What if the Earth was the other way...?

38. Behind the pages

Aleena Agnes Sparrow

Spoiler alert! First, read the story because the content here would disclose some of the important twists in the story and also the climax. But it would be fun to see some ' behind the papers ' kind of stuff.

Tring...

It was one zero period. I hated those periods, though they existed only for a month in an academic year. The thing is, zero periods are a set time for rehearsals for the upcoming annual day celebration of the school. I tried out for dance and didn't get selected. So, I concluded that zero periods are such a waste of time. The non-participants were expected to use that hour for silent study. Who cares? No one ever bothered to study at that time. Some may lurk around commenting on those participating.

So, one zero period, I was scribbling something on the paper: If the Earth was the other way...?

Sounds good. I made a rough character sketch too.

Wait, I've got the title, the characters and where is the storyline? I needed one. I looked around, Alka was endorsed in the Divergent book. Amisha was helping Avani with maths. Some boys were talking about computers and robotics while some were discussing sports. The girls in the backbench were probably gossiping.

Well, I was thinking. This story should be great.

"Sparrow, what are you doing?" the popular kid in class asked, popping up her head when I was drawing a rough map of Kliptora.

"Nothing important." I smiled.

Everyone in the class, except a few called me Sparrow. My surname looks so fascinating to them because it was not common in India to have surnames, that I always get comments for it. At first it was quite annoying but afterwards, I got used to it. Speaking of surnames, I needed to give surnames for my characters. Amisha Rameshan and Avani Biju are my two besties. So, combining their names I get... Avra!

I got Faelliyo by eliminating some random letters from the scientific name of a flower named the bleeding heart and for some reason, I don't remember its scientific name anymore.

The next day was one of those wet damp monsoon days. The rain almost flooded the streets and the sand was so soggy. Not to mention mosquitoes everywhere and the constant power cuts. Monsoon is always the same. That night, mom and dad had some business to attend. So, I, my two younger sisters (yeah, I'm the eldest!) and my cousin sat in the drawing-room under the candlelight. I brought out the idea of the story and soon, we were just shooting out ideas. I enjoyed discussing with them. Now, I have a starting to the story. I actually wanted the story to be a dream, but it changed when I talked with Mufeed in school.

"The summary (bulb) is awesome. It just creates interest. So, did you think of a villain?"

"I didn't think of a villain."

"So, you are ---"

"Hey, your story?" another dude popped out of nowhere taking my script (actually first chapter) of the story from Mufeed.

"No. Sparrow's."

"Oh." He returned it. I actually never talked in school so much. One reason is I'm super shy. Anyway, Mufeed took the script from him and continued,

"So, you are making an adventure story without any interesting scenes? Boring!"

"What if Nathalia is the villain!"

"I like it! Anti protagonist. Great."

Well, he took my script and found about hundreds of mistakes in it. I corrected all of them... Maybe not. I still got to perfect it but I enjoyed writing it. Mostly in zero periods. I started including all the phenomena and theories I studied in science into it. I kind of study such boring theorems by applying them in stories. It's something that can help a lot. You get a story and also study the phenomenon. That's how my story turned out to be a sci-fi story (not because I loved science!)

It took me one year to finish the story. The first one to read my story completely was one of my cousins, Sharon. She had one complain though. "Please include some romance! Tony and Nathalia have such a great chemistry."

"I am bad at romance," I said

The next one was Amisha. She loved it. She suggested it to our friend, Afnan and to her brother Akshay. They both loved it. Since Afnan and we didn't study in the same school, I used to WhatsApp her the story chapter by chapter. Meanwhile, some of my Yemen friends also read it through WhatsApp. So far everyone liked it. Afnan told me, she would proofread it but circumstances never gave me a chance to exchange my manuscript with her.

The next was Alka. She was the most honest in telling how she felt about the book and that's why I love Alka a lot.

"You dash girl! How dare you kill Tony and make Nathalia a villain at the same time? You made it doubly tragic. Di the colour thing is confusing... Di how can a mother forget to call her daughter? (That part I changed by making her mother travel on the nature tour.) I didn't understand a lot! But it was good."

Keeping that in mind, I changed some of the descriptions and plot lines which, I think I have rectified. These criticisms made the story more readable and enjoyable. I made changes but I didn't stop killing Tony.

"Ok, kill Tony, get a sequel for the story, where Nathalia goes to Kliptora again and overcomes their security system with a Katharnak (I love to hear her say that word! Its Hindi and I actually don't know the exact meaning but I think it means dangerous,) plan and lots of stunt scenes."

"Duly noted."

Did you know in the first script it was Tammy instead of Tony? People got confused with the two names that I changed it into Tony.

Well, I did invent that game with my younger sister, Helen. She wanted the game to be more like soccer and I wanted it to be more like basketball. Then, I remembered my former school in Yemen, where the basketball and the soccer court was merged into one. We both had lots of fun discussing it. And thus, Trwisky was invented. My other sister was sad. So, I named one of the characters with her name and it was Vanessa.

I almost forgot, one fine chemistry class, Avani helped me... More like wanted to colour the map. Being seniors, we had tons and tons to study and none of the teachers or staff or elders, in general, didn't encourage any other activities other than studying in our school. So, the colours which were available were those that we brought for underlining and highlighting the texts. So, with the available colours, she coloured it and that's one reason the map has purple water bodies. She is the one who wrote on it too. My handwriting is worse so I didn't want to destroy the drawing. Then I redrew the map and I think I made it better...

It was great fun trying to make the Kliptoran time. I sat hours trying to make that thing into a reality. Every time I end up with 23 hours! At last, it was done correctly. Phew!

Then I actually had a chance to talk to my old friends from Yemen and suddenly I remembered about an account I made in 2016. Yeah, this very Wattpad account. So, I published my story here. But I actually got disheartened when I didn't get any reads or votes. So, I changed the cover and from nowhere a follower!

And that's how What If the Earth was the other way...? Finally got out from the shelves and towards you guys! Thanks a lot! Then I had signed up for a novel writing course that made me realize that my story needed a little more plotline and more reforming and after six more years of rewriting and editing, I am finally satisfied with the whole story.

During that time, I came across a lot of writing platforms and stuck with a few. Inkitt, Tapas and Ajoara have been the best with the stats I got. Maybe I might reconsider other platforms or even making it exclusive to only one or two. But at the end of the day, I am so proud of how it turned out to bet. Most of the above-mentioned ideas have changed in due time and I think it has grown better as the years passed by. Also, I decided against killing off Tony. I think that was better decision than the last one.

Hope you liked it. (Both the behind the papers and the actual story!)

The end.