Mortance: A Miscarriage of Hope

Afterword

So I finished the book. 

It's really nice to be able to say that truthfully. 

This book turned out so much better than it probably deserved to. There's a really old draft that I'm definitely not letting anyone read in which Jade was a side character and a which, Lily was not a POV, most side characters had no names, and Aurora had a happy ending. It was definitely not good, but the fact that it became this amazes me. 

I think the first thing I decided about Jade's arc was how it would end. That was set up in the prologue. Everything else about her like personality, motivations, and even the name "Queen Jade the Just" all came afterwards, though certainly not secondary. I've had a few readers tell me she's their favorite character. There were moments as I was writing where I considered changing her ending because of how much fun she was to write. The legacy of Queen Jade the Just will carry on into the next books in the series, and I'm very excited to write it. 

Lily's story kind of just happened. Rose was just a dead sister in her backstory in the really old draft, so I showed her death in The Wolf Witch as a fun little Easter Egg... and suddenly everything fell into place. Vengeance became her character arc, and it was such a fun one to write. Her fourth chapter where she is alone with her vengeful madness is definitely a candidate for my favorite so far. There are very big things coming in the future for her story, as the plan currently stands. 

Prince Angus Kingson was a product of all the weird European power metal I listen to. Music has been and always will be a huge influence on my writing. His character might be the hardest so far to write, but it's worth it, because I have huge plans for his future. He is the character to deliver all my epic fantasy dialogue, and I'm excited to write more of that for him. 

On another note, Aurora was by far the easiest character to write. Her tragic love story arc is my favorite thing about the book. Not that there's many who would know, but I stole the name Vanessa from a pretty meh story I wrote that will probably never be public. She dies in that one too, albeit in a cooler way than here. I said Lily IV was one of my favorites, but about half of Aurora's chapters stand to rival it. Everything about her character just made me want to skip over everything in between to write her next chapter. I almost wish this was just her story, but it can't be. I'm maybe the most excited to see how well I can really write Aurora post-suicide in the next book and onward. The legend of the Silver Girl is far from over. 

Anyways, I'm so happy that I finished, that all of you read it, and most of all that you all enjoyed it. I hope all my readers will be sticking around for the rest of this series. Thank you all so much!!!

-Cheese