Dan Chou is setting down his dice for his next fundraising adventure, self-publishing his first young adult novel. Chou, who established the company Chou Games and has successfully held campaigns in the past for publishing board and card games, got the idea for the novel during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“During that time, all board game conventions had stopped,” Chou said. “I fell back on one of my hobbies from the past that I could do more solo, which was writing stories.”
Chou said he dusted off a few old story ideas he’d had from years earlier.
“I am not a formally trained writer, so like any hobby, I took my time doing writing exercises and experiments or reading other material,” Chou said.
His writing experiments had him dabble in horror, mystery, children’s writing.
Chou said, growing up, he loved adventure and science-fiction novels, and he kept being drawn to that genre again.
He began the novel in 2020 and tried traditional publishing approaches by contacting agents in last April.
“In August, I had four or six rejection letters telling me the work wasn’t a fit for them, and others probably got hundreds of similar approaches,” Chou said. “I could have continued waiting for someone to publish, but I thought it would be more advantageous to see this project through and self-publish the work.”
Over the past several months he has worked with others to finish the project. His wife, Marci, has worked at doing copy-editing on the book, making another pass just before the Kickstarter is to go live. Cornell student Greta Henderson also worked as a formal editor on the book, giving critiques and corrections in what Chou described as a 40-hour session.
“I’m not a details editor,” Chou said. “I knew that if it needed corrections, I’d need someone else’s eyes to look at the piece with me.”
He also said a lot of help and guidance came from his writing friends and crews.
“I’ve had people look at a first draft and then come back to them and let them know what changes I made to read again to give me feedback throughout the process,” Chou said. “It’s a lot different than when you’re playtesting a board game where you do things over and over again with minute changes to rules to see how they hold up. But you still need feedback from your core audiences.”
Chou said there are also a lot of similarities between Kickstarting a book and a board game.
“A good chunk of the project is still project management, which is something I like to do,” Chou said. “It’s just doing that with a different audience.”
He self-published another novel back in 2019, a fantasy musical named Candii’s Quest which, he notes, may be the only Guitar Hero fiction novella out in the world and was something he made for his wife.
“It had a lot of fun stories and fun characters and I tested it out in the world,” Chou said.
That book is going to its third edition and a potential print run as well, with a cover by Cornell College artist Tina Frost.
Vibrant Steel is a science-fiction adventure for young adults.
If you are interested in helping support the book, you can find the project on Kickstarter by searching Vibrant Steel or going to ChouStore.com, which has links to Chou’s games and projects including a button for the book which will also link to the Kickstarter.
“I believe everyone themselves is writing a book or a movie or some piece of art they just haven’t released yet,” Chou said. “Never doubt that you can finish. Sometimes, all it takes is working on it a little bit every day, even if that’s working at the plan for the work. The best thing you can do is let people know what you’re trying to accomplish as well. They’ll come out and cheer you on.”
What if your life was shaped by a game? And what if the bad guys thought you were just a bug in their plans? When young, ambitious Red Rover crosses the line and investigates her desolate world’s revered steel arch, she unlocks an incredible gate to other galactic societies ruled by game premises like capture the flag and more. Marbles can be used to measure a person’s dignity. A blood sport about climbing a metal hill could captivate billions. And in the darkest reality, humans are reduced to subterranean prey who hide from grotesque, multi-limbed globs of smoking mass called Seekers scouring our galaxy at the order of an unfathomable alien threat. Before an evil, outside of our scale of time, can wipe us out and fleece our galaxy, five unlikely young heroes find each other across the celestial divide and defend our galaxy by bridging the differences of knowledge, religion, and maturity. Are you game?
VIBRANT STEEL is a 125k-word YA sci-fi novel describing five unique future societies shaped by dramatic interpretations of children’s games. VIBRANT STEEL’s female characters are as fierce as the women of Xiran Jay Zhao’s Iron Widow. And like Binti in Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti, Red is an aspiring independent character leaving her home in search of growth and relief of her past but is unsure how to do that.
Description of Vibrant Steel What if your life was shaped by a game? And what if the bad guys thought you were just a bug in their plans? When young, ambitious Red Rover crosses the line and investigates her desolate world’s revered steel arch, she unlocks an incredible gate to other galactic societies ruled by game premises like capture the flag and more. Marbles can be used to measure a person’s dignity. A blood sport about climbing a metal hill could captivate billions. And in the darkest reality, humans are reduced to subterranean prey who hide from grotesque, multi-limbed globs of smoking mass called Seekers scouring our galaxy at the order of an unfathomable alien threat. Before an evil, outside of our scale of time, can wipe us out and fleece our galaxy, five unlikely young heroes find each other across the celestial divide and defend our galaxy by bridging the differences of knowledge, religion, and maturity. Are you game? VIBRANT STEEL is a 125k-word YA sci-fi novel describing five unique future societies shaped by dramatic interpretations of children’s games. VIBRANT STEEL’s female characters are as fierce as the women of Xiran Jay Zhao’s Iron Widow. And like Binti in Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti, Red is an aspiring independent character leaving her home in search of growth and relief of her past but is unsure how to do that.
From board games to books – Local game creator, author launches Kickstarter for YA novel
April 27, 2023
About the Contributor
Nathan Countryman, Editor
Nathan Countryman is the Editor of the Mount Vernon-Lisbon Sun.