The Hunger Games: Uprising!

The Story of Uprising

Hi, now that you've finished Uprising I thought it would be a good idea to share some facts with you guys about where the idea, the characters and story came from. Obviously my own imagination has a major part to play but I also drew on some other influences from friends or movies that I'd seen over the years.

The story.
I based the story around the hardship that many countries face after a long conflict. The United Kingdom went through this after the Second World War as did Argentina after the Falklands conflict. In some cases pressure builds from the population for change and that's what I wanted to put across here. I just needed a bad guy to trigger it.
The story itself is relatively short and only runs for 5 months in real time. At the beginning when Katniss and Peeta are in district 12 it's early January which Katniss mentions in her narration in chapter 3. The story ends not long after Katniss's birthday (May 8th). During the story I inserted two "reset" chapters, where I jump the story forward to get things moving. The first is just before the wedding and the second is during their combat training in 13. I'll reset again at the beginning of the sequel.

The characters.
Megan and Joel Zane.
These two are entirely from my own imagination. I wanted to put across an image of two young people who had lost everything during the rebellion. It fitted in well that they should both be working at the bakery as it gave me the opportunity to introduce them into the main story from an early stage. The fact that they were once soldiers was something I added in later when I wanted Joel on the team to rescue Paylor. Megan was always going to be the reluctant member of the propo squad and it was tough for me to find a way to integrate her more into the story.
Adding her into the propo's was an obvious choice in the end although I'll admit I did kill her off at one point before I re-wrote it!

Elaine Gibbs
Another character that came from nowhere. When I set out the early chapters I knew I'd need a squad commander who Katniss could depend on and trust. The easiest way I could see of doing this quickly was to make this character female. However, this also made sense in continuing this trend from the original books where women were used in a number of high ranking military roles. (Paylor, Lyme).

Lyndon Ross
Ross is a mistake! Not so much the character but the name. On his first meeting with Katniss I tried to portray him as a military yes man, the kind of soldier who'd been to officer college, came from rich family and did everything by the book. But as I developed his role he soon morphed into a hard nosed special forces commander that had a talent for professionalism and organisation. It's one of the reasons why I cast Jai Courtney in the role. His viciousness and determination in both "Jack Reacher" and "a good day to die hard" struck a cord with me.

The Rapiers
My original plan was not to name the individual members of the Rapier squad. I wanted you guys to draw your own picture of the squad from you're own imagination but as the story moved on I realised I'd have to name them and give each member a character of their own. I did have some help with naming them (2cutekittens) but the descriptions although brief are all my own.

Odin Wolfe
Odin's was the very first name that came into my head when I started planning and setting out the story. His name just exudes evil in every way. Even his look with the long hooded coat, combat boots and black pants, shaved head etc just add to that. Laurence Fishburne was the obvious choice for casting as I already had his image in my head. If anyone who has seen him as Morpheus in the "matrix" movies will know. The "look" of that character IS Wolfe!

Alek Cohen
Alek has a relatively small part in Uprising but he'll be a big player in the sequel. Confident, brave and highly motivated I wanted him to be the kind of guy that could deal with almost anything. I kinda stole his name from an actual person, a friend of a friend if you like but it seemed to fit the role. But, for all his strengths he does have one weakness that'll become apparent in the sequel.

The Manmutt
This started as a complete figment of my imagination in the first few chapters but grew into something much larger. By complete coincidence I was watching a Mel Gibson movie "signs" when in one scene there's a brief exert of video footage when you see this alien walk from some bushes out into the open, it's height, face and camouflage all matched. I have to admit I nearly freaked when I saw it as it was almost exactly the same animal I had invented for the story. But it gave me ideas, and other ways to go with it. Some of which you don't know about yet...

Other stuff
The wedding.
Many people will tell you that sometimes writing comes hard and other times it's easy. The entire wedding chapter I completed in a little over 2 hours writing on my phone right from the point when Katniss leaves her house to when she returns. That afternoon I just typed away and the story just poured out of me. Even when I proof read it I think I only changed minor details. The only regret I have is the final passage after the toasting back at their house. I think I probably crossed the line and made it a little too graphic.

The Drop Ship
I had this idea in my head from the very beginning. The hovercraft described in the book and what you see in Catching Fire is a little impractical for what I needed here. So I took an idea from the movie "Aliens". In the movie a squad of soldiers are landed on a desolate planet using a Drop Ship that carries an APC (armoured personnel carrier). The APC part I dropped but I kept the basic seating arrangement that you see in Catching Fire with the squad sitting facing each other. The drop ramp and floodlights all come from the "alien" movie though. You'll also see others references to it as well, the motion tracker, and explosive ammo all come from the movie. It's kinda funny really but the district 13 hovercraft from the Mockingjay movie is very close to what I had in my imagination. The only real difference is the drop ramp is forward facing and lowers from under the nose.

That final chapter....
Never before have I experienced such feedback from a single chapter before. I pretty much knew from the beginning what was going to happen in the end, it was how I got the story to that point that changed. As did the character who was going to be shot. Ellie, Gale even Plutarch was going to be kidnapped at one point. But after a lot of soul searching I finally settled on poor Haymitch. I wasn't being callous but his shooting is a big part of the sequel and so Haymitch it had to be.

The Pregnancy Headache!
Omg, you won't believe the amount of research I carried out for Katniss's pregnancy symptoms. From the morning sickness to what could be seen on a scan, all these had to be checked out before I could update. Even when I went with the sex of the baby I had to check if that could be definitely identified at that point in her pregnancy. I can honestly say, it nearly drove me mad!!
And so that's it, I can't really think of anything else to put in here. If you have any questions or ideas or things I could add to the sequel let me know. The books coming along well and I think it could be slightly longer than Uprising! but we'll have to wait and see I guess
Thanks for reading and supporting my story!

So check out the second book in the series, "Return of the Mockingjay" and let me know what you think! Who knows where this could be leading, I'm already getting ideas for book 3!

Dave

Update 2021

So after nearly 6 years I finally got round to editing Uprising. Back then I was just starting out writing my own books and looking back at it I was shocked at just how bad it is. I've made lots of changes to the grammar and how the story flows but it's still a bit poor to be honest. You might think I'm being hard on myself but I'm my worst critic, but I feel there's too much work to do on Uprising to make it how I want it. When I edited the sequel I noticed how much I'd learned from writing the first book and the following books all work so much better than Uprising. One day I'll find the time to completely rewrite Uprising and make it worthy of the books which follow it.

Thanks for reading and enjoy the sequels, if you enjoyed this book then you'll love them.

Return of the Mockingjay
Death of the Mockingjay
Hunger Games: Destiny (currently updating)