{"id":1880,"date":"2026-10-26T15:40:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T20:40:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/?p=1880"},"modified":"2026-10-26T15:40:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T20:40:15","slug":"drafting-the-sword-and-starship-prequel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/2026\/10\/drafting-the-sword-and-starship-prequel\/","title":{"rendered":"Drafting The Sword and Starship Prequel"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A <em>Sword and Starship<\/em> prequel has been an idea of mine for many years. I always thought it would be interesting to show some of Dame Jessamine&#8217;s earlier questing without the baggage and complexities of a full novel. Unfortunately, none of the ideas I ever had for a such a quest ever grabbed me. I struggled with both premise and theme. In other words, what should the darn thing be about, and what message should it deliver?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I used to wing it with those sorts of things. After reading John Truby&#8217;s <em>Anatomy of Story<\/em>, I&#8217;ve learned better. Spend all the time in the world\u2014weeks, if you have to!\u2014figuring these things out from the start. Whatever it is that resonates with you. Then you&#8217;ll find that when it comes time to actually write, you follow through with enthusiasm instead of losing steam after 10 pages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">My idea for the prequel is to show how the heck a well-mannered, god-fearing young girl decided to pick up a sword and quest through the galaxy in the first place. I&#8217;m about halfway through drafting what I believe will be a novella-length story (around 20,000 words). Absolutely everything is subject to change while drafting, but here are some things that I believe will definitely be part of the prequel:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Sir Mayweather Stark, Jess&#8217; first mentor, plays a significant role.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The story takes place in a previously-unvisited part of the galaxy with unique dogma (i.e. religious laws and customs).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Some of what will happen here is hinted at within <em>Blood&#8217;s Force<\/em> and\/or <em>Harbingers<\/em>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The prequel will share at least one theme with the <em><a href=\"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/2026\/08\/tech-support-noir-updates\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/2026\/08\/tech-support-noir-updates\/\">Tech Support Noir<\/a><\/em> novella I finished earlier this year: <strong><em>Choose your fate, or it will be chosen for you.<\/em> <\/strong>This is something I&#8217;m currently experiencing in real life: choosing to believe in myself and chase fiction despite recurring fears of failure and financial ruin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Do you have your own story to share with respect to staying true to yourself, even when it&#8217;s scary?<\/strong> Feel free to reply in the comments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Sword and Starship prequel has been an idea of mine for many years. I always thought it would be interesting to show some of Dame Jessamine&#8217;s earlier questing without the baggage and complexities of a full novel. Unfortunately, none of the ideas I ever had for a such a quest ever grabbed me. I struggled with both premise and theme. In other words, what should the darn thing be about, and what message should it deliver? I used to&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/2026\/10\/drafting-the-sword-and-starship-prequel\/\"> Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2,7,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advice","category-sword-and-starship","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1880"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1881,"href":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1880\/revisions\/1881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}