The Birth of a Novel

This novel, like many that have come before it, was borne out of a Sims game.

For those who aren’t familiar with The Sims, it’s a semi realistic and highly addictive simulation game. It’s one of those games where you play for 1 week straight then don’t touch it for 6 months.

I was in one of those weeks when I started my “rags to riches” games. That’s a challenge where you create a sim, spawn them in an empty lot, and take away all their money.

Here’s the lot I created for my sim, Chloe. Chloe, in my head, was a homeless teenage sim who was kicked out of her house by cruel parents. Forced to beg for food at the nightclub and escape the gaze of predators, she dreamed of a place to call home. She grew bitter at the world, learning to trust no one.

Her desperation and lack of control drove her to be a perfectionist. She burned both ends of the candle, staying up all night to do homework and waking up early to tend to her feeble garden. Some days, the only thing that got her out of bed – that is, her sleeping bag – was her plants.

Her green thumb led her to land a landscaping job. She scraped her way out of poverty by nurturing her plants with the TLC she was never afforded.

But relative financial security hasn’t fixed Chloe’s bitter heart. So when Michael (an NPC from the cottagecore expansion pack) showed up, she immediately duked it out with him. (If you couldn’t tell, I love for my Sims to be full of drama.)

But everything changed when she angrily jabbed her finger at her garden, accusing him of not knowing the first thing about struggle. That’s when they realized they both loved gardening.

She sheepishly apologized as she realized the stress of her lifestyle caused her to be a hothead. So, she invited him to weed with her.

The two teenagers became fast friends and Michael soon started coming over every day to help her tend the garden. She gratefully accepted the help and started talking more and more to this strange boy who kept showing up.

Little did she know, Michael was beginning to fall in love with this feisty girl.

Not that he ever really kept his feelings a secret.

And over time, she fell in love, too.

I paused the game there, inspired by the look of love and admiration on a pixeled face. I fed Chloe’s story to ChatGPT, asking it to write a short love story to entertain my friends who were following her story.

My favorite highlights of the ChatGPT story include:

And my friend’s favorite line:

But, let me be clear, I don’t endorse the use of AI to replace human creativity. So, after I finished cleaning up what it wrote, I immediately wanted to do better.

And that’s when I started re-writing the story.

Book Chloe is already crazily different from the Sims Chloe, but they both share that determined spunk that’ll get them anywhere they see fit. After consulting with my spouse, who is a goldmine for creative brainstorming, I’ve transformed her into a bitter teenager to a determined young woman whose heart acts faster than her mouth.

As you can see, all of this took place mid-May 2024. I’m writing this first blog post near the end of May of the same year. As of right now, I sit at a pretty 3,911 words.

I hope you join me on this journey. If you’re interested in more of Chloe’s story as well as getting the behind-the-scenes of what it’s like to write a book, please consider subscribing.

Needing to publicly post updates on my writing will help me stick with this goal. (Gosh, I bet just the thought of public progress posts would terrify Michael… there’s a little hint about his character development.)

See you guys soon!