Draft Two, Book Two 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

The second story in this draft was based on the idea I had for the Draft One sequel, The Next Sorcerer (see Draft One of The Secret Portal). It followed the same three characters, although Alexia's sister Kelly was now called Maddie and Aurora's brother Julian was called Mikey. Nellie stayed the same, although she gained the surname Newman.

I also updated their powers. Originally, "Kelly" essentially had telepathic communication (which I then described as "the ability to have conversations with others with her mind"), Nellie had flight, and "Julian" could shapeshift into animals. In this Draft, I gave Maddie the animal morphing, Nellie was given force fields, and Mikey had pyrokinesis, which I then just called fire manipulation.

I also changed the title to something much worse. Like I said in the last blog post, I wanted the subtitles of the books to be puns of the powers of the narrator. Maddie was narrating, so the title ended up being Morph Into Trouble.

I mean, I know titles aren't my strongest suit, but come on.

Morph Into Trouble is just over four thousand words and is easily worse than Teleportal, mainly due to the style. The sentences are choppier, there are more all-caps, there are more interrobangs, and is overall just really obnoxious. I wrote this when I was eleven or twelve, and Maddie was only eight, so maybe this is just how I thought eight-year-olds talked. Regardless, this is a hard read.

The trio goes through the same process that Alexia and Aurora did, minus the evil sorcerer coming to the door demanding the metal detector. I neglected to mention last blog post that I added a training room in the basement, so the trio are taken there, but they complain about being bored in the most obnoxious way possible, and they are then taken to a playground instead, where they all of a sudden have control of their powers as they play.

At the park, they run into another sorcerer; this is William Warlock, brother of Quincy Warlock. He kidnaps the three of them and throws them in a prison cell for revenge, since Alexia and the rest locked his brother up in prison last book.

(Dude, just break your brother out of prison? What kind of sorcerer are you?)

The scenes in the prison cell are honestly painful. They are dragged out unbelievably, to the point where I was as bored as the characters were reading them. This is honestly worse than the Draft I wrote in fourth grade.

Eventually, the kids break out easily and go back to Liz's house, and then immediately go home.

I add a little bit of lore here: you can tell someone has powers if you look into their eyes long enough and see them glow. Not the worst piece of world building in the world, I guess. I did actually adapt this concept into what The Secret Portal is now, where if a character is using their power to an extreme extent or using all of their energy, their eyes will glow. Because that trope is cool.

So, yeah, Morph Into Trouble is kind of terrible. It's obnoxious and boring and I somehow managed to stretch it out to four thousand words. What the actual hell.

Anyways, that's all for today! Sign up to get notifications and emails for whenever I update!

Next:

Draft Two Book Three:

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

Read-Aloud!

Part One: https://www.tiktok.com/@kaylinrosealexander/video/7178137272351509802?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7168171927235937835