Omnibus Reflections
My Writing Journey Vol. 13
I released my first self-published book in April 2015. In April 2021 I began releasing four omnibus volumes collecting all twenty-two books in the universe that spawned off that first novelisation of a Minecraft YouTuber’s video.
Welcome to this writing journey post! Last week I talked about writing the last bunch of books in my Diamond Dimensions Universe, five and a half books in nine months. The last of those individual titles was released in February.
Even though it was only two and a half years ago, I don’t remember when I first started working on these omnibuses, but it must’ve been straight after the release of that last book if not before. I’m going to give some general thoughts and then go into each omnibus volume a little.
I had a lot going on at the time - I did burn myself out. My brain became full with this story - I had trouble sleeping thinking through the whole universe I was re-reading and re-ordering into these omnibuses, never mind the fact I was revising for A-levels, and working on two class plays. I could’ve just waited for the summer holiday, and not worn my brain out. I guess there’s a lesson there not to try and do too much at the same time. Even though it almost broke me, I’m glad I pushed through and got it done, something of which I could be really proud. It meant in that summer holiday, and into the next stage of my life, I could move onto the next thing, but that’s next week’s post.
Somewhere I have the scribbles that a large amount of brainpower went into, tracking the full timeline of stories from thousands of years ago down to the hours of every day - some days four stories would technically be taking place.
So yes, I did the crazy idea of a full chronological omnibus. I’d already released two reading orders for those with the individual books on my Amazon author profile here. One’s the release order - probably the best order to read the books in as my writing improves and the wider universe grows with each one. It still is the best order to read the books in, if you want that sort of journey and the mysteries unfolding in the order I wrote them, but as I did the omnibus volumes I updated a lot of the early books and tweaked some along the way for overall consistency as my ideas changed with age. The other is the timeline order, going down to the chapters or short stories of some books but generally keeping each volume together.
Of course, value for money and quality of writing - buy the omnibuses if you ever feel inclined to check the stories out. And I certainly put a lot of care putting everything in the exact chronological order.
The omnibuses cut between books. They take Back at the Lab sections and short stories and insert them between chapters of books. There are a few books chopped up across two of the four omnibus volumes. I don’t know how I held it all in my head, really. And I wrote four new short stories at this time, one for each omnibus as some other incentive for those who’d bought the individual volumes.
If that wasn’t enough, to try and gather some new fans, I started some social media accounts for the books. I’d started an instagram before, but now branched to twitter and mainly to YouTube. On the six-year anniversary of the first Diamond Dimensions books, I launched the YouTube channel I’ll link here. It’s kind of embarrassing but you can go and listen to me narrating over some photos. The first video was sharing my story of writing the books. Then, at the end of each week I’d release an omnibus volume and a YouTube video talking about it. Luckily I’d already written those reflections at school in free periods at the start of each day for a week. I suppose I prioritised my writing a bit too much compared to my exams; I suppose it shows my dedication to an authorly life. It comes with the stress of deadlines and multitasking!
Now’s the time when I’ll talk about each omnibus a little. I still used Amazon’s usual 6x9 inch size, but for the first time adjusted the margins so more words went on each page, and that things were aligned better considering the larger spine.
Volume One (547 pages) contained every ‘prequel’ story, every tale set before Dan first sets foot in The Diamond Dimensions. There’s my Watcher origins book and the whole Cave series. Thanks to my dad for letting me include them under my name, and letting me edit them slightly to match the formatting of the other stories in the omnibus. A lot of the short stories are from my Diamond Dimensions Volume 4.5 book of short stories, the last few taking place in 2012, the year Dan started his YouTube channel in real life. There’s the two character-centred short stories from the collected Watchers editions, as well as a new story, The Floor is Lava, with the children from The Cave series, a bit of fun of them just playing, being happy children for once not on a deadly adventure.
Volume Two (583 pages) is the main chunk of my earliest storytelling. The first five volumes are interspersed with one chapter from Origins and the two 4.5 short stories. But I realised I had to shift back the timeline for Back at the Lab sections, and the first few books were the ones I edited the most, so they’re far from their original form still. Before the Beginning, the short story exclusive to this omnibus volume, was the original opening to The Watchers series before I shifted focus and the prologue became an Earth-based story and I settled on the alternating POVs of all the recruits. It was good to be able to put that original opening out there, as continues directly from the end of The Diamond Dimensions: Volume 5, and of course it ties into the first Watcher book, witnessing events mentioned as more of a shock in that latter book. That scene also features in the screenplay I’ve written based on the non-Minecraft elements of this self-published universe.
Volume Three (567 pages) is about every story following the aftermath of the pinnacle of Dan’s quest to get home in Volume 5 of The Diamond Dimensions. It includes another of my father’s works, Rift Chronicles: Timelight, re-formatted and intercut with my other works. This might be the omnibus volume with the most cutting between books to keep the chronology. Unstoppable is a story from Legacies that is over a decent timeframe, filling in a gap for the series’ villain. And since the Rift Chronicles was a series with only one entry, I felt I’d like to include another story to at least make it a series of two stories. Rift Raiders was actually a story I’d thought about for years. I’d given that title to a story I thought about telling where different villains of the series team up and make the most of the network of portals cropped up between worlds, but that story fell by the wayside, didn’t quite fit when I took the time to plan everything going forward. Rift Raiders became a fun way to tie my story to new enemies added to Minecraft the game that hadn’t featured in Dan’s earlier videos.
Volume Four (600 pages), if you hadn’t realised by now for some reason, contains the last books in The Diamond Dimensions and Watchers series, and every story after them from Legacies and the somewhat standalone novelisation and continuation of Dan’s Misadventures series. A thing to note is that I put the start of each book as the page number. But the short story Escapades of Jemma, for example, isn’t 250 pages long. The Watchers: Chapter 5 and The Diamond Dimensions: Volume 8, overlap with that story and each other, as characters move all over the place between worlds. Luckily I’d done a good job when I wrote those books keeping track of everyone, so I just had to slot everything in its right place. It was a relief it all worked out - I hope. My overworked brain could well have made a mistake, but let’s hope not, eh?
Stories Retold had the short story I wrote for this volume, the last story in the timeline, the last in all four omnibuses. It features a character called Harvey visiting a museum in The Diamond Dimensions about Dan and his clone’s families’ lives, all the quest and enemies. I included something I’d brought out of Legacies, an exercise I’d done at school, writing a story from the POV of an undead skeleton, the first one Dan fights the first night he has to survive in the alien world in the first book I ever brought out. So it was full circle seeing that event from a different POV, and it was full circle as that character Harvey is inspired visiting the museum to retell the old legends…
Another factor of condensing everything into these omnibus volumes were the parts of The Watchers Chapter 1 and 5, and my two books of short stories, that had introductions and conclusions talking directly to the reader, an in-universe voice of the void. They couldn’t really fit into the flow of everything woven together instead of separate books collected. If I was doing the omnibus now, I would’ve put those as appendices at the end of the last volume. I could of course put in the work and do that, updating them on Amazon, but I’m not Tolkien, and there’s a part of me that doesn’t want to touch this project that took a lot from me.
I’ve moved on to telling my own stories, not tied to Dan, though I treasure how his permission to publish the first volume was the spark for me to explore how I love to tell stories, find my voice, genre, experiment and plan and actually find an audience to motivate me.
I must admit this post took me longer than it should’ve to write. Looking through my physical omnibus volumes, I became somewhat spellbound by the spells bound in those books, polished forms of my work and passion and escapism of seven developmental years of my life crystallised from scattered gems of varying quality to four doorstoppers that hopefully will hold open the door to my future. Sorry for that overly poetic sentence. I do hope to give them to Dan one day; maybe he’ll read them to his two boys…
So, that’s the end of that period of my writing journey, somewhat doing it as a hobby while I was at school. Now I’m still doing it as a hobby, just with no school to overload my brain! Next week, what’ll be the last writing journey post of this year, will be talking about what I wrote in the summer of 2021, something I wrote over two weeks, a chapter a day, Children of Shadows.
Thank you so much for reading! Especially those who’ve read this whole journey series so far - it’s not over! It means the world that you’re here. Once again I’ll link the omnibus volumes below (this time as buttons!), if you fancy checking them out in any form. It would mean so much to me. They’re free to read with Kindle Unlimited, or for sale as Kindle books or paperbacks. You’re getting at least five books in each one, so if you give them as Christmas gifts, it’s five in one! (That’s my sales bit over, phew.)
And please, if you’ve read all the way down to here, share this post around to your family and friends, or on whatever social media you’re on. It’ll be a lovely Christmas present for me.
Cheers,
Harvey