Faire Exchange Postscript
Alex explains how we got here.
Story spoilers follow, so click below to catch up:
I first came up with the character of Tsarina, an elf who visits our world, back in high school. I didn't really have any set personality for her, but I had her basic appearance in mind. I even published a drawing of her in the school literary magazine.
Sometime later, I forget when, I had the idea that she shouldn't just be a strange visitor from another world. She should also be a spoiled, selfish brat. She hates being out of her comfort zone. But it wasn’t until 2010 or so that I finally had a story for her: I put her in an ordinary grade school, and it was the job of kids like Jeremy and Zoe to deal with her, eventually lash out at her, and then try to reconcile. The broad outlines are the same as the final novel.
Eventually, I decided I wasn't satisfied with it, and in 2016, decided I wanted to rewrite it. At the time, I was experimenting with outlining, and at some point in the process, determined it didn't really want to be a short story. It wanted to be a novel. I expanded the cast with Nadia and Halley, and decided to go with a rotating POV. Nadia was probably the biggest surprise of this story; I didn't expect her to become such a big part of the plot.
The way I wrote it was sort of an experiment. At the time, I'd discovered Dan Harmon's "Story Structure 101," where he explains how he plots a story using a simplified version of the Hero's Journey: an 8-step story wheel.
I may have already written some short stories with this system, but I realized it could work just as well for chapters in a longform story. You just have to take out the last two steps. I'd cut up a sheet of paper, pick a viewpoint character for that chapter, write their name on a piece, and break down what they want and how they go about getting it. Every single chapter came about this way. For example, here's Nadia’s first chapter
The only real rules were that I couldn't give a character two chapters in a row, and I couldn't repeat a character until I'd gotten through all six. There's one Nadia chapter that comes two chapters after another Nadia chapter, but by then I'd completed another cycle.
I wrote it by hand, then typed it up some time later. I only made a couple of major changes: Martin 4 in the typing phase, and Halley 6 just before posting on Substack.
When I started serializing it here, I'd originally wanted to illustrate each chapter, but I didn't get around to starting that until chapter 12. Even then, it took some time to go back and get things done for the previous chapters. All illustrations were made using Clip Studio Paint Pro. I'd gotten into the habit a few years ago of starting with an 8"x8" canvas and adjusting from there. But I got it done! Each chapter has an illustration!
I'm glad the story's out there. As far as I'm concerned, it's finally achieved its true form. Naturally I plan on publishing it in book form, and will let you know about any updates.
As always, thank you for reading!
