Draft Five of The Secret Portal

Origins of TSP: https://kaylinrosealexande.wixsite.com/kaylinalexanderbooks/post/origins-of-the-secret-portal

Draft One of TSP: https://kaylinrosealexande.wixsite.com/kaylinalexanderbooks/post/draft-one-of-the-secret-portal

Draft Two Book One: https://kaylinrosealexande.wixsite.com/kaylinalexanderbooks/post/draft-two-book-one-of-the-secret-portal

Draft Two Book Two: https://kaylinrosealexande.wixsite.com/kaylinalexanderbooks/post/draft-two-book-two-of-the-secret-portal

Draft Two Book Three: https://kaylinrosealexande.wixsite.com/kaylinalexanderbooks/post/draft-two-book-three-of-the-secret-portal

Draft Two Book Four: https://kaylinrosealexande.wixsite.com/kaylinalexanderbooks/post/draft-two-book-four-of-the-secret-portal

Draft Three: https://kaylinrosealexande.wixsite.com/kaylinalexanderbooks/post/draft-three-of-the-secret-portal

Beginnings of Draft Four: https://kaylinrosealexande.wixsite.com/kaylinalexanderbooks/post/the-beginnings-of-draft-four-of-the-secret-portal

The First Valid Draft: https://kaylinrosealexande.wixsite.com/kaylinalexanderbooks/post/draft-four-of-the-secret-portal-the-first-valid-draft

Worldbuilding: https://kaylinrosealexande.wixsite.com/kaylinalexanderbooks/post/the-world-building-of-the-secret-portal

This is the Draft that I am currently working on, so once again, I must be vague because spoilers.

I managed to scrap a lot of chapters that were unnecessary, as well as combine a few. Some chapters or storylines that I was struggling to figure out managed to be solved by a simple POV change. I added a few more explanations and set up for things that didn't make any sense, and added cute character building filler to add to the dynamic of the group--but unlike Draft Four's filler, I actually felt like I was adding to the characters instead of just buying time.

Draft Five was when I decided that instead of a trilogy I was going to have six books instead. Part One and Part Two of Draft Four were originally "Book One," and were about 140 thousand words together. Realizing this was too long for a debut YA novel, I decided to split each planned book in half in order to leave more time for the large changes and additions I needed. This left Part One at around 70 thousand words, and now it rests at around 90 thousand, just to give you an idea about how much I added--and I still cut and rewrote several of the chapters. It now feels like there's more going on in Part One.

Originally, Part One took place on Lexi's thirteenth birthday, and almost exclusively that with the exception of other flashback plotlines. I realized that this made it stick out in the series because the rest took place over several months. There was also no time to develop the things I wanted to develop. But then I realized I could push back the start time to Ash's birthday (it was important that the book end on Lexi's birthday but start on someone's birthday; but I can't fully explain that because spoilers; I just figured out that while it had to end on Lexi's, it could start on anyone's). This gave me two months of time to work with, and while a good chunk of Part One does take place on the same day to get into the groove of everything and how it works, it now spans two months excluding any flashbacks for context.

For the record, I still find it important for Lexi to be thirteen/almost thirteen. I need most of the characters to be children for thematic reasons. Also, this is a young adult series, so the youngest people reading are in middle school. As of now, I plan to end the series around the time Lexi is fifteen, but anything can change by the time I reach the end. Also, my characters here are the same age as the Stranger Things kids, just to put it into context. I can be dark and whatnot with middle school aged kids. People who are older can hopefully still like my books.

Anyway, I decided relatively recently that The Secret Portal could not stretch itself out over six books. Parts Five and Six just didn't have enough going on, so I instead decided to combine them. So now I have five books planned to be in this series.

I went through a few name changes when I was working on this Draft, mainly because I was sick and tired of extremely white, primarily English, names. I have a diverse cast of characters, and I wanted their names, at LEAST surnames, to reflect that. Especially considering Alium would have a different history than Ceteri, so we wouldn't have a bunch of Anglicized names in the first place.

So here are a few name changes of characters that I haven't really mentioned before: Reyna became Atsila, Jen became Nadua, Isaac Woods became Dylan Vaughn, Carter became Diwali, Fiona Harkey became Raissa Kamanzi, Lucy became Hye-Jin, and Craig became Teo. Other surname changes included Shannon to Zeon, Spader to Shyaka, and Curtis to Nyambura.

I did change two other names that were unrelated to this. In Draft Four I had a character named Seamus Callaghan, then I changed his surname to Beaumont. By Draft Five I realized I didn't really like the name Seamus so I changed it to Liam (no offense to anyone named Seamus! It just wasn't for this character). I also changed the name Luis to Gabriel for the same reason. (It was also a reason behind changing Craig to Teo. The name just wasn't vibing with me.)

Draft Five is still currently in progress. Part One is completely drafted, and I have started Part Two, but I decided to take a pause and finish revising Part One. I'm overhauling on character voice and character dynamics at the moment. I have an ensemble cast, and keeping them all distinct, especially when many of them are narrators, is extremely hard. But I want this to all be worth it. I don't want flat characters with no good dynamics between each other. So, as of now, that's what I'm working on. After this, I will do just a little bit of world building, and then I'll start tweaking Part One. Then, it's off to start attempting the publishing process.

This is going to be all of the backstory for The Secret Portal for now. It's been fun. I will still blog about this series and my progress, but next post, I need to start talking about School of the Legends.

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