The StarCraft Bible Author: 'Now it is done, I have a copy in my hands'

His long awaited book, The StarCraft Bible, is soon available as a physical copy and an e-book, being released on January the 3rd, US time. The book will also be available internationally, and consists of 225 pages of pure StarCraft history spanning over 30 years. The writer, Chobopeon, sat down to reflect his journey to make this happen.

Patrick "chobopeon" O'Neill
Author of The StarCraft Bible

Age: 22

Race: I played Terran in Brood War, and I mostly play Terran in StarCraft 2 but I still experiment with Zerg and Random.

Favorite map: Right now it's probably Shakuras Plateau, but we need new maps obviously.

Favorite players: My favorite player of all time is BoxeR, Jaedong is my favorite current player. My favorite StarCraft 2 player is probably Jinro, but I'm a biased foreigner-lover (smiles)

Favorite movie: A tough one, let's say Pulp Fiction.

Favorite books: The Road by Cormac McCarthy, Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, and A Song of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin is quickly becoming one of my favorite books

Patrick O'Neill is now a 22 year old writer currently living in New York City. He went to school for journalism, and as he puts it himself, "is now trying to write about a passion of mine, e-sports."
He goes under the name chobopeon on Battle.net, and has been using it for nearly 10 years now. Now he's out of school, in the real world, trying to get to a point where he can write for a living, starting out by releasing the StarCraft Bible on January the 3rd.

“

I can't make a movie because I'm not a millionaire but I know I can write well”

- "If I remember correctly, I first thought of The StarCraft Bible during beta. I thought of the history, the community and the entire universe of competitive SC and it just screamed that it needed documenting. I can't make a movie because I'm not a millionaire but I know I can write well, so I started to do that. I wrote the first few chapters with the goal of releasing it in July, right around the 27th when SC2 was released.
However, a few people I wanted to collaborate with declined and I was a little disappointed. I put my work away for a while and focused elsewhere, on things like SC Center, a SC news show.

In September, I decided to keep going but to post it as a forum thread. I did so, it got a great reception and even some of the folks who initially declined asked me why they weren't involved. I initally intended to finish the whole thing on the forum thread but as my ambition grew, as I wanted to include more and more people, I realized that this was a great chance to create a book documenting the Starcraft scene.

In October I did some work to that end, in November I announced the book and started collecting contributions from people all over the community. December was tough, I wanted to get the book out by Dec 15 but it turns out tracking down everyone was harder than I had anticipated. I eventually did my best, though, and got a lot of great people on board. Now it is done, I have a copy in my hands and it's going live in a few hours."

What has been the toughest part about making this book? The biggest obstacles - and, what has been the most enjoyable about it?

“

Big names like Grrrr... and Artosis helped out a lot”

- "The biggest obstacles have been getting people on board. Even when someone is very interested, getting time to sit down and talk is difficult. They might be practicing for GSL or jetsetting around the world playing poker, it's hard to get signficant content out of them when I'm on a deadline. That said, the most enjoyable thing has been seeing what everyone contributed. Big names like Grrrr... and Artosis helped a lot but even people with little name-recognition busted out 10,000 words for me and really made this awesome to read.

Getting all these well-respected guys on board feels great. I've always wanted to write books and having this level of excitement for my first one is really, really awesome. I don't know anything special about social media or marketing but just based on the strength of the story and writing, people are really excited for this. I hope this means more recognition for e-sports and more opportunities for me to write about them."

How did you plan out what to include in the book?

- "haha it's been so long I'm not even entirely sure anymore. I started doing research and I immediately realized that I couldn't just stop in 1998 or even 1988, the history stretches back further than that. Conceivably, I could have gone back even further or included much more. I like where it's at right now but there's much more to be done in the future if I have the opportunity to do it. As far as contributions go, I planned that out as they came in. The best made it in, the ones that weren't up to snuff didn't."

How did you manage to get it actually made in the end? It requires a lot of dedication and hard work, I'm sure, and you've partly answered this question already, but finacially, how?

“

When I get an idea in my head, I put aside everything to accomplish it”

- "I spent some money I had in my bank account from work but in the end the hardest thing isn't the money, it's the time involved. But when I get an idea in my head, I put aside everything to accomplish it. I can be quite stubborn. I didn't go out to party as much for a bit, I put my time into this project. Let me put it this way: when I was writing The StarCraft Bible, there were a few neighborhood pubs wondering why they'd lost my business.
Patrick ONeill: Financially, publishing is not terribly expensive in 2010. You have to know how to do it and put time in but you're probably not going to go bankrupt over it. 2011 even! I forgot what year it was haha

Can you give us any information about the book we don't know yet?

- "I'm not sure whatever everyone knows so I'll just list some information. It spans 30 years of history, is 225 pages and has around two dozen people contributing. We have a Starleague winner, GSL competitors and commentators and a pretty rocking cast of people involved. We have people who worked on SC2's development. We have awesome pictures and even better stories.

But I hope this is just a first step. I hope I can do more, I hope I can get Blizzard really involved, to talk to Dustin Browder and Sam Didier and more. I know there are some Blizzard employees who are interested and I think it'd be amazing if we could work together to put out something like this. There's so much more ground to be covered. The StarCraft Bible is really, really cool but it's a drop in the ocean as far as exploring everything about this universe."

In other words, can we expect a sequel?

“

There's a lot of space to explore, enough for ten more books”

- "If I get the opportunity to do it, yeah absolutely. There's a lot of space to explore, enough for ten more books. I want to write more about StarCraft and e-sports and whatever else people will put up with from me. I'm a writer, I love writing and if I get the chance to keep it up, there's not much that will stop me from doing it."

Why do you enjoy writing so much?

- "That's a big question. I could probably write a book about that :D But to make a long story short, it takes you places. When you're doing research and writing a great story, the writer is able to go to any place they like. The writer can get inside any mind they like, see any action, try to understand any person or event in the past, present or future. And then as if that wasn't enough, the writer gets to take readers along for the ride to any imaginable place.

“

Having people read what you write and love it is just sort of indescribably cool, like being able to share a dream”

It's not always an easy task to write something like this but most of the time I was having a blast. I was like a kid with a toy spaceship. In my mind, I was watching BoxeR sign autographs, watching champions devise strategies like they were solving puzzles, watching kids play little 1980's games and then working at Blizzard, watching Savior lose championships and knowing these countless people in our community who feel just as excited as I do by the whole spectacle. Writing is amazing. Having people read it and love it is just sort of indescribably cool, like being able to share a dream."

You can expect a lot more from Chobopeon, as he joined the GosuGamers editorial staff just before the Holidays, and will be mainly focusing on interviews. With this passion for writing we'll see many great articles coming from the author.

- "I've been reading GosuGamers for longer than I can remember. As I approached the finish with The StarCraft Bible, I knew I wanted to keep writing about e-sports and GosuGamers seemed like a great place to do just that. As luck would have it, you guys were looking for more writers at the same time that I was looking for a place to write! In 2011, I expect to produce a ton of high quality features profiling players and to give readers and fans uncommon insight into the personalities and history of e-sports."