There’s lots of ways to talk about how a novel changes, what you learn about the story. I’ve decided to give you some insight into the journey Secret Ones took via the opening paragraphs, including the very first words ever written of the trilogy in February, 2003.
Draft one, two, three:
"Margaret Shaunessy leant against the window of the taxi and watched the buildings and people of Winton rush by. It hadn’t changed, she decided. Sure, the old federation brick buildings had all had a new coat of paint and the general population seemed younger and more impatient to get somewhere but deep down, the town hadn’t changed. Maclean’s Haberdashery still had terribly old-fashioned plaid clothing in the window. John Thompson still leant against the doorway of his pharmacy, chatting to a customer. Bill Retton’s beaten up old ute was parked as it always was in the third space from the corner, directly in front of the pub’s front door."
So here we have it – how the novel originally started. At this point, what I was writing was a fantasy romance. I’d done some work on the world building but the gadda was more a setting for the romance than it was a part of the plot – that developed later.
Here, I’d started the action of the story as closely to the first meeting of the hero and heroine as I could. This first scene shows Maggie returning to Winton, Australia, after ten years in the gadda headquarters of Sclossin, in Ireland. I wanted to show immediately that we were talking small town, rather than big city. These lines still pretty much exist in the book, although they’re now in chapter five. But yep, Bill Retton’s beaten up old ute is still parked directly in front of the pub’s door.
Draft Four:
“Here’s to the world’s newest physicist!” Ione Hammond lifted a crystal champagne glass high in the air. “May you continue to annoy the powers-that-be.”
This is where after a three year break, I picked the book up again. The opening chapter had been read as part of the Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild novel critique group, and based on their feedback the world of the gadda was starting to become more important to the overall storyline.
As a result, I decided that I needed to start the book a little earlier – show Maggie in Sclossin and show why she was heading back to Australia, create some tension to the situation. A variation of this line is now present on page fifteen of the book.
At this point, Maggie had just received her doctorate in physics. However, I had this really convoluted thing going about how the topic of her doctoral thesis (riding a broomstick) got her into trouble with the bardria (the ruling council of the gadda) but she was saved from being totally whipped over it because she swore it would never be published. Anyone who’s done a doctorate knows this couldn’t happen. My copy-editor helped me change this for the book and now, Maggie’s a primary school teacher.
Draft Five:
"Prologue
“Well, what is it?” Oswald Flaherty looked at the wad of paper in his hand.
“It’s Margaret’s doctoral thesis. She had to write it to receive the award she wanted. Read it.” Shaun Flaherty sat down in a comfortable leather chair. He held his hand out and a crystal glass gently lifted from the sideboard and flew across to him. He lifted it to his lips and sighed as the fiery whisky it carried slipped over his tongue."
Okay, now as a general rule, I don’t particularly like prologues in books, often because they’re really the first chapter trying to masquerade as something ‘cooler’. However, this was going to be the only thing in the whole book written from a different Point Of View (the rest was from Maggie or Lucas’s POV).
I’d decided I want to make the threat that Maggie was facing more direct – it wasn’t just that she’d written the damned thesis, but that someone actually went and found it and then dobbed her in. Someone was out to get her.
Readers of the final book will know that in fact, Shaun (or Sean as the spelling became) ends up not being part of this plot at all. At this stage, I was kinda toying with the idea of having Shaun and Maggie in a relationship, which she breaks off when she goes to Australia. I just couldn’t make that work, so went with the final solution of them having a one-night-stand.
Well, he has to end up obsessed with her somehow, or the whole story falls apart J
Draft Six:
"Prologue
There was a momentary feeling of pressure against his mind, resistance, and then the door shimmered and disappeared. The man who called himself The Sorcerer stepped into the room and looked around. His eyes skimmed over forbidden objects, things of an arcane nature, kept here to keep the people safe."
Readers of the actual book are noting that this is it – this is pretty much the way Secret Ones opens. It was at this point that the overarching storyline of the theft of the Forbidden Texts was fully developed (it had been coming to life slowly) and I realised that I needed to bring it front and centre. While it doesn’t directly affect Maggie and Lucas for some time, I wanted the readers to know that this thing had happened, to be aware of the threat that was developing even though the characters didn’t know it.
I had some issues with this overlaying of the Forbidden Texts storyline – it wasn’t something the general gadda population would talk about, so how would Maggie and Lucas know about it. While they didn’t know about it, I couldn’t really tell the readers what was going on.
Finally, I decided that Maggie was going to become one of the guardians. From time to time, you come up with a solution to a problem and it’s so perfect, you wonder why it wasn’t part of the original idea. This was one of those times.
Draft Seven to Ten:
"Prologue
There was a momentary feeling of pressure against her mind, resistance, and then the stone door shimmered and disappeared. The woman who called herself Asarlai, meaning sorcerer, stepped into the room and looked around. Her eyes skimmed over forbidden objects, things of an arcane nature, kept here to keep the people safe. Knives, mirrors, books, cupboards, wands and hats – and from each came a sense of darkness, of power that shouldn’t be touched. Some were carved with sigils that even she, with all her knowledge of things forbidden, didn’t recognise. Others were stained with a reddish colour that she hoped was rust, not blood."
Not much of a change here, except for one vital one – Asarlai becomes a woman. It was a conscious decision I made – I realised that I’d defaulted to having a man as a baddie and decided I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to write a strong, insane, mega maniacal woman. So, I did.
When I sent this off to Voyager, you only heard Asarlai’s voice twice – at the beginning and end of the book. I decided, however, that in order to keep the tension going, I wanted the reader to have more of an idea of what she was up to throughout the book, so during copy-edits I added two more scenes from her POV. I also worked really hard during Secret Ones to not only ensure that no one knew who Asarlai was, but to give readers a bit of a choice. To my mind, there are three possibilities that people could identify as Asarlai. I’ll be interested to see who people think she is. Her identity is revealed at the end of book two, Power Unbound.
Final Version:
"There was a momentary feeling of pressure against her mind, then the stone door shimmered and disappeared. The woman who called herself Asarlai, meaning sorcerer, stepped into the stone chamber and looked around. This was an ancient place, forged centuries earlier out of the rock; used first as regular storage, it now hid things people would rather forget existed."
This is the first paragraph, as it appears in the printed book. At the copyedit stage, we decided there was a section of description on the second or third page of the opening that was already partly done in the opening and that with a bit of re-arranging, we could put the salient details in here and cut some wordage. The second part of the paragraph as seen in drafts seven to ten is now the second paragraph of the book.
So, there it is – a bit of insight into how the book developed, some of the problems I faced and some of the decisions I made, as told through the opening paragraphs. I really happy with what finally came together and I hope you enjoy/enjoyed it.
To read the deleted scenes from Secret Ones, go here.
To listen to the author commentary on Secret Ones, go here.
To read more about Power Unbound, go here.
To read more about Rogue Gadda, go here.