Stephonika's Universe

The information provided on this page is everything we've gathered on past, present, and future writing projects.  We will list UPDATES in line with the text, and we will also post notifications alongside the titles in our list here so that you know if there are updates.  Remember, these are only the projects she has written for, so if you don't find a project here, try our "Other Projects" page for more.

VG ADAPTATION
Currently working on a video game novel adaptation.  No details yet on the story.  There are plans to publish, though the process will be long and difficult.  She further mentions that she's about 4/5ths of the way through the first draft.  She is not expecting a completion date until mid 2010.

WIZARD BOOKS
Currently working on a four-book fantasy series.  Working title not released.  Will be here named "Wizard Book".  The only plot details released at this time is that the story will focus on wizards, elves, and an evil sorceress.  A pure fantasy series that will take the black and white of good and evil into a gray area.  Main character is male.  No character names yet released.

PROJECT "TKT"
Ever think that another Star Wars couldn't happen?  Think again.  With the novel project TKT (named only by the initials of the title - full title undisclosed at this time) Star Wars is reborn at another level from another mind.  No one ever thought that such a popular series by such a renown director could be matched.  Sure, perhaps it won't be surpassed by TKT, but there is much confidence that it can deliver just as well.  Mixing high sci-fi with romance and that medieval twist, mechs and magicks reunite in this high-powered novel. 

The novel was begun in the year 2002 on July 10th.  Though it's initial idea has now expanded into an outline for a trilogy, the TKT project has been postponed.  After four years of hard work into the novel, Kaye took a break from the project to reassess its direction.  In 2005-2006 the writing of its sequel (here named TKT2) was begun - the middle chapter in the TKT saga - just as work on the original novel was coming to a close.  After revising the first novel several times - shed down to about an 800 (double-spaced) page count from one that had been over one thousand - work on it stopped altogether.  "The novel suffered mainly in the area of dialogue," as Kaye reports.  "I had a few trusted friends read over the novel in its rough form, and one said to me that the dialogue was too proper.  Though it had been intended to be written in this "old-timey" way, I saw other problems with the dialogue.  There was much repetition and with the quantity of it, the story did not progress as fast or as strongly as it needed to."

Though the project has been on hold since late 2006, Kaye acknowledges that she will return to finish the work she began.  "The book was actually completed.  It was the first real novel I'd ever finished to the last word, but looking back on it, I'm very glad that no publishers picked it up.  It just wasn't ready.  It had - as my college professors and my reference books like to say - a bit of the "talking heads" syndrome."  She continues to affirm that the book will be rewritten.  "I'm taking the root of the ideas, the plot points, and everything, and taking it back to the first step to rewrite the whole thing.  I have 178 plus characters - some that are just mentioned - and it's just got way too many characters and subplots and relationships happening.  I mean, that's essentially what it's all about.  Relationship and the like, but come resolution time, I had a hard time backtracking to all the tertiary characters to give them endings, too.  I didn't have enough focus on the main characters.  Let's just say it will likely only be reminiscent to what those close friends of mine read all those years ago."

But what does this mean for TKT2 and that third one?  "Oh, the last two are really quite fine, for now.  I don't see any huge problems with them, with the work I did do on them.  Mainly they're just outlines at the moment.  The second one still needs a bit more reworking, but the last installment is just ... well, I find myself without the words to express myself about it.  It's just great, really, really great, and I hope I can get the first two books done just so that I can move on to the conclusion of it all."

UPDATE (06.30.09) -- In a recent interview, Kaye has said that she will again be working on the first book.  There may be a good chance for the book to be completed in rough draft form by the end of this year (2009).  Let's hope so!

FOR THE SUNSET
This is the story of Kate, a young woman still trying to cope with the death of her father four and a half years after the incident.  His death has made her skeptic of men and relationships with them.  She distances herself from any kind of relationship, fearing that any man will turn out just as cruel as her father had been to her.  Yet, she finds a mentor in Will Erickson, a professor teaching writing courses at her college.  They strike up a healthy friendship as he tries to guide her in perfecting her prose, also becoming someone she looks to for guidance in her life.

This script is told in several flashback sequences, and takes place during three periods in Kate's life.  "This story is one I've been wanting to tell for a couple years now," Kaye says. "But just recently did I finally realize the perfect way to tell it.  It was near the end of October, I think, the 28th in '08 that I started jotting down notes.  The ideas came to me in the middle of the night, so I was constantly getting up from the perfect comfortable position to scratch out the notes on my postits."  It seems that nighttime writing is also something quite common for the writer.  "As it so happens, the best of my ideas, I think, come when I'm trying to sleep.  My mind races at night because it has nothing else to do.  Because of that I don't normally sleep a whole lot through the night.  Five or six hours is probably the best I ever do, and that just depends on how exhausted I'd been through the day."  But sleepless nights are not something she frowns on.  "Yeah, I'm a little tired during the day, but what really matters to me is that idea, that perfect solution to the problem that I wrote down in the middle of the night.  'Cause the thing is is that if I don't write down my ideas when they come, by morning I can't remember them.  I lost a very vital idea for the TKT project because I didn't write it down.  All I could remember by morning is that I'd had the perfect solution to making one of the twists work just absolutely phenomenally, but it was too late.  It was gone forever.  I can say I've learned my lesson, so so what if I lose a little sleep over jotting down the ideas now.  I can't just let them float away."

We asked what Kaye's hopes for the script were and she said, "Well, hopefully, it'll get picked up.  This is probably one of the first ideas I've had that I could handle not directing."  She says she plans to send it along to agents and studios for consideration.  Clueless as to when or if it will get the "greenlight" (which is a film term for a script getting the go-ahead and the funding for production) she does hope that if it happens, she's still able to at least audition for the role of Kate.  "This story is a little personal, but not to any certain extent.  It'd be great to play a character like Kate.  I try to put a lot of myself into every character, and I just think it would be a great opportunity.  I guess I could always negotiate for the role!" she laughs.  "Yeah, one in a million, right?  Anyway, if it doesn't get greenlit then I'll just do it myself someday."

She also hints that she has someone in mind for the Erickson role, but "he's such a big name that I doubt it.  I mean, I've watched many of his films, and his acting is fantastic!  The best I think I've ever seen.  He's done a fair amount of low budget character pieces, but I can't get my hopes up that he'd actually accept this part."  She doesn't mention a name, though.  Guess we'll have to wait and see.

UPDATE (06.30.09) -- In a recent interview, Kaye has spilled the title to this project.  For the Sunset.  This was previously listed as "Father/Daughter Drama."  Sounds like a good title to us!

UPDATE (10.04.09) -- We have just been informed that Kaye finished the first draft on the 27th of September.  She turned it in to her professor for a chance that it will be chosen for student analysis and critique.

V/N STORY
This story is a sci-fi adventure/romance piece.  Kaye says that her initial inspiration came from the Final Fantasy games.  She also says "how cool would it be if it were?!"  But she dismisses any affiliation to the Square Enix franchise.  "It's inspired from it, not based on it.  There's a tone reminiscent of the [Final Fantasy] series, definitely, but no way do I presume to 'take' anything from those awesome guys."

Kaye has done several conceptual sketches ranging from character portraits to biker helmets.  It seems she's wasting no time in getting the project on the roll.  "I know that the art and the concept designs aren't really mandatory until the pre-production phase, but this is a project that means a lot to me.  I'm in it full throttle."  And that she is.  She's been working on the outline and story since the summer of 2007, and it took a full year before she began writing the script.  But the work has not rested solely on her shoulders.  Early on, she brought a close friend in on the project.  Working together, Kaye says they came out with a story and characters that were "amazing."  "I'm so attached to all of them."  However, it seems she's not entirely attached to the story.  In it's inital outline, the story contained so many elements and segments and backstory that it was inconceivable to write it all come scripting time.  "We shortened it considerably, and we still are.  There's just so much there.  I wouldn't say it's all gold, but it's all important.  It's now just trying to cut through all the nonessentials."

Kaye began writing the script in the fall of 2008 during the first quarter of her new college year.  At the script's conception, she also called on help from her scriptwriting professor.  "He's really an awesome guy.  I asked if he could read my first ten pages--which, it turns out, was actually thirteen since I used a smaller font size than I was supposed to--and asked him for an honest critique on any and all levels.  The feedback I got from him was great.  Negative, positive, but very professional, and that's what I think's great about him."  She goes on to say that she was taking an analysis class with him at the time, and that it opened her eyes to the world of creating good scripts.  "The knowledge I came away with from that class and him specifically was something I cherish every day.  I really started understanding and analyzing the crap I'd been coming out with for years."

So, her plans for this one?  "Hopefully, one of the first projects I can do.  It's probably ill of me to think so presumptuously, but I really hope this one rockets off in the next few years."  But will she direct this one?  She says, yes.  "I won't sell this baby off without me at the helm."

UPDATE (06.30.09) -- In a recent interview, Kaye has told us that she is currently working on a third draft of the script and plans to turn it in to her Screenwriting prof for a class wherein students may select it to write a production booklet.

UPDATE (10.04.09) -- Although Kaye has yet to finish a third draft, she has turned in a copy of her second draft to her professor for the chance that it will be chosen for student analysis and critique.

SCI-FI HORROR FLICK
Horror, you say?  Why, yes.  Indeed, Ms. Kaye is dipping her virtual ink into the horror genre.  The title of the story is an acyronym for something--ooh--horrific!  The initial idea came not from her, however.  While in attendance at college, in one of her early creative classes she was grouped off with three others to work on a story to pitch.  "The idea came from someone else.  We all worked on fleshing out the story more, but my input was a big part of it.  So, I guess it is half mine, but I guess I can't claim all the rights on this one.  It changed a lot from the initial idea because of me and the other guys."  Yeah, she was grouped with three guys, a highlight, she says--seeing the acceptance of her and her ideas within the male-dominant group a step up the ladder, at least for the college life.

This story began her freshman year, and in her sophomore year, she finally contacted her old friend from the class who'd had the initial idea.  "We'd constantly say how we thought it was awesome and that it should be a movie, and we were all serious.  The next year, I finally got serious and e-mailed him about it before college ended and I lost all contact with him."  Kaye says that a script is only at work in her head.  Nothing will come of the idea until after she finishes a few other projects.  Though she wrote out three scenes for the class project, those scenes are the only pieces of script currently in existence.  "And they're crap, well, the first and last are ... okay."  But, no worries, come the final draft, she assures a "horror-in-space" unlike anything before it.  Or so she hopes.

VG ADAPTATION (VGA1)
No specifics on this project yet.  All that is known is that she completed a first draft within four/five weeks in her freshman year of college.  She doesn't yet have the rights to the project, but she plans to negotiate for the film rights in the ensuing years.  "It's a bit unconventional, I guess, the way I'm going about this one.  Usually you purchase or option the rights first and then work on it, but I'd rather see what I can do with it so that I have ideas to shoot the owners when the time comes."

Is she satisfied with her preliminary draft?  No.  Though she specifies that there are certain scenes/sequences that are "gold" to her, it's still going to need a lot more work until it's in tip-top shape.  "There are some awesome things about this draft, but it's just off."

Specs:  Kaye has agreed to let us know a few things about the project/script, but will not give away the title/subject or the identity of the owner for the fear that "someone will beat [her] to it."  The script's first draft is 100 pages long, and it's a fantasy adventure.  That's all the news so far.

VG ADAPTATION 2 (VGA2)
This project is another one of those that we don't know much about.  She only confirms that she has hopes to adapt another video game to the screen if she can.  There is only confimation that she wants to do the project, but there's nothing on what it is or who owns this one.  We don't want to presume anything, so don't take the following as fact ... but we're guessing that in looking at her track record of projects/ideas that it'll be somewhere in the fantasy or sci-fi genres.  But there are a lot of games out there from which to choose.  This is one we'll have to wait and see about.

AMERICAN/JAPANESE ROMANCE
We've just learned about this one [06.30.09].  Apparently, she is just in the process of taking notes on what she'd like to see in the film.  She says that it is "much like the movies based on Nicholas Sparks books."  So, we're expecting something that will make us cry our eyes out since Sparks is known for killing off one of the main characters.  What we are wondering is if she plans to direct this film as well.

DERELICTS
Over the winter months of Nov and Dec last year (in 2008), Kaye was emailed by her professor, Eric Williams, about a game project in the Digital Media school that needed another writer.  Telling her that it was right up her alley in being in the sci-fi/fantasy genre, Kaye immediately took the opportunity to write for the game.  What she soon found out though was that Derelicts was like no other game she had encountered before.

"Derelicts was a MUD game, which means Multi-User Dimension, if I remember.  Basically, they were creating a game without graphics.  It was a game with only text," Kaye explains.  Sounds like she had her work cut out for her.  Kaye goes on to tell us that the game had originally been planned to have three tiers, but by the time the end of the year came--and several cuts--they only ended up with the first tier making it in.  "And by a hair," she says.  "I came on in winter quarter, so I had two quarters to work with them, and we all had a pretty good feeling about it by the end of the winter, but when spring came, we just kept getting setback after setback."

Kaye's job on the game was a little more different than she had been expecting.  As the then main writer of the game [working with the Lead Designer] she basically worked as a "graphic" designer, seeing as though it was a text-only game.  She wrote what she calls flavor text mostly.  "Flavor text was the description of rooms that the player could walk through and explore," she elaborates.  "And I ended with about 20 pages worth of that text by the time my work on the project was done."  She also helped the Lead Designer with the story of it all, helping him to make the story better.  "I had a lot to do with story.  Our prof, who I had worked with before, told them basically, 'She's a good writer, use her.'  I helped with naming [people and places], too.  I named a lot of things, which I'm proud of.  One of the other major things I did was come up with armor and weapon names."

Though the game wasn't anything like she'd been expecting, she says she wouldn't have traded the experience for anything.  "The team environment was interesting.  I normally work alone [except on the V/N Story], and it's always eye-opening to work with others and collaborate because, well, that's the environment for the rest of my life," she laughs.  True enough.  If Kaye makes it in the film industry as the director-do-all, she has to get used to working with huge numbers of people.  "And I guess that doesn't bode well for a socially claustrophobic person," she says, still laughing.  "But really, those guys--[she worked with four other men]--changed me in a way.  There was something about winter quarter that year.  I met new people in my Japanese class, too, and these guys [on the Derelicts team], and being around all those people did something to me.  I've noticed a big change in myself.  I don't know what happened or how it happened, but I wouldn't change a thing."  And neither would we.

Derelicts is apparently back in production to make it the game it should've been.  Kaye is not a part of that production process this time--so far, but we wish the creators the best of luck on their game and hope to see it out somewhere, someday.

ESSAY OF THE MATRIX
Stephonika has recently told us of her long-awaited wish to write an essay about the Matrix.  She says she has been wanting to write about the intricacies of the film and series for some time but never really dedicated herself to it before now.  "The Matrix has so many things that are so very vital to us.  The understanding of certain things.  Choices.  Love.  Balance of the universe.  Dreams.  Reality.  It's all very fundamental, and it's something that I'm sure many have written about, but it's my turn.  It's just so damn amazing."  That was Kaye's reasons for wishing to write about a film/series we all know and love.

From what we know, we know that this essay seems like it may be a long one.  We're not sure what all she'll cover, but she spoke of a philosophical and structural analysis of sorts.  That would be a lot of ground to cover, even in one film, so we're curious what she'll be discussing specifically among the three films.  She didn't give us a date of whe she planned to have this done, but we know it'll take her a while.  The desire to finally write what she's been wanting to came from a couple days spent with her friend watching the trilogy (her friend had never before seen the films), and Kaye says it was her friend's curiosity of the intricacies of the films that finally made her say 'yes' to the essay.  She is now in the process of re-re-watching the trilogy and making notes of the films in 20-30 minute intervals, and she says she'll likely watch them yet another time after her period of notetaking so that she can flatten out all her notes.  She says that she'll give us either a part of the essay or the entire piece to post here when it is completed.  We certainly look forward to it!