Squeetus summer book club: Enna Burning, Chapter 3

Ratger: Looking over my first draft, instead of meeting Isi in the market, Enna went to the palace and had to wait in the marketday queue for those wanting to see the king. She's belligerent and gets turned away until Ratger sees her and lets her in. I liked Ratger from Goose Girl and intended to make him a larger character in this book. But Razo won the right for a more major role, and the story moved away from Ratger in later drafts.

So much cut: And I keep looking through this first draft, realizing how much I deleted. That's common for me. I can't ever find the right story the first time through. For every 300 page book I publish, I've deleted another 900 pages of material. Just because I typed some words doesn't mean they're worth reading. I need to always keep myself open to trying it a different way.

the treasury: this scene reminded me of something I'd read as a child. I'm having a hard time remembering. Maybe it was from Prince Caspian? Or perhaps a scene in Hero & the Crown. Anyway, everything I've ever read is in my brain somewhere and inspires what I write.

Isi is not superstitious: She's a very practical thinker. Enna is the opposite.

Avlado: The name of Isi's horse. The word "Falada" means "spoken" in Portugues, and Avlado is a play on "hablado" which is "spoken" in Spanish.

Anna asks, "Did Isi have a bond with Avlado like she did with Falada?" Yes, she did. Is that right? Honestly it's been so many years since I last read Enna Burning I can't remember if the bond was a little different.

Rebecca says, "Personally, I think Embo sounds like a great future husband. They are young and he is already responsible enough to have the foresight to provide for his bride." I agree! I'm much more practical than Enna is.

Carlie asks, "How do you make up character names that feel so real and represent so well where the person is from?" The Bayern names I took from lists of old German names. The Forest names I wanted to have a similar feel, so I just found names (and made up some) that felt right. There's a passage in Forest Born about how the Forest names tend to rhyme and alliterate.