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Monday 30 January 2012

What's in a name?

Had an interesting question from one of my FB friends this morning. I don't know if you're familiar with any of the games on FB but I've been playing Fairyland on there for just over three years and the name of my fairy? Sariel - same as one of the main characters in Demon's Daughter.
My friend, who has just read Demon's Daughter sent me a message asking if the Fairyland Sariel came first or the book Sariel.
'Demon's Daughter' originated from a book I was writing called 'Gifted' which was much more 'grown up' in content and featured a fallen angel called Sariel who was, I suppose, much more irreverent than his current incarnation. I liked him a lot! He was sarcastic, grumpy, smoked like a train and cursed like a trooper whilst trying to lead the young woman that he was babysitting (for want of a better term) astray. I was probably around 60,000 words in but I knew that there was something 'not right' about the story - I loved most of the characters, I knew the story was going in a decent direction and the pace was good but....there was just something off kilter and no matter how many times  revisited parts that I was unhappy about, nothing worked.
So I put 'Gifted' aside and went back to something I'd written a few years back (which eventually became 'Shudder') although Sariel stayed in my head. It wasn't until I wrote a short story to entertain my daughter that Emily pushed herself to the front of the queue in my brain and began whispering that she quite fancied Sariel. Hmmm. Sariel and Emily? The short story worked. Emily and Sariel looked good together and Emily's trilogy was born.
A number of the 'Gifted' characters made their way into Emily's books in one form or another and I think maybe there'll be another adventure for one or two of them in the future but for now - to answer your question my dear FB friend, yes, Sariel has been around for quite a while but shhhhh - don't tell the fairies that he's really a fallen angel!

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