I’m going to do a bit of a rant, if you all don’t mind. I say that the second draft is different. I mention that a lot. But just how different is different? Different enough that, honestly, if I don’t get my first chapter’s edits back, I’m just going to start rewriting within a couple days. So much has to be redone. All of it. I’m sure that I’m more interested in writing this than you all may be by reading it at this point, but it must get out there.
The entire reason for the book happening is different. I ripped out the entire thing by its spine and replaced it. It means that there will be way more politics, but it’s better this way. The first beginning was far too rushed. Now you’re probably going to actually care that they’re in the first city for as long as they are.
Three of the character have personality changes. They’re not completely drastic, but they are there. In this, I am referring to the witch sisters. They work a little more as a unit now than they did before. That’s as much as I want to give away for now in that regard.
There is now a familiar in the series. Who didn’t like Sabrina the Teenage Witch? Salem was amazing, my favorite character. Super sassy and just a generally lovable character. But, as it turns out, the familiar in this tale is not a cat. She’s a creature almost completely of my own creation. I say almost, because as is said in the book of Ecclesiastes, “there is nothing new under the sun”.
The protagonist is more likable, and a little more crazy. That’s just how my main characters – fun with a little bit of not-so-hidden psycho under the hood. He’s just as emotionally scarred, but he is Malkeon. There were so many things about him that I didn’t make use of before – like the fact that he was taught swordsmanship daily since Eocas decided he could wield a sword without hurting himself too badly. That was around age six. He knows how to handle a sword far better than I previously let on.
The antagonist’s personality is different as well. In the original, he was a character you really got emotionally attached to. It was hard to tell sometimes who was the real antagonist or protagonist at times. This is still true of him, but you also get to see his cunning and disturbing nature. You might say he’s getting some cues from Jigsaw. If that doesn’t terrify you, I don’t know what will.
**NOTE: The above image is NOT the official look for this species. They looked more like this in the beginning, but will be different enough that the illustrator won’t be able to use this as a reference.**
There will be a lot more of a certain villain that I loved writing for. However, they were hardly in there. As one of the coolest of the crew, I figured they might as well have some more fun. They’ll even be one of the main fighters in one of the early fight scenes. In the original version, they’d barely been even introduced and weren’t discussed in the fight.
Also, the abilities of the villains changed a lot. One ability stayed – that’s about it. The smoke was just too awesome not to keep. However, with their new abilities, they’ve become way more B.A. They also got a change to their species’ name, one that shows their haughtiness well.
There’s more of a steampunk feel to the book this time around. Someone has a mechanical arm this time around. You’ll be getting through most of the book and wondering about that last sentence, I’m sure. You’ll be asking, where is this? But then at then end… you’ll find out. Oh, and there’s now a train in Dark Kingdom, the sequel. That’s pretty awesome in a fantasy. Dragons and trains at the same time… sort of.
And that comes to the announcement that may distress some people – dragons are no longer a thing technically. I may have mentioned before, but the only flying lizards in the book now are noggards, and they aren’t very much like dragons at all. They probably won’t even breath fire anymore. But, they will still be incredible creatures.
There is a secondary character who is not who they claim to be. This has been the case from the beginning, but now they will turn out to be something different. This changes their magical abilities just a little bit.
And the hardest part of knowing all of this is that the friend-of-a-friend who’s editing is still working on the first chapter! (I am really just too poor to hire a real proper one, and she does do a good job.) I must get back to writing, or I certainly will not finish on time for January 2016 publishing! Worse yet, I’ll go CRAzY! You wouldn’t want that, would you? I wouldn’t either. I like having a small shred of sanity, although it probably isn’t too good for writing.
Now that I’ve written all that, I must be off to do things with my life. To be seeing more book things, go to our Facebook page. It’s cool, I swear. Until then, this is the longest thing I’ve done in a very very very long time.
Gabriel to Earth 