The Exorcist: Behind The Fan Fiction Long Read. (A year in the making)

The Exorcist fan-fiction piece that I have wrote was inspired by the TV series 'The Exorcist' - which was inspired by the 1971 book by William Peter Blatty. Which was made In to a film in 1974.

Session 1 was aired in 2016 and after series 2 finished in December 2017 I had a random impulse to write something along the same lines. Which rapidly  became a fan fiction piece, as well the plan was for it to only be 1000 words 2000 at the most. 
But my imagination ran away with me and it ended on 43176 words -thats 88 pages, text size 13 in font Times.

I always date my notes weather they are in a paper notebook, on my phone or computer so looking back through my note book I know that I started the original idea on December 14th 2017, and I finished writing it on the 14th of December 2018.

The original idea.

The original idea was it to a short piece, written as an interview, talking about past events that lead to an exorcism. which burning present events turns out did not work. Leaving the end open for me to write the next piece later. 

I'm not even rely sure what turned it in to what it is. I did not go out to write a fan fictional piece, it just happened. 

I had watched season 1 and 2 of The Exorcist and really enjoyed it. 

In early 2018 they announced that Fox would not be picking it up for a 3rd season leaving fans disappoint. 

I had already themed my short piece in to fan fiction so I can not say that the cancellation was the reason for.

The writing proses 

The whole thing was write on an iPhone 4s, which has no SIM card making it a iPad / iPod. I was mostly using it for the camera, but when I start writing the exorcist I stated the notes on this and continued as it started drafting it, then I would send section by section to my computer. So as you reed though you will see (*) this marks a new note started on the iPhone, that's 18 notes. 

I'd work on it on the bus trip in to work, lunch breaks, and on the bus home. Which meant at least 2 and half hours a day, 5 days a week I was working on it. In by March I had written over 20,000 words, and I was planing to have it done my June, but in March I changed my job which meant I was walking to work and I end up only working on it for 1 hour day. 

Despite writing this all on the iPhone I still kept hand written notes in an insert in my Traveler's notebook. which just made it easier if I had an idea to add, create a timeline,  even some little sketches for events.

What I would edit.

I have thought about editing so that it is not a fan-fiction piece. Which would be quite easy to do. I would possible lose Mouse or Tomas's character. And make Marcus's a little more 'broken' I suppose.  

If it was to stay as a fan fiction it would be part of the time line moving it so that the reason Marcus left mouse in the hands of another priest to conduct her exorcism, was he a see his friends call for help. 

There are several things that I want to add, which I have list off. Which I will add it (and repost). It's just my mind and imagination works faster them the fingers and dyslexic head can type.

I had the idea to put extractions of the filmed interview with in the piece. thats why you may find ‘interview’, in random places. I might put it in when or if I do a better edit of this.

The images 

At different points through the piece I have put an images to break up the text. 

The pictures are of ink in water, which I took back in 2016, when I was work on some album cover work for a friend. Using the 'Phonto' app for iPhones and iPads. I used a mix of different filters and themes.

I know that some of the images are not that good, I don't have photo shop (and I only started using it 2 weeks ago at work, and do not yet have it my self.) I'm pretty sure that there are a lot of spelling mistakes and punctuation and grammar cock ups. I proof and edit myself so there are always going to be mistakes. (sorry xx)

You can read the compleat thing here:  The Exorcist (Inspired By The Tv Series)