Versatile Superstar: Rise In Hollywood

‘Novels.’

From childhood, Aiden loved stories. He had an inbuilt curiosity and love for them. That made him read a lot of them from childhood. 

As he reached teenage, a friend made him get into anime by showing him one of them and like that, he also got into light novels. Those stories were fun for him too. 

He felt like they were perfect to read to pass time and due to them being very light themed, they would always make him feel better. 

But the thought of writing any kind of novel was not something he had thought. 

He felt that he wasn’t good enough to write them.

He felt that until he got his writing skill. After getting it, he felt a desire to write. No matter what type of story. A nonfiction novel or a light novel. He just wanted to try his hands on it. 

For a long time, he felt that he wouldn’t find a topic to write about. Though there were a lot of things he wanted to write about, he didn’t know how to continue them after a while. The inspiration wasn’t coming for him. 

Aiden didn’t want to just write about anything. 

He wanted to write a story that could inspire others, make others feel a lot of emotions and teach them something. 

That inspiration came when he first met Harley Martin. 

‘I really felt that there was a story hidden in him. A story that even I have lived for a short time. The story of struggling for dreams.’

At first, it was just curiosity. 

After all, even with a high skill level, he was just an extra. A background actor who would work around the set to not be unemployed. 

That’s why he has asked him about his story. 

When he had heard it, he had truly felt that his story should have been told to everyone. It was a story of perseverance and struggle. Even if he didn’t have a lot of money or a place to sleep, Harley had kept going on, just because of his love for cinema. 

Aiden had felt that it was a great injustice that Harley was nowhere in his acting career.

Of course, Aiden didn’t mean his story to be a biography. He was just taking inspiration from Harley’s life to base the main character around him. He was also going to add the experiences that he had gone through in his struggling days. 

In his quest to write the story, his ‘Synchronisation’ skill was helping him a lot. 

‘No, this scene looks a bit weird. I need to portray a bit more emotion here.’

Currently, Aiden was typing out his novel in his bedroom. The clock on the wall was showing that it was already midnight but his focus was on his laptop’s screen like he had forgotten about the time. 

His skill ‘Synchronisation’ was in effect here. 

As he was writing the lines, his eyes looked a bit different. Normally, his eyes would be black but currently, there was a bit of blackish glow in them. 

This was an effect of his skill. 

The skill function was pretty simple. It was making Aiden think like Harley while writing the main character that was based on him. He was feeling like he and Harley were the same person, making it very easy to write down his dialogues and emulate his way of talking and personality. 

In a way, it was similar to his character affinity but it activated only if he got inspiration from a real person while writing. 

At the same time, it didn’t have any downside to it either, like Aiden’s personality changing into the character. 

It was a pretty safe skill because of that. 

‘No, I’m making Harley’s character too headstrong and his love for cinema needs to be shown more and the character of the director is very one dimensional with no backstory. I need to give his actions a bit more dimension.’

‘A love interest might halt the flow if I don’t do it right. She just needs to connect to the story in a good way.’

‘The ending needs to be perfect. I don’t want to portray that even after all the struggles one won’t get a good ending. Harley needs to have a good ending and I need to give readers inspiration to follow after their dreams. That’s what this book represents.’

Like that, Aiden wrote whole night, occasionally taking a few breaks to go through his ideas again and to read other books to gain inspiration. 

At the same time, he was also thinking what to do after he finishes up the novel. 

He wasn’t writing for just himself. He wanted to publish it and in his eyes, the book was written very professionally but he didn’t know if the story was good enough to be published. 

He decided to show it to his friends to take their view on it. 

***

‘These days, young writers have really lost their way.’

An old man thought, frowning. His eyes were reading the lines of a book in his hand but he was severely disappointed by what he was reading. 

Frowning, he was unable to read another word and put the book on the table. 

The book he was reading was called ‘Birds in the Black Sky’. It was a story that had recently won an award in a competition but in the eyes of the writer, the story was severely lacking. 

The story was based around the main character’s fear of light and because of that, he would only go out at night and would meet interesting people and have an adventure, eventually conquering his fear. 

The premise of the novel was very interesting but the old man felt like the execution was severely lacking. The motivation of characters, his life outside his fear of light and even his romantic interest felt very random to the old man. 

Obviously, it wasn’t bad. 

The book was good enough to win a prize after all. The author had done well but it wasn’t at the level that the old man had thought it would be. 

Because of his high expectations of the book, the old man was left disappointed in the end. 

“It’s been so long since I have read a great non fiction novel.”

He muttered, turning his head to look at the bookshelf to his right. In the bookshelf, all sorts of famous and underrated novels were there that the old man had collected over the years. 

On top of the bookshelf, several awards were attached to the wall. All sorts of prestigious awards were there. 

‘International book award.’

‘Wright prize.’

‘Good Novels novel of the year’

All these literary awards were there. These were the awards that the old man had written in his life.

Yes, he was a writer and a world famous one at that. 

Not only has he written novels that have won prizes, his stories have also been adapted into movies in Hollywood, making him one of the millionaire authors. 

From non fiction books in genres like mystery, romance and drama to fiction books in the genres of epic fantasy and sci-fi. The old man had tried everything but had gotten success more often than not. 

But these days, he is not in a good mood. 

It was because he felt like the writers coming through in this age were not as good. The quality of stories were becoming worse and even if there were good writers, most of them were very old. 

He had already retired from writing some years ago and just rarely wrote for himself. 

Still, he had a desire to read good stories and there were not a lot of them. It was a very sad state that he felt the world was going through. 

‘My desire to read a good novel is just increasing but I don’t think I will find a good one.’

Thinking that, he sighed. 

***

“I didn’t know you were writing a novel. When did you ever start writing novels?”

Aiden was currently sitting in Uncle Sam’s office. He had come to meet him, carrying his now completed manuscript in hand. 

He had printed it on his way to his uncle’s restaurant. 

Yes, he had completed it last night and without wasting any time, he wanted to get views on how it was. He had called Wade too but it seems like he was busy with some other things, so he naturally came to his uncle. 

“Just a month ago. I felt like I should try different things. Wade was fine with it as he said that it just adds to my image.” Aiden replied and his uncle nodded. 

“Yeah, but only if it’s good.” Uncle Sam chuckled. “I thought the only time you would try writing a novel would be when you would write your autobiography to get the tag of a ‘best selling author’.”

Uncle Sam said in a mocking voice. He was not mocking Aiden but celebrities who would write their autobiography. Even if it wasn’t good, it would easily get the tag of a best seller due to the popularity of the celebrity. 

These days, even some famous MeTubers would do that. 

“Well, I’m not like that. I just had a story to tell and I wrote it. Now, read it and tell me how it is.”

Aiden urged and Uncle Sam squinting his eyes. 

“You do know I’m busy too, right?”

“Uncle, you are not working. You are playing a fps on your computer. I can clearly see that.”

Aiden said, pointing at the computer on his desk that was clearing showing the pause screen of a fps game. 

“Ah, yeah. Let me read it.”