Rike's Origin

Hi everyone! I'm sorry it's been so long since I've posted anything. Yesterday was my last final for the school year, and now, for the rest of summer, I can focus on writing. I was just going to follow up on my last post "Maia's Playlist" with a list for Rike, but I started thinking and decided it was just a little too impersonal. Instead, I'm going to tell you the story of how his character came to be.

The Last Abecedarian Series was originally going to be written just from Maia's point of view. She was supposed to be a travelling gypsy, and Hugoh wasn't her cousin. In one lost draft of Violet Eyes, he was actually supposed the one to rescue her from the Umbragh soldiers in Briarpatch, and that was how the Resistance was supposed to find out who Maia was. My intention for the romance aspect of the books was to have a classic, cut-and-dried, prince-meets-princess kind of story, because I was more interested in proving that classic fairy tale principles could be applied to modern literature than in coming up with something new.

Rike was no more than a character I created to deliver the news to Briarpatch that Umbragh soldiers were coming to destroy the village. He didn't even have a name in the first draft. I just wanted a brawny farm-boy to ride into town, Paul Revere style, and say, "Umbragh is coming!" However, the draft felt too stiff by the time I reached chapter six, and so I started again with a twist. Instead of having Rike merely bring bad news to the town, I had him flirt with Maia in order to demonstrate that she was attractive and kind. At that point, she was still a gypsy, so they weren't old friends or anything. It was just a flirtation on his part.

In order to make the scene realistic, I thought I had to name him to give him a believable persona. So I searched for a word that I wanted to describe him in the scene, and I discovered the adjective "rakish," which means "dashingly or carelessly unconventional." It can have a negative connotation sometimes, but I loved the way the word sounded, so I found a piece of paper and started rearranging letters to make the word look different. Then I had the idea to substitute "i" for "a" in rake, and that is how Rike got his name.

The result was that Rike's character became so much fun to develop that I couldn't eliminate him from the story when I began the version of Violet Eyes that eventually became published. I made him Maia's best friend, but I still had no intention of making him a possible romantic interest for the heroine.  There will be no spoilers on this blog, but those of you who have read my books probably have your own theories on whether or not they're going to end up together. What I will admit here is that  Rike's character is the most drastically developed character in the series, and it still makes me smile when I hear readers say, "I love Rike!" It wasn't my intention to give him a large role in the story, but his character is the one that made me understand what it means to have characters with minds of their own.

The Last Abecedarian Series is about Maia, but most of my readers have expressed partiality to Rike, so I thought it would be fun to tell you his origin story. If you're looking for Rike's playlist, then don't worry, because it is coming. This just seemed like a more fitting post after more than a month of hibernation.

What do you think? Does anything about this story surprise you? Do you think Violet Eyes could have been just as good without Rike? Let me know in the comments below, because I'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter.

Until next time....