First Sneak Peek at The Nephites' Story
A couple of years ago, I published The Good Story, a project in which I took the four Gospels of the New Testament (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) and streamlined them into a cohesive narrative. I added modern chapter, paragraph, and quotation mark styling so it would read like a modern novel.
I was extremely proud of how the project turned out, so I quickly started thinking about what my next project in the potential series should be. The answer was pretty obvious, but a little daunting. The Book of Mormon has been an inspiration to me since I was a child. Even on those long nights when we were forced to sit down as a family and read a chapter, its stories always stood out to me: Captain Moroni, Nephi, Ammon, Abinadi, and many more.
As such, it was only natural that the Book of Mormon would be the source for my follow-up to The Good Story. Of course, I had to name it something, and keeping with the “Story” motif, I settled on The Nephites’ Story. The Book of Mormon isn’t entirely about the Nephites. It also tells stories about the Lamanites, and a substantial part of the text is an earlier, parallel story about the Jaredites. But I felt the story of the Nephites was the main thrust of the narrative, so it seemed appropriate to name the book after them.
One thing I worried about early on was copyright infringement. To make a long story short, the text of the Book of Mormon itself is in the public domain, and the only things copyrighted in modern editions are unique additions like chapter headers and footers. Since I would be making my own chapters and slight enhancements to the text, I was relieved to learn there wouldn’t be any legal problems with adapting it for the next book in my Good Story Series.
While modern copies of the Book of Mormon look thin and tiny, the actual word count is enormous, so going chapter by chapter took a lot longer than I initially expected. My goal was to adapt one chapter a day into The Nephites’ Story. I didn’t always meet that goal, but I persisted, and over time the book began to take shape until the first draft was finally complete!
I was more than a little dismayed, though, when I realized the page count of my first draft was far too long for a publisher like Amazon to print. I didn’t want to go through the hassle of splitting a single story into multiple volumes, so I felt stuck. Then I started playing around with Claude and I discovered that Claude could take my manuscript and reformat it to fit the page count I needed, which came as a huge relief. (It also made me realize I could reformat my other books the same way, but that’s a story for another time.)
A short time later, I received my first author copy of The Nephites’ Story, and I was thrilled to hold it and The Good Story in my hands at the same time. The Nephites’ Story isn’t fully published and released to the public yet, but consider this my announcement of its existence.
I’ve always felt that The Nephites’ Story was a passion project for me personally, but I really wanted it for my kids. Reading the actual Book of Mormon can feel like a homework assignment with all the verses, columns, and footnotes, so I wanted something I could simply sit down and read as a story. I believe my kids and other families can get the same benefit from it.
So stay tuned! If you’d like to know the moment The Nephites’ Story is fully released, sign up for my newsletter and I’ll make sure you’re the first to hear about it.
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