BEHIND THE SCENES

HOW COLE REALIZED “THE BADDEST IN THE WORLD AND THE TRAITOR”

Introduction

Hello, friends. I hope this website isn’t boring you! “If you didn’t dislike it at all, please think kindly of the one who wrote it, and also a little of the one who patched it up. But if instead we have managed to bore you, believe that it was not intentional,” as a certain Manzoni once said.

But don’t worry—I’m obviously not going to bore you with a sermon about Manzoni, also because it’s not exactly my style!

Hi, I’m Cole, as you’ve probably figured out by now. I’m writing to you directly from the computer I used to create the book. In this article, a bit different from the others, I’d like to explain how I (hopefully) managed to write the story and how this strange idea of writing even came to me.

You know, I’m not even sure why I started, almost six years ago. But then again, why does anyone have a dream? Because that’s what this has been for me: a dream. And a dream is hard to keep alive. There have been times when I didn’t really care about continuing the story, and others when I couldn’t wait to get home and grab my computer.

Make yourselves comfortable, relax—grab something to snack on, because we’re getting started.

That day, The Baddest in the World came to visit me.

It was evening. It was around 4:30/5:00 PM, and school was about to end. It was pouring heavily, and thunder could be heard. At the time (oh my God, am I getting old?) I was sitting at my beloved desk. I was probably thinking very smart and intelligent things like: “What am I eating tonight?” or “This is so boring,” while the teacher was explaining some math topic that I don’t remember. For context, I’m terrible at math. I hope it’s not because that day I was lost in my thoughts and didn’t pay attention in class.

Nah. I’m just bad at it, no point making excuses :D.

Now, you absolutely need to know that with my elementary school friends (before this fateful day), I often used to invent new games to play during that wonderful ten-and-a-half-hour break that every one of us has experienced. I found these games interesting, and I really liked them. More than that—I was passionate about them. Because I would invent them, but with my friends they became even better. I remember one of them was about superhero cats, and we were all one of them. My old friends will probably remember this fondly while reading this article by Cifero. Well, you wouldn’t understand.

But yes, before The Baddest in the World, I already had characters that I cared about. They could be silly, funny, or scary. I remember we played a game where an assassin had left his signature on doors: I had just started learning to read and had naively read “toilet” on the bathroom door. In the end, one thing that pushed me to start writing was a compliment my teacher gave me. We had been assigned to write a short ending for a story we had read together in class. Now that I think about it, maybe I didn’t take that kind of assignment very seriously. I wasn’t really into it. It may sound contradictory, but I didn’t like writing. Because, let’s be honest, writing by hand is kind of boring. I can already imagine my teacher’s comments. Help! Maybe I should delete this part!

Anyway, I did the assignment. And the next morning, when I handed it to the teacher, she read it. Absolute silence. I was scared—really scared. But against all expectations, she smiled in the end, took the paper with satisfaction, and said to the whole class: “I’m going to read this one by Cole because it’s beautiful.”

Beautiful! Beautiful? But I must have taken like five minutes to write it!

Outside, it was the flood of the century. Lightning and flashes lit up the room. It was almost summer, and it felt like an oven. At one point, a lightning bolt must have struck nearby, and a terrible crash was heard. Everyone turned toward the windows, the teacher tried to restore order but in vain. I WAS TERRIFIED. Okay, I won’t hide it. Lightning too close to me scared me. But something was about to change: the wind was sweeping all the leaves around, and I saw some garbage bags flying through the air. A real downpour of epic proportions, which brought someone…

Something above a house caught my attention. I’m not exactly sure what it was, but I found myself thinking: “Wouldn’t it be cool if it were someone controlling this storm? Maybe because… because it’s their power? Maybe they have a lightning sword! What if they’re fighting a villain right now? Or… what if the villain is actually them?”

And there it was. The object had flown away, but it had remained firmly imprinted in my mind. This was the first time that i met him.

A monster in the real life

Since then, the character has evolved over time, gaining depth and personality. At first, he was called The Baddest in the World because he wanted to conquer the world with plans that were always different and utterly ridiculous, but he was constantly defeated by a little girl named Annie and her friends. He would return home and swear revenge. It was always like that, until one day I thought: what if The Baddest in the World and Annie joined forces against a common enemy? And that’s how the unlikely story of their “friendship” began.

The first text

And then, the story. I don’t know how it came to me—it was all a bit of a whirlwind. One day it wasn’t there, and the next it was. But at the beginning, I really just thought of it as a game. Also because (this is something almost no one knows—keep it quiet!) I had already published a short Christmas fairy tale on Amazon Kindle. But I’d better not tell you the title!

At first, the plot (which was never actually written down, because I hadn’t started yet) went like this: The Baddest in the World absolutely wanted to conquer the world, and to do so, together with his gang, he started building a machine that could allow him to achieve it. But something went wrong, and it sent him straight into the past. There, in the age of the dinosaurs, disoriented, he clumsily tripped over a stone. He got angry at it, but as soon as he touched it, he realized he could use it to fulfill his dream: it was a Magic Stone. With its terrible power, he returned to the present and began leafing through old magic manuals with his sister Strix. The two of them discovered what the Stone was and how to use it. It had to be placed in a high location during a stormy night, so that it could gain power by being struck by lightning. The Baddest in the World chose a very tall house on a hill just outside London. But when he entered, he didn’t know it was a little girl’s house. Since it was Halloween night, Annie—that was the girl’s name—thought The Baddest in the World was just a boy in costume. So she didn’t bother him; on the contrary, she helped him. But when he placed the Stone on the roof and lightning struck it, Annie discovered the trick and a fight broke out with the monster who, once defeated, suddenly grew two large wings and flew away, taking the Stone with him. By then, however, the Stone had already absorbed its power: The Baddest in the World had become the master of the universe. In the end, Annie and her little friend Lucas blended into the crowd of costumed monsters in the streets of London on Halloween and, by buying a dragon costume, managed to scare The Baddest in the World, who ran away and abandoned the Stone.

Don’t worry, I haven’t spoiled anything. Because, essentially, the only things the current book has in common with that version are the names and the Stone’s power. That’s it. You can well imagine how long it took me to transform this whole story (a bit far-fetched and nonsensical, but fun) into what is now “The Baddest In The World And The Traitor.”

Conclusion

And so, here we are. What started as a passing thought on a stormy afternoon slowly turned into something much bigger—something that stayed with me, changed with me, and, in a way, grew up alongside me. Looking back, it’s strange to think that a single idea, born almost by accident, could evolve into a full story with characters, conflicts, and meaning.

Writing this book hasn’t been a straight path. It’s been full of pauses, doubts, sudden bursts of inspiration, and moments where I questioned everything. But maybe that’s exactly what makes it worthwhile. Stories aren’t just about what’s written on the page—they’re about the time, imagination, and persistence behind them.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from this journey, it’s that ideas don’t need to be perfect at the start. They can be messy, exaggerated, even a little nonsensical. What matters is giving them the chance to grow.

So whether you’re here just out of curiosity, or because you’ve followed this story from the beginning, thank you. Really. Because every story, no matter how personal it begins, becomes more real the moment someone else reads it.

And who knows—maybe this is just the beginning…