Draft Three 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

As I said last blog post, I ran into a wall and the idea I had pretty much died. I decided to start over again the following year, when I was in seventh grade.

In this Draft, I finally decided to make each character three years older, to match my current age of the time. For example, Alexia was now thirteen instead of ten.

I went through a few more changes regarding the characters. Aurora's surname changed to Hathaway, Nellie became Kelsey (although I kept Newman as her surname because I thought it still sounded good), Carla and George's surname became Baxter, and the teacher became Mrs. Moon. Liz and Charles found their place on the cutting room floor this draft, and I gave the reigns to Carla and George to introduce the world.

I can't believe I've neglected to mention this, but I had a dragon named Bobby since the beginning. He's still in this Draft, because for some reason as a kid I still thought Bobby was the funniest name in existence. I apologize to anyone named Bobby.

There were a few significant changes during this Draft. I decided to combine the plot of Teleportal and Morph Into Trouble into one, switching into the perspectives of Alexia and Maddie whenever I needed to. The chapter headings still had chapter names, but I now included the narrator, place, date, and time of each chapter.

I moved the setting on our side of the portal to Houston, Texas, and changed the name of the other side to Raven Falls, which doesn't make any sense, but it's better than Cloud Town.

I still had a bad tendency to ramble, but this Draft is significantly better than anything that came before it, and I'm using a smaller font, too.

Because I was combining two stories into one, I now had to rework the plot. Alexia and Aurora went through the same thing, but Maddie, Kelsey, and Mikey decided to go after them with the guidance of Hannah.

The evil sorcerer who wants the metal detector is SOMEHOW still a thing, but I changed his name to Quincey Moon--which is my first plot twist: the teacher was the wife of the sorcerer, who cast a spell on Alexia to make her bring the metal detector to school--so at least I had a reason for her to have it on her this time.

Maddie, Kelsey, and Mikey are still kidnapped by a sorcerer; his name is now William Nightingale. Instead of revenge, he's now trying to experiment on them for unexplained reasons. Turns out, Kelsey is super powerful. While in the previous Draft she had force fields, I now gave her OP abilities, although I don't quite explain what they are. I think they were explained away as "magic" or "dark magic" or something to that effect. She uses her powers to escape.

Meanwhile, Alexia and Ash are discovering that they have powers. This time, I gave Carla chronokinesis, here just referred to as time manipulation. Something exclusive to this Draft is code names: Carla is Time Stopper, George is Speeder, and Hannah is Ice Queen. Realizing I was uncreative in this department, I never went back to them.

I also added my first bit of world building, of why sorcerers didn't have the same powers and why they were all evil. It doesn't make any sense, but I did try to explain some of what happened.

What's interesting is that in this Draft, I started calling Alexia "Lexi" every now and then as a cute little nickname. Well, that's actually her name now, so that's nice.

However, I unfortunately reached a writer's block, so I never even finished this Draft. However, it is around 10 thousand words long--over twice as much as the longest one preceding it. Then again, I was combining two stories into one, but I wasn't even done with this one.

I tried to procrastinate by drawing cover ideas in Microsoft Paint, but The Secret Portal was lying on a shelf, gathering dust, seemingly never to be picked up again.

Or so I thought.

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Next:

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

Read-Aloud!

Part One: https://www.tiktok.com/@kaylinrosealexander/video/7187034325077003566?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7168171927235937835