, and the bad pacing and humour. Another reason I don't blame the publishers. Strangely the thing that I was most confident in was the thing that most of the publishers criticized - the art. Most had simply said that the writing was good but the art needed work, and left it at that. But I wasn't convinced. In order for the pitch to be rejected, the writing must have been troubled as well. Publishers simply don't have the time to pick apart a pitch.