~*History*~
Aww, good old Endless Waters. This was my first major story, and it was so much fun to write. Looking back, it needs a lot of work, but hey, I was new at this back then. You'll forgive me, right? Anyway, the idea for Endless Waters was actually conceived with my best friend in a science class back in March of 2001. I had just gotten into writing fanfiction, and she was helping me come up with ideas for a new story. By the end of class, we had mapped out how the ship would get hijacked, etc., etc.
I wrote the story out on paper before typing any of it (which I still try to do, because I like being able to get my ideas out in rough drafts). I remember that a lot of people were interested in reading it, and that got me really excited. The rough draft ended up being 27 pages long, front and back. I finished it sitting on bed on August 9, 2001 at 10:31 pm (hehe...I wrote that down and thought it was kind of interesting). I really think that Endless Waters helped me grow a lot as a writer, and it's fun for me to go back and read what was going through my mind back then every once in a while.
~*Rough vs. Original*~
As always happens, a lot of my original ideas for Endless Waters never quite made it into the final version of the story. Here are some of the changes:
-I originally thought to start the story with Katie rushing into Serena's dorm room with the cruise tickets.
-Originally, Serena and Darien only would have met on the ship (there wouldn't have been a whole history behind their relationship).
-Originally, the character of Adam McNoll didn't exist. Brickens was second-in-command, and Ernie was the one who would have plotted to hijack the ship.
-In the rough draft, Darien doesn't grab Serena's waist and pull her out onto the dance floor at her birthday party. Also, Serena's friends weren't in the scene.
-I toyed with the idea of putting in song lyrics while Serena and Darien were dancing at her party.
-Serena started crying a lot sooner in the karaoke scene in the original.
-In the rough draft, there was a scene where Serena ran into a passenger who asked her for turn-down service when she was pushing the bin with Darien in it.
-In the original, Darien was the ship's permanent captain. He was not filling in for his father.
-Brickens originally spoke with a Southern accent.
-The scene where Ernie attacks Serena was very different originally. Darien appeared, but instead of knocking Ernie out, he told Ernie that the captain was looking for him. After thinking about it, I figured Darien wouldn't be able to control his anger so much in that sort of situation. Also in the original, to get Ernie away from her, Serena bit his tongue and he then slammed her against the wall, knocking her unconscious. After thinking about it, I decided that maybe that was a little...erm...strange (not to mention inappropriate for a PG story!)
-The fight between Darien and Serena in Chapter 9 never happened in the original.
-Originally, the crewman who brought Darien back to the top deck was Brickens in disguise. Wilson didn't exist.
-In the original, Darien made a big show out of thanking Serena in front of everybody at the deck party.
~*Other Trivia*~
-The idea for the epilogue came to me when I was boating with my family.
-Titanic is one of my favorite movies, which might be one of the reasons my story takes place on a ship.
-The scene where Darien pulls Serena out onto the dance floor without asking her to dance was inspired by something very similar that happened to me once.
~*Songs of the Story*~
I love listening to music, and am often inspired by different songs. Here are some songs that either inspired Endless Waters or just remind me of it in some way.
"Never Gonna Let You Go" by Sergio Mendes and Brazil 66 (of course...lol.)
"Hanging by a Moment" by Lifehouse
"Sure About It" by Hanson
Trivia
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