A while ago I wrote a blog post exploring how my book, The Balter of Ashton Harper, changed from draft to draft, and you guys really seemed to enjoy it. So now I’m doing another, this time with my newest book The Mage Pocket: Apprentice Alliance, the first in a middle-grade fantasy adventure series. It is published and currently available for purchase online!

For those of you unfamiliar with the story, here’s a quick overview:

Sorrel is the unruly daughter of the heads of the Mage Council, protectors of the secret realm of the Mage Pocket, where libraries float through the sky, cats turn invisible, and sunlight is magic.

Theo is the reluctant apprentice of the Dark Mage, the terror of the Mage Pocket, waiting in the shadows for her chance to act.

When her parents die in a house fire, Sorrel refuses to believe it’s an accident. Theo knows it’s not, because he saw his mentor do it. He helped his mentor do it. He’s still haunted by the smell of smoke.

Sorrel is bent on finding answers, but that will require learning some complex magic. Theo is trying to break his magical apprenticeship contract, but that will require a lot of research.

Together, they form an unlikely alliance—Theo will teach Sorrel to Cast, Sorrel will help him research. But both are keeping secrets, and neither one knows the other’s true identity. As their friendship grows, so do the consequences of discovering the truth.

Now, let’s start with draft one, chapter one.

Draft 1

Sorrel Puck was twelve when her village burned to the ground. For all she knew, she was the only one left. To be sure, she might not have been, but after seeing the ashen remains of one villager, she did not want to see any more. So she ran away, her eyes stinging with smoke and tears.

And then she was quite lost. With a map and an amulet and a wool sweater pulled over her dress, Sorrel Puck was lost in the great wide world.

The amulet was from her uncle, who was a mage. He was her mother’s brother and he came to the village whenever he could, which wasn’t often. But when he did, he told her about magic, and made butterflies out of sunbeams.

Or he had. Until the fire. The fire was because of him. He hadn’t started it of course, another mage had. But they had started it because he was there. Sorrel didn’t know why. She didn’t know who ‘they’ were. She only knew that when her uncle had seen the flames, he said:

“They’ve come for me.”

That was all. That was the last thing she had heard him say. Now she was lost, crying and coughing from the smoke. Abandoned. Alone. And whoever ‘they’ were, it was all their fault.

This first bit was written by hand in a random journal I found lying around the house. It was really more of a brainstorm than a draft, because I never wrote past chapter one, but I thought I’d share it anyway. I remember writing it on an autumn evening to procrastinate another project that I was supposed to be working on (procrastination seems to be where I get a lot of my good ideas. XD)

I posted this on my Instagram story about it.

That’s right, Mage Pocket, my first ever series, started out as me freewriting a “random wizard library story”.

The part I wrote by hand went on to show Sorrel collapsing from exhaustion and grief in the rain, and then waking up in a strange, magical place called the Cloud Library, where she is greeted by a librarian named Opel, who had rescued her. Sorrel, who has always wanted to become a mage, quickly tries to convince Opel to make her her apprentice.

Sound familiar?

If you’ve read the final book, than your answer will probably be “yes, but also… no.”

This original, vague spark of the idea, had a lot of elements that made it into the final book, but not in the same way. Like sunshine butterflies, a special necklace, and a child running through the rain away from a burning house, mages, the Cloud Library, and even being rescued by a librarian.

I ended up putting the notebook aside and launching into brainstorming the idea, and outlining it. It was some of the most extensive outlining I’ve ever done, but I had so much fun with it! I used K. M. Weiland’s outlining methods, which worked really well for me. And that led into the next draft, which was written almost six months later, after a long time spent outlining and pondering what I wanted the story to be.

Draft 2

Sorrelle Willick was floating in a library high above the clouds. She was not too bothered about this, because her cousin Ismene owned The Cloud Library, and she had visited it many times before.

The place was several stories high and entirely round. From far away, The Cloud Library looked like blue glass marble swirled with ribbons of auburn, which was the reddish wood of the bookshelves.

Sorrelle sat with her back to the glass wall, beyond which fantastic cloud shapes swirled, and bent over her book once more.

Basic Casting was the title of the book.

“Right. Basic.” Sorrelle muttered. Either the book was lying or she was very bad at casting. Sorrelle took a deep breath, straightened her posture, and held both hands out in front of her, as though she was pushing open an invisible door.

Several seconds passed, and with them a disappointing amount of fire, rainbows, levitation, or anything else remotely interesting. Somewhere, within the winding red-ish brown bookshelves, someone coughed.

“Oh come on magic!” Sorrelle muttered in a library-apropreate whisper. Her hands switched from opening an invisible door to something like aggressively shooing away flies. At last, with a defeated huff, Sorrelle flopped backwards onto blue library rug, raising

Basic Casting into the air above her. She re-read the paragraph for the millionth time. A Mage transforms the energy of light, called Lumens, into any spell he or she has learned. When the spell is affected immediately and directly, it is Cast. When the effects of the spell are permanently attached to an object, the spell is Imbued. A Mage cannot Cast or Imbue without light, lest they drain their body’s essential Lumens, risking injury or death.

“I am not giving up.” Sorrelle dropped the book onto the carpet and glared at the boards of the ceiling above her as though they had suggested the insult. “I will be the most powerful Mage in the Pocket someday, just you wait.” Her gaze drifted to the pearly sky and fluffy clouds outside. “You’ll see.” She muttered, to no one in particular.

Yes, I changed the spelling of Sorrel’s name for a while… and then, when beta readers kept mispronouncing it, I changed it back again. XD

This definitely looks closer to the published book. Sorrel is now related to the owner of The Cloud Library, her personality is much more developed, the magic system is more developed, so is the narrative voice. Overall, everything is much more thought-out.

(Although Ismene ended up getting replaced by Elora, Sorrel’s aunt, in the final version, because otherwise there were just too many characters to keep track of.)

This scene, more or less, still exists in the published book. However, the final version of this scene now exists in Chapter Two, not Chapter One. As anyone who has read the book will know, there’s a pretty big shift in tone at the end of this chapter. And the book as a whole contains a lot of darker or more intense moments, which doesn’t match with this opening. Thus, going into the next draft, I wanted to establish that tone and those higher stakes from the very first scene, so that the reader can know from page one exactly what kind of story they’re getting into.

Draft 3

Years later, Theo wished he could have said that he never wanted to be apprenticed to The Dark Mage. He wished he could have said that he didn’t have a choice. But that would be just one more lie.

When he was seven years old, a rumor reached Theo’s home that The Dark Mage had died in one of his conquests.

The rumor was brought by a young woman with dark red hair and olive green eyes. She had told Theo that he must come with her, and had lead him by the hand out into the night. To speak with him, she said.

“Do you know, Theo, how talented you are at casting?” Was her first question. “Casting?” He stared at her in confusion.

“The sparks you pull from the sunlight.” The woman explained patiently. “You can form them into globes of light, can’t you? You can set a fire in the stove without a match.”

Theo swallowed hard. “I…I’m not supposed to do that anymore. The mage hunters would come and take me away.”

“But that would be very wrong of them.” The woman knelt down in front of him, her eyes wide and earnest. “Those in your village who would harm you are cruel, heartless people, do you understand?”

Theo nodded, unsure of what else to do. She looked at him with such intensity.

“Theo.” The woman took his small hand in her own and pressed it gently. “You have far more power and talent in the art of Casting than any child I have ever seen. And I don’t say that lightly. Furthermore, you have twice the intelligence of any adult in this barbaric, light-forsaken place!”

Theo could only stare in surprise. No one had ever told him such things before, only that he should stop playing with the light before someone else saw. But he had always thought that it had been for his own good…For the first time, he felt the warm glow of pride within his chest. Pride that the woman with the dark green eyes had given him.

“My name is Maeve.” The woman smiled a little, still holding his gaze. “I’m like you. Look!” She opened her free hand and a flurry of golden sparks burst forward. They hovered for a moment, bobbing lazily, like fireflies, and then they began to dance.

Now we’re getting warmer… We have a first chapter that immediately sets the tone, introduces the themes, and is a lot more unique and attention-grabbing.

In this draft, the first chapter was written from Theo’s point of view, not Maeve’s, like in the finished book. I didn’t even consider writing it from Maeve’s perspective until someone in my critique group pointed out that, since Theo loses his memory at the end of the chapter, it makes the logic of the scene confusing. Can he remember what happened at the beginning of the scene by the end of it? It just raised a lot of confusion. She suggested switching it to Maeve’s POV to fix that. As soon as she mentioned it, I realized how cool it would be to have Maeve’s POV, not just for fixing a logical error, but because that would actually allow me to show the reader what is going on inside our antagonist’s head.

Also, instead of us finding out, along with Theo, who Maeve is, we can get a sense of her motivations from the get-go and feel apprehension about what is going to happen to this innocent young boy. What was a surprise in draft three became suspense in the final draft, which is my preferred method anyway.

Final Draft

At age seven, the boy could already hold the sun in his hands.

Maeve stared down at him, his ink-black hair and fair skin outlined in silver moonlight, his eyes as dark and serious as the sky above. His name was Theo, and he was perfect.

No, Maeve amended. Not perfect. Not yet. But he would be someday—under her guidance he would become so.

“Theo.” Maeve selected each word as carefully as an artist chooses their paints. “Do you know how talented you are at casting?”

They stood in a thicket of woods, beyond the firelight of his tiny village. It had been quite easy to get him alone—Maeve had simply asked to speak with him for a moment. Although barely out of girlhood herself, to a seven-year-old boy she looked like an adult, and he had not questioned her.

“Casting?” The small boy stared at her, those serious eyes taking in every word with cautious curiosity. His voice barely rose over the rustling of the leaves.

“The sparks you pull from the sunlight,” Maeve explained patiently. “You can form them into globes of light, can’t you? You can set a fire in the hearth without flint.”

If Theo wondered how she knew all this, he did not show it. Instead, he swallowed hard. “I . . . I’m not supposed to do that anymore. The mage hunters would come and take me away.”

Rage and pain flashed white-hot through Maeve at the thought of the hunters, but she knew such emotions would only frighten the boy further, so she smoothed her expression into calm compassion.

Maeve knelt down in front of him and caught his gaze. “But that would be very wrong of them. Those in your village who would harm you are cruel, heartless people. Do you understand?”

Theo nodded uncertainly.

“Theo.” Maeve took his small, pale hand in her own and pressed it gently. “You have far more power and talent in the art of casting than any child I have ever met. Furthermore, you have twice the intelligence of any adult in this barbaric, light-forsaken place!”

Surprise flashed across Theo’s face, as though no one had ever paid him such a compliment before. Bitterness and satisfaction rose within Maeve at the thought. Among these fearful, ignorant peasants, Theo was an anomaly. He was a daisy in the desert—sure to wither and die, potential utterly wasted, unless someone plucked him up and replanted him. Someone like her.

“My name is Maeve.” Maeve painted on a warm smile. “I’m like you. Look!” She opened her free hand, and a flurry of golden sparks burst from her palm. They hovered for a moment, bobbing lazily like fireflies, and then they began to dance.

Aaaaand if you want to read more than that, you can actually read the final first chapter for free here. Or you can buy the book!

The dialogue and plot of what happened stayed almost exactly the same in this final version; it was just the POV that switched, and that made ALL the difference!

I also ended up putting the names of spells in bold in the final version of the book, to give them more weight. It made the magic feel more powerful because it literally takes up more space on the page than other words, because the font is slightly thicker.

And hey, now I get to start off every book in the series with an ominous chapter from The Dark Mage’s point of view. So win-win! XD

docendo disco, scribendo cogito,

(I learn by teaching and think by writing.)

– Millie Florence