More Fun Facts about
the Elysian Chronicles

WARNING! DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER UNLESS YOU HAVE ALREADY READ A PROPHECY FORGOTTEN!

• Eric was originally called Brutus up to about a month before A Prophecy Forgotten was published. I knew he was going to betray Davian, and I had just finished reading Julius Caesar, so I chose Brutus until I could think of something better. Brutus stuck until a 6th grader said, "Does Brutus stab Davian in the back?" while I was describing my book in a classroom. As you know, Marcus did not exist when I first created Eric/Brutus, and I know I grabbed Marcus from Indiana Jones. It's kind of a coincidence that the two were Davian's cohorts, and it put me in a quandary because Marcus is Marcus. I can't change his name. I always made sure to have Davian yell, "Brutus! Marcus!" and to list Brutus first. I think if Davian had ever yelled, "Marcus! Brutus!" half the literary world would have known exactly what was going on. Before I changed Brutus to Eric, I often said that Marcus was the half of Marcus Brutus who was good, and Brutus was the bad part, but the truth is I wasn't thinking that when I picked the names. I was just picturing Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones yelling, "Marcus!" It sounded right for Davian to have a Marcus. Once I changed Brutus's name to Eric, the Marcus problem disappeared.
• In light of the above information, I did consider calling one my chapters, "E' tu?"
• Gabriella originally regained her memory just before an explosion and morphed into a cherubian before it could kill her. (I had to make Jim and Tommy think she was dead even though they couldn't find a body, so I thought an explosion would work.) Davian killed Eric there, and Picante escaped. Davian originally fought Picante in the munitions cellar.
• I didn't know Zephor was going to die until Eric killed him. I couldn't stop him. This is what I mean by feeling your characters. If you do a good enough job creating your characters and developing/feeling their personalities, they take over the story, which is what you want them to do. I've always believed that plot happens when you take a bunch of characters, throw in a conflict, and let them sort it out.
• Picante originally died up until August of 2006, four months before the publication date.

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Copyright © 2006 M. B. Weston. All rights reserved.
Revised: 09/09/08