Hey-o, Word-wielders,
So, my new book, Daughters of Irin is out, after over 2 years since that march day when I first put pencil to paper. But, who enjoys a good behind the scenes with the author?
Me! (and hopefully you)
Anyway, today I'll be sharing with you some extras about Daughters of Irin. (Beware of spoilers)
First off, some bullet points. These are what I thought of doing for the book . . . and didn't.
- Queen Celestia originally lived . . .
Yup, the fevered queen from the prologue didn't die, at least that what I decided at one point. I planned that she married a peasant man after King Roark was killed, and Eirian finds she has two step-siblings.
- . . . And Prince Alaric originally died.
Rune (Alaric) wasn't an active character until I'd already started writing this book. He originally died as a baby. I'd toyed with the idea of adding him, and finally I did.
- Quarralia had a sister
Originally, Quarralia and Tristian had an older sister named Lileas. However, I decided to cut her out of the story.
- There was a different plot I started before writing the story you see today.
Eirian and Quarralia's story had an origin different than what you'll find in the book. Eirian lived with her biological older brother, Ash, and her adoptive family. A party was attacked, and Eirian found Quarralia hiding afterwards.
Namestorming:
Namestorming is what I call brainstorming names. I take pleasure in concocting names for my major characters and typically make a list of options before picking one. Here's some of my lists I used in DOI.
Ideas for Quarralia: Quarralia, Genevieve, Airleas, Lileas, Elara, Aralis, Delaney, Delancey, Eirian (actually), Eathelin.
Ideas for Eirian: Larren, Alite, Rowan, Mona, Kliss, Shylen, Emrin, Sade, Fallon, Eirian, Tawny, Shiloh, Ember, Aevin.
Ideas for Galt: Storr, Mikkel, Storm, Fjorn, Galt
The title:
I could not come up with a title that pleased me for this book. It was actually a fellow young writer who came to my rescue after I posted the prologue on a writing site BEGGING FOR TITLE IDEAS!!! (Yeah, you get the picture.)
Anyway, this writer suggested Daughter of Irin. A tiny tweak, and my book was named.
However, these are my ideas I scrawled down:
Return to Irin; Runaway Royal; Roads to Irin; Escaping Faria (apparently Farria only had one “r” at the time); The Flight; Flight.
Original first chapter (well, as much as I wrote):
So, while the original plot for Daughters of Irin never really took off, I did write part of the first chapter. Here it is, not altered at all, written by my 15-year-old self.
Dawn glinted off the metal shaft of the dart as it sliced through the air. My fury shot it three times faster than I usually threw it, and my arm protested in pain.
Thwack, the dart pierced the knot of tree twenty paces away. Exactly where I'd wanted it to.
I pulled out another three darts and threw them in rapid succession. They clustered around the first, buried in at least half and inch.
Why can't life be fair?
I stalked over to the tree, yanking the darts out a but too rough.
"Whoa, wouldn't want to be in your line of fire!"
I whirled around. "Ash Tully, what're you doing here, sneaking up on me like that?"
"Hey, calm down," my brother put a hand on my shoulder. "What's up, Eir?"
What behind the scene stories do you have? Let me know down in the comments.
May you live for Christ and give Him praise
~Claira
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