My debut novel The Crystal Tree released two days ago a fact I’m still freaking out about, to be honest). It’s hard to believe that after so much work and so many changes, this book is finished and ready to face the world. To be honest, I’m really proud of how The Crystal Tree turned out. It’s got a little piece of my heart bound up inside it. But the path of writing, and especially finishing a book is never that smooth, and The Crystal Tree definitely went through its fair share of changes, some minor, and others that probably would have changed the entire course of the book. Today I thought it might be fun to share a few of the worst ideas that, thankfully, didn’t make the final cut.
At one point, the villain was a tiny dragon
I’d completely forgotten about this until one day when I was going back through some old files, but apparently at one point the villain was going to be a dragon who’d been shrunk down to miniature size? And he was going to double-cross the characters at the last second and steal all the magic to make himself big and then destroy the world? Not my finest idea, and to be some magic to grow himself back to his original size? Thankfully he didn’t make the final cut, or The Crystal Tree would be an incredibly different books (especially considering it doesn’t actually contain any dragons). But I do want to write a book with miniature dragons one day, because I just think they would be so cute, so maybe grumpy little Azku will have his outing one of these days.
In one of the drafts, most of the characters were supposed to have musical names
Here, I think I got a little bit excited over my whole magic system, which is based around music. I mean, what could be better? Let’s name everyone after musical terms and really double down on this idea. What sounded great in theory definitely didn’t look so good on the page, so all those lovely musical names got the chop. Except for Glissando, which was the only music based name I decided to keep. Mostly because the word itself just sounds so cool. and also because I decided that as the author, I was allowed to indulge myself in at least one place, right?
Briar was originally going to be gifted with banned magic
Now, I don’t hate the whole banned ability trope at all. In fact I’d love to use that one somewhere eventually. But this whole idea went against everything I meant Briar to stand for. She’s a kind of everyday hero, someone who isn’t a ‘Chosen One’, and who doesn’t have anything special, except her courage, determination, and wits. Banned magic didn’t exactly fit with this image, and so she became an absolutely ordinary magician with no unusual magics, which, in the end, was exactly what I needed her to be.
At one point, there were dream sequences. A LOT of dream sequences
Dream sequences, when done right, and usually sparingly, can be exceedingly effective. When done badly, they are clumsy, jarring and just plain lazy storytelling. Guess which kind of dream sequence I wrote? Surprisingly, it actually took several drafts for me to clean all the dream sequences out of The Crystal Tree so apparently I didn’t learn my lesson all that quickly?
In one draft, the quest was actually an escort mission. And they weren’t escorting Briar
This was one of the really, really early drafts, but the whole adventure was actually an escort mission to get another magician to the Crystal Tree, and Briar was apparently just there for the ride? Or a learning experience? At any rate, she was just hanging onto the cloaktails of someone else for most of the book which, now that I look back on it, is probably not where the main character is supposed to be when it’s supposed to be an epic action adventure..
Thankfully, none of these terrible ideas actually made it into the final draft, and The Crystal Tree is all the stronger for their removal. Turns out, you learn an awful lot about writing in general by finishing a book. I can definitely say that I’m a stronger writer for having written The Crystal Tree. Something else I can say is, if this list of things that were almost in the book has gotten you intrigued about what is actually in The Crystal Tree, then you can pick up your own copy of the book right now! Check it out and buy your own copy through these links, or add it to Goodreads.
But I want to hear from you. What are some weird, or bad ideas that you’ve removed from your own writing? What are some ideas or tropes you’d love to put into a book one day? Do you prefer miniature dragons, or massive ones? Let’s chat down in the comments!
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I think that a story about mini dragons would be cool. I mean, I have never read a book with mini dragons so, it could be pretty cool. But, don’t worry about those ideas that almost made it into your book. I once had an assassin named John Wilkes Booth … several Jr.’s. I doubt that I will be keeping that idea but, I was young at the time. I have been reading a review copy and I think that the mini dragon as the villain would have been a mistake, but, all that matters is that you fixed it.
I definitely do want to write a book with mini dragons in it somewhere. I just love the whole idea of them. Maybe one day in the future I’ll come up with some idea that will fit with miniature dragons and then I’ll have somewhere to finally use this spark of inspiration. It’s always funny looking back at your own writing and seeing what you thought was a wonderful idea at the time, isn’t it?
One of my first stories I ever wrote in elementary school had space penguins. But seeing as they exist elsewhere in fiction now, maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea. I think some “bad ideas” can be made good with proper context and execution.
Glad to hear you learned a lot in your writing process. I’m enjoying The Chrystal Tree so far!
I definitely agree. Bad ideas can be good ideas that are just in the wrong place. And maybe one day we’ll find the right place to use all these pieces of inspiration. like awesome space penguins. I feel like there has to be a middle grade book in there somewhere.