The Rider (Complete)

How this story came to be

The story about how The Rider came to be is worth sharing since it's unique in my writing career. Ideas come and go and while riding bikes with my wife, I had this sudden flash of a scene in my head of a lone rider, racing through a mars-like terrain on a futuristic bike - abandoned buildings, sand covered roads, and a mysterious hint of danger. I thought the visual looked really cool and that it would make a great opening scene of a movie where you're unsure what's happening, who this rider is, what he looks like, where he's going, or what he's running from.

I caught up to my wife who always rides her bike a bit faster than me, and I described the imagery I had in my head. I said, "Wouldn't that be a cool scene in a movie?" I then asked, "If the movie opened with that scene, what would the rest of the movie be about?"

Without missing a beat, she went on to explain in great detail her concept of what would become The Rider. She came up with several key plot points, the backstory and reason why certain things happened, and she even came up with an ending. 

Now, I should say, I have never seen my wife's creativity before, and had no idea she was even interested in talking about book or movie plots, but I feel like I found a secret weapon.

"Tell me more," I said.

For the next thirty minutes as we biked home, we volleyed ideas back and forth, becoming ever more enthused about this plot. 

She said enthusiastically, "You have to write this story!"

I had to admit, it was a really good collaboration that was completely spontaneous. It has never happened before or since, but for that moment, we captured lighting in a bottle and she was in the zone.

When we got home, I wrote the opening chapter, which has pretty much remained the same as I wrote it that day. If you decide to read this story, you will read that scene next. It came out just the way I wanted it in the first draft. I also jotted down all the ideas we had come up with on that fateful bike ride so I wouldn't forget.

Over the next couple of days, more ideas came to us and we continued to build the plot. However, at the time, I was busy with a million other projects and life and I put it on the back burner with the hopes of eventually picking it up one day. But, I have countless first chapters and outlines on my computer and the reality is, I will likely never get around to writing any of them. But I didn't want that to happen to this idea because I felt like it was ours and that was somehow special.

One day, I moved some things around in my schedule to carve out time in my day to write. I found that my creative juices were flowing the most during the day while my brain was still fresh. At night, I usually just want to relax. So while at my day job, I would take 10 minutes to eat my lunch and then I would sneak off to a far corner of the office, sit in large cubical-style chair with my laptop on my lap, and aim to type at least a thousand words. Most days I would get to around 1500 – 2000, which I was very happy with. I would email the chapters to myself, then when I would get home, I would add them to the main story document like I was making deposits in a piggy bank.

I got about 75% of the story complete when I finally talked to Sky about where the story had evolved and developed into, because I was tasked with writing it, she was no longer involved in the project after that one day. So naturally as I write, the story takes twists and turns, and develops in ways that may deviate from our original concept.

She was disappointed that I didn't include a love story. I remember exactly where we were - we were on the UBC campus (University of British Columbia, which is where we both went to school but hadn't met yet), in the village to be exact. We had taken our dog Pipi out on a Sunday so that he could get some exercise and a change of scenery.

We argued about a love story and I gave her examples of successful movies and books that did not have a love story, but she persisted. In the end, I decided that I could go back and work in a love story.

The other thing she was adamant about (for some reason) was the ending, which I cannot tell you about. However, despite me being against her ideas about the love story and the ending, I decided to include both. So it only seemed right that I put her name on the cover with me. This is our story, we hope you like it.