The CoDas: Reboot [By Hex]

2 Year Anniversary [2018] (Q&A)

My name is Hex, as you already know, and I am the author behind my favorite series, The CoDas.

Although I may have started writing this book two years ago on August 31st, 2015, I have been planning this story out for more than just 2 years, I've had this in my head for 4 years and I never gave the idea up. I just built upon it.

Let me be honest, I don't expect many people to ask questions and that is alright. I just wanted to do some sort of special chapter to celebrate the anniversary. This chapter will stay and I will answer any questions thrown at me no matter how much time has passed, even if the story is finished.

Whenever a question is asked, I will feature it in the chapter itself and answer them so be on the lookout for that. They will be shown below this "Author's Note".

Lastly, I wish to say thank you to all those who have read my story up to this point! You are awesome and I hope you stick around till the end.

Happy Anniversary!!

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Crokaton: Where did the idea to make the protagonist half Arab come from?

Hex: There are a few reasons behind it, not just one. I've always wanted a PoC middle eastern character as a protagonist in an action, sci-fi or fantasy story. Middle Eastern characters are nothing new but they often appear in autobiographies or drama about the perspectives of immigrants. When I look at these stories of immigration due to wars and terrorism, it gives the middle east a bad impression. I want to break that impression and give it a more sophisticated perspective. This is only half of the reason. The other reason is that I myself am middle eastern and I wanted an MC that I can relate to and implement myself in. I am not an Arab myself but I wanted to make the MC Arab because that's the most common ethnicity one would have the middle east plus the fact that its 200 years in the future so the population would be a lot more multicultural too. 

Crokaton: Can we expect more tragic scenes in the future?

Hex: I'm not sure how I wanna answer this one, one mistake and it would take out the impact and surprise when the tragedy does occur.

I do love writing dark and tragic stories but I also have thoughts of lighthearted moments. When I watch a movie, I usually want a happy ending and I often use to dislike bad endings. However, nowadays I find that sometimes a bad ending can be so well done that I don't really mind it that much and perhaps even prefer it.

All I can say is that CoDas is much like real life, you never know how it will turn out. 

One moment you're having the worst time of your life, perhaps you lost someone, perhaps you're just in bad luck. You can't find a job, you may be failing at school, you may have had something traumatizing happen to you and you're wondering why this all even happened. 

You're at the edge of despair.

Why you, why now and if there is a reason behind all of this?

But then there will be a small speck of light at the end of the tunnel, which will warm your heart and you'll feel genuine happiness.

Life is all about the unexpected roller coasters and I wish to make The CoDas feel the same way. 

-DeathMaster: Other than Nathan (fnathan included) who's POV is your favorite to write from?

Aside from them, I have 3 other favorites. 

BruteWolf, FZack (Fake Zack) and Johnny. 

BruteWolf and FZack are tied between first place.

I love writing both of them for different reasons, I like the evil yet rational outlook of boy scarred by his past and giving a human personality and reasoning to a monster who wants revenge.

For a long time, I've been writing from the 'Good Guy' perspective and it just feels refreshing to take a different route.

Johnny is 2nd place due to having a lot of potential for future events later on. I find him to be the gateway for readers to see the dark underworld of the Modern Earth, where all the criminals and corrupted organizations reside. 

-DeathMaster: What has been the largest key moment so far?
A key moment that was important to ME personally was definitely in chapter 35 where it is revealed about Zack's hidden past. Not only did I want to bring up a serious topic, I wanted the readers to take it seriously as well. I brought up Zack's backstory to a trustful friend of mine who gives me a lot of good advice regarding my story and he said that it is not a good idea for me to have that as Zack's backstory. 

To give some idea of what kind of person my friend is, he seems to REALLY enjoy dark themed stories and tragedies. A lot of what he reads is related to things like torture, abuse, and sexual assaults. And believe me, he has a dark sense of humor. Though it is not that he enjoys watching the characters suffer but he likes to watch these characters grow from their trauma and become much stronger than what they were before. 

So yeah, he is pretty much an expert in dark themed storytelling. Basically, he explained that no one would sympathize with Zack because many will think of him as weak and not take the situation seriously. He was right, if you have read Zack's backstory, you know that this type of incident is uncommon and most often, no one will take it seriously. This became a huge dilemma as I contemplated how I could make this situation really serious and tragic.

Chapter 35 became a chapter that I put more passion into than anything I have written before, and thinking about how the readers could react to this brought a lot of nerve wrecking pressure on my shoulders. 

Long after I uploaded 35, I realized I put a little 'too much' passion into the chapter haha, so I had to add a disclaimer in the beginning. So yeah, that whole chapter was the largest 'key moment' for me.

- DeathMaster: Has all the MCs been introduced?

To be more clear, (To both myself and the reader) Nathan is the Protagonist of this story, he is the one retelling the events. However, I think that every character is a little bit of a 'Main Character' in CoDas. I'd like to think of them as human and normally each individual believes they are the main characters of their own life. It's a natural part of our psychology to think we are meaningful in some way.

This volume of CoDas has only shown a few out of the many characters I have had in mind and I still get new character ideas as I continue to write my answer in this Q&A. 

So, no, not all the MCs have been introduced. They won't appear in this volume but perhaps in the next one or the one after. 

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