It
all started with Peter Pan, really.
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And
Narnia.
And
Middle-earth.
Back in the late ’90s, I wanted to write...basically a retelling of Peter Pan, involving a little boy raised by a good Faerie after his parents abandon him. Having grown up with C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, I wove a bit of that world into my story, because why not?
When my family saw Peter Jackson’s epic cinematic portrayal of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, it inspired me to create a fantasy world of my own—one more complex than the “Fairyland” I’d envisioned previously.
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Thus the world of Ýdära was born, and with it, the story of one of its ruling houses—specifically, the Crown Prince of that house: Nácil Vítuódhrán.
Sometime
in the Twenty-teens, I had a dream one night involving a Vampire
named Victor, who was dying because he was in love with a Mortal
woman.
Not
being particularly keen on Vampires (like, at all—*shiver*), I
quickly changed his species to Elf, and did some quick research on
the Elvish form of the name Victor. Don’t remember when I added the
“Greenwood” surname, but it seemed appropriate.
Originally, I used the straight-up “Tolkien-Elvish” translations (altered slightly) and came up with Nácil Lægtauro as the name of my protagonist. However, it occurred to me that this could get me in trouble with the Tolkien estate (copyright and all that), so I changed his “Elvish” surname to Vítuódhrán—a combination of the ancient Germanic vitu (“wood”) and the Old Irish odhran (“little pale-green one”).
Incidentally,
I wasn’t that fond of the name Victor prior to writing this story.
And while it’s still not on my list of Top Ten Favorite Names, it’s
rather grown on me as one associated with strength and nobility.
Fitting
for an Elven prince, aye?
Eventually
the concept grew into the idea for a novel, incorporating a sort of
Faerie-tale I’d begun as a writing exercise, by way of getting out
of the ten-year writing slump I’d fallen into.
The basic plot revolved around Prince Nácil, his mother the Faerie-queen, and three evil old hags. The hags, known as the Eldest, Middle, and Youngest Sorceresses, hatch a plot to overthrow the good Faerie-king and repeal his law condemning anyone practicing Black Magic to death. The Eldest Sorceress cooks up a potion that transforms them all into beautiful ladies. She pretends to be a princess from a far-away kingdom, offering her hand to Prince Nácil by way of making an alliance between her kingdom and his. Meanwhile, her sisters are out among their people, stirring up rebellion against the king.
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Long-story-short, the Faerie-queen exposes the Eldest Sorceress for the fraud she is, there is an attack on the castle during which the king is killed, and the Eldest Sorceress gives Prince Nácil a terrible choice: Marry her, or watch the rest of his family burn at the stake. He refuses her, his family perish, and she places a curse on him before banishing him to the World of Men, never to return on pain of death. Just before he leaves, the Youngest Sorceress alters the curse slightly: Instead of wandering alone and friendless all his days, he will find some few friends in the World of Men. Instead of dying in pain and torment if he falls in love with anyone, the curse will be broken if a Daughter of Eve loves him back.
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At that point, the rest of The Tale of Prince Nácil was going to be about four elderly people living in a boarding-house around 1914, with a mysterious young man named Victor Greenwood living among them. Victor works as a gardener at a stately but rundown old house in the area, owned by three old spinsters, who are raising their seven-year-old niece, Jane Foster. Jane is a kind of Cinderella, and Victor befriends and eventually adopts her, bringing her to live with him at the boarding-house, away from her abusive old aunts. It is only at the end of the book—when Jane is seventeen—that Victor’s true heritage is revealed. He discovers he’s grown to love her as more than his adoptive daughter, only she’s engaged to the most popular (but decidedly rude and disrespectful) young man in town, and … cue the curse setting in. But of course, Jane sees the light, realizes it’s Victor she loves, and her love saves his life. The book ends basically on their wedding-day, when a Centaur shows up just before they say their I Dos, and informs Victor that the Eldest Sorceress is now dead, and begs him to return and take the throne. Trouble is, Humans aren’t allowed to enter the Faerie-world, so Victor would have to leave Jane behind. Victor decides to stay with Jane, and they basically live Happily Ever After.
This plotline flopped pretty early on for obvious reasons. Even I was uncomfortable with Jane and Victor getting married, despite knowing Victor was immortal. And his Elven heritage being kind of an afterthought didn’t make sense, as that’s a pretty important plot-point. I was going to say that eventually, Humans would be allowed to live in Victor’s homeworld (then christened The Young World), and had a whole plot cooked up to connect Jane and Victor to the little boy in the Peter Pan-inspired story (he was going to be their grandson, I think) … but it just didn’t work.
Eventually, the Lord put a whole new plot in my head—one that would be stronger and less potentially creepy than the other—and with a truckload of advice and suggestions from my family, and the aforementioned TON of help from Kendra—I persevered until Prince Nácil came to be what it is now. I made the people at the boarding-house Jane’s loving family living at an old farm, gave Victor a more suitable love-interest, and made his heritage and the curse a central part of the story.
Quite possibly the best changes I ever made to one of my books, in all honesty. Sole Deo Gloria!
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At one point, I was going to have Victor relate the history of the Elvish Royal Family to his friends in the World of Men, in the guise of “Faerie-tales” told in the evenings. And I wrote some of them into the story … and they became stories unto themselves, and threatened to overshadow the main plot. So I had to cut them out, which left a huge hole in Part One—a hole it took forever to figure out how to fill. But God is faithful, and fill it He did.
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Many of the characters in those early stories became the dramatis personae of what is now my Ýdära Multiverse. The original Faerie-tale became the foundation for the last book in a prequel series I have in the works, entitled The Rise of Iceheart (more on that alter this week).
The Faerie-king and -queen became Othniel king of the Fae and Jael Elvira—Prince Nácil’s parents.
The three hags were reimagined into Lady Lucrísha, Eldest Sorceress and Mistress of Magic; and her two daughters: Krystála Iceheart (the main villain), and Lady Müriel (more on her in a moment). At first, I was going to have three sisters—Krystála, Müriel, and a middle sister named Merárië—but decided to make the Eldest Sorceress the mother instead.
The little boy in the Peter Pan wannabe is now Harold Spencer, a Human boy Victor befriends after his return to Ýdära.
The little girl in the Peter Pan story became Elsie Douglas, a friend of Jane’s whom you’ll meet in Book Three.
I combined the characters of Harold’s Faerie guardian (the Blue Fairy /Lady Azura originally) and the Youngest Sorceress into Lady Müriel, and made her a horrified innocent bystander, rather that an active participant in the Revolution against the Elven-king.
Sadly, I had to cut Aylana Centauress from the cast, but her father, Arémus, and betrothed, Artúro, made appearances in the final version of Prince Nácil.
This story has come a long way from its original concepts. In some ways, it’s nothing like I first imagined...but it’s so much better. The characters are more relatable, the plot is stronger, and writing this story has leveled up my writing skills considerably.
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I thank God for this gift, and for all the wonderful people He’s put in my life who have supported and encouraged me over the years. My prayer, as always, is that this book—and the ones to follow—would be a blessing to all who read it. That my faith and God’s Truth would show through the Faerie-tale in a way that is interesting and feels natural. That my humble scribblings would point others to Christ, while giving them a good story.
Be sure to visit Kendra and all the other loverly folks participating in this here Blog Tour:
Until
next time, Gentle Readers,
God
bless,
Funny story I forgot to mention: While considering a different name for my Male Lead, I almost went with Kátsu (from a Japanese boy's name meaning "victory"). However, when spelled out, it looked too much like "ketchup," and when spoken, it sounded like someone sneezing, or too similar to the name of one of my aunt's dearly departed cats, Kitsu (KEET-soo).
ReplyDeleteI also considered spelling his name N-A-S-I-L, but that looked too much like "nasal" or "nostril"! XD
Ahh, the things we authors go through to name our "brain-children"! ;-)