Book Six Guide

Jess and Hannah had just finished writing Book Five and had had an easy deal so far writing The Book. The only problems they had encountered so far had been when they had struggled with ideas for Book Three, but that was all in the past now and the two girls were very excited with the prospect of starting Book Six (fools). Jess and Hannah began Book Six early in the year 2003. Things were going well; ideas were aplenty (even though they were slightly crazy) and progress was relatively swift. However, by the time they began Book 6.3 they had written themselves to a standstill and the plot seemed to have dissolved into, well, to put it in a polite way, utter crap. They had only written a few chapters when they decided to restart Book 6.3 again (because Book 6.1 and 6.2 weren't that bad), and so, changing the plot, they tried again. They managed to write up to Chapter Two in the new Book 6.3 and quickly disposed of the previous 6.3 attempt, but things really weren't going well now and no amount of witty punch lines or sick gags could save them now. Fed up and slightly disturbed, Jess and Hannah agreed to give up on Book Six and completely restart.

version two

They restarted with what one could only describe as hope and, taking some of the better ideas and jokes of the original attempt at Book Six, started to write again. Hannah decided to take the original attempt of Book Six home and put it in a drawer for safe-keeping, remembering that after they had dumped the first attempt of Book Three the previous year they had come to regret it. At that time in 2003, Jess and Hannah were in Year 12 of school, the year in English education where students have to take AS-Level exams in May and June. The need to revise (or lack of revision and desperate procrastination where Hannah was concerned) disrupted the steady flow of writing and things were brought to a halt completely when Hannah went on holiday for two months to Australia. When she got back at the end of August, she went to the Reading Festival with Jess and there she announced that she was bored with the way Book Six was going and thought they should restart...AGAIN. Jess, more than slightly fed up with the idea of restarting again, agreed that so far it wasn't a very good piece of literature and accepted that they should maybe give it another go. So the two writers stopped in Book 6.2 around Chapter Three. Beginning to believe that Book Six was cursed, Jess and Hannah completely restarted Book Six for the third time.

version three

As you can imagine by this point in time, Jess and Hannah were beginning to get really sick of Book Six. Already having put all of their efforts and ideas into writing Book Six twice so far, they plucked the idea of starting out at Reading Festival from their recent experience and restarted Book Six with what one could only describe as pure hatred. Determined to finish the third attempt at Book Six, the progress was slow and a bit like pulling teeth. Towards the end of 2003 as Christmas drew closer, Jess and Hannah got the idea for Book Seven and, for a bit of light relief, took breaks from Book Six to write it. Book Seven was finally completed in January of 2004 and then Jess and Hannah really had to get back to finishing Book Six. Meanwhile, Jess had been looking at the Book Six site here online and reading the previous attempts at Book Six. She was more than shocked and surprised to find that they were actually quite funny. Telling Hannah this, Hannah suggested something that they both came to regret as much as anything they'd ever regret in their entire lives. It went a little something like this: "Hey, Jess, why don't we finish off those previous two attempts at Book Six and, along with this attempt, have three Book Sixes?!", "Three Book Sixes! But that really wouldn't work, Hannah. Or would it? *glint of possibility in Jess's eyes*" "We could call them each Version One, Version Two and Version Three!" "*Pause for thought* Ok!". With their work cut out now they had not one but three versions of Book Six to finish, they made further progress through the newly-christened Version Three of Book Six.

putting book six to rest

Eventually, Jess and Hannah finished writing Version Three of Book Six early 2004. They were so happy with their achievement that they got up and danced on a table in the common room at school where they had been sitting at the time. However, their happiness was short lived because they had to get back down to work. They decided to go back and finish the very first attempt at Book Six, now called Version One, since this was the one they had written the most in (if you remember, they were already into Book 6.3 when they gave up), but they got distracted when they got a really good idea for Book Eight after going to Disneyland with friends in April. They couldn't resist but start Book Eight and write it in between writing bits of Book Six. For a while they set up a writing-rota where Jess would be taking her turn in writing Book Eight whilst Hannah was writing her bit in Book Six. Neither Jess nor Hannah can remember when in 2004 they finished Version Two of Book Six, but we guess that it was around the period of April-June 2004. Now they had finished both Versions One and Three of Book Six, it seemed like they were nearing the end, but they hadn't even got halfway through Book 6.2 of Version Two, so it was still a long way from over. By July, Jess and Hannah had finished school and so they didn't see each other every day. Writing The Book took much longer than usual, so to deal with the new slower writing process both Jess and Hannah began to write much longer sections than usual, sometimes writing up to a chapter each. Version Two dragged on for about half a year until they arranged a weekend in December where Hannah went over to stay at Jess's house and they finished off Book 6.3 and got very very drunk and managed to write the ENTIRE of Book 6.4 in 12 hours. To read more about this eventful weekend and see pictures of the authors drunk out of their minds, go to the Book Six Saga page.

similarities

There are similarities between the different versions of Book Six because they each run parallel with each other, beginning at the end of Book Five and finishing at the beginning of Book Seven. There are plot similarities - this is mainly because at the time of restarting Book Six, Jess and Hannah had no plans to put all three versions out to the public, they were just planning on writing one Book Six. Therefore each time they restarted Book Six they used the same basic ideas and jokes. The start and end of each version are similar - this is because each version continues on from where Book Five left off and continues through to a point where Book Seven picks up from. With previous books Jess and Hannah have had a general catchphrase that they say at the end of each part of each Book (eg Book 1.1, Book 1.2, Book 1.3 and Book 1.4 each have the same catchphrase), so for Book Six they decided to have a similar ending for each version (eg Book 6.4 of each version).

the end

Many people (including Jess and Hannah) question whether Book Six ever happened. Book Seven starts at Christmas time, completely detached from Book Six and both Book Seven and Book Eight hardly mention anything that happens in any Version of Book Six. The only thing that suggests that Book Six actually did happen is that Jess and Hannah are no longer stuck in jail, which is where Book Five had left them. The end of each Version of Book Six is the same and can only be described as crazy and completely unbeliveable. Surely if it were true it would mean the end of our two favourite adventurers? Whether Book Six actually happened or not we'll never know, but something we do know is that Jess firmly denies any of the hanky-panky in Version Two.

hating book six

As you can see from the copyright at the bottom of the page, Book Six took the best part of 18 months of Jess and Hannah's lives, a fact which they are both very bitter about. How they managed to let Book Six get the better of them, we'll never know, but they had the last laugh. No-one (including themselves) believed they could actually write and finish three versions of Book Six, but they did it. It came to a point where they just HAD to finish it, no matter what happened in the plot or in the process. They were reduced to desperate measures to finish it including writing in bright felt tips and getting very drunk. Book Six really was a huge ordeal for both Jess and Hannah and neither wish to speak of it ever again, but before we sign off, we'd like to say that despite it being the worst thing ever to happen to the writers, you really can enjoy Book Six because it is actually quite good (or so we've been told - we can't be arsed to read it ourselves).

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� Jess and Hannah 2003-2004
(Yes, that's right, it took us 18 months)

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