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Thank you for choosing to read Elemorts. You may continue onward to start reading the novel or, if you are so inclined, you may also read a bit of history about how this novel came to be, starting from the following paragraph. Your comments mean a lot to me, and I would love to hear your thoughts. If you happen to like more than you dislike, some votes will not hurt either!

So, the titular characters, the Elemorts, have been a part of me since the earliest of my memories. In the beginning, they used to be plushies and squeaky toys, each of which I gave names, personalities, hobbies, and backstories as I fancied. I divvied them up into two teams for some reason, and I was very particular in having four guys and four girls to each team (they used to be sixteen in total at that time).

Then, I got to watch the animated series, Beast Wars: Transformers (a spinoff of the Transformers franchise where the robots transform into beasts instead of vehicles), which I adore to this day. I admired the intricate storylines, the cool weapons, and the fact that each robot had a distinct and memorable personality. It is by far the major inspiration behind this story and has played a massive role in shaping up the Elemorts as they are now. Inspired by the series, I imagined weapons for each of the toys and created more stylized names.

Although I stopped playing with them when I got into the fifth grade or so, they would be on my mind all the time as I kept making up different storylines for them. I always considered my goal to be to create a successful animated series of my own. Over the years, other franchises inspired me, such as the X-Men (resulting in the Elemorts gaining elemental powers). When I was in the eighth grade, I finally let go of the form I had always seen and known them in — as toys. I now envisioned them in distinct human appearances, complete with cool outfits to go with their new forms (I am a poor artist, so I have never managed to translate my imagination into art so far).

I thought of the title 'Elemorts' when I was in the eleventh grade and started writing a script which read as... well, a script for an animated series. After writing three episodes, I was not very satisfied, so I scrapped them and started writing again. This time, I wrote five episodes, but I increasingly came to realize that I was getting no feedback about the script as I wrote it.

There was just one friend who read it faithfully, and he enjoyed it. Still, others found the format of the script to be too bland and tedious to read. There were little to no descriptions, just huge chunks of plain old narration that read just like how you would recount events to a friend — this happens, then that happens, and so forth — interspersed with dialogues. Some, who forced themselves to read enough to understand what was going on, pointed out it would be great to see this stuff as an animated series, but reading it as a script felt like a chore.

And so, I resolved to rewrite it as a novel with much maturer and nuanced storylines, richer worldbuilding, and a format which, I hope, will make it a treat to read. I have gotten encouraging feedback this time around.

So, I invite you to take this journey with me as I tell you about these Elemorts who have been with me all my life — and I have a lot to tell about them. I hope that you grow to love them as I do. Your comments and feedback matter a lot to me, so don't hesitate to tell me what you think.

Finally, if you have any questions, go ahead and ask me. I love engaging with my readers.

Thank you, and enjoy!

~ Muaaz Akram