Birth of the Storm…The Beginning

A very, very long time ago, a young Jen wrote a story called The Beginning: Kari’s Origin. And it was awful.

I mean, I say that now because I can, but back then I thought it was just the coolest shit.

The Beginning forged ahead with a very similar storyline that Birth of the Storm follows now: a young wolf demon loses her parents, and a friend she desperately loves, and struggles to find a place in the world. In that early rendition, Kari had an enemy in a Fire Witch (whom readers of Birth will know). This woman, eventually given the name Riniko, hunted Kari for a very specific reason. A reason that was later completely changed and refined. But in The Beginning, Kari was hunted because…

…she changed her name. Yeah…in the early days, Kari had a “demon name” and she changed her name to Kari, and for some reason Riniko was offended by that (why? Riniko wasn’t even a demon! So why?! I don’t know!). I am still clawing my eyes out at the stupidity of the idea, and so very glad it’s changed since then.

Of course, I can’t tell you WHAT it’s changed to! That’d give away so much of Book 2 (which, incidentally, is out now…Storm & Shadow, available at Amazon!). I CAN tell you that, while Birth of the Storm is the same idea at its core, it had so many renditions.

I may have covered this in a previous post, but when Kari was first created, she was more violent, angry, and unforgiving. She had a deep hatred and distrust for humans that was only calmed when she met Ari, the love interest of her story. Now, she’s calmer, empathetic, and thinks things through. I think, as I matured, she did too. She really came out as her own character then.

The Beginning was a horrible story with a grand total of 10 pages in its entirety, but it was the basis of everything I am completing today. Kari still reenacted revenge, still traveled far, still stumbled across Ari and found happiness, and still faced off against the Fire Witch…only the minor details changed in the end.

I once saw a Twitter post saying they wanted insider information on books like this, and I find the idea interesting. I can’t, of course, detail every change (yet; Birth is too fresh…but one day), but I can give fun little facts like this one. Another, that Kiki (Kari’s childhood friend) originally was a ghost who wanted vengeance for thinking Kari murdered her and had almost no backstory.

And Vivianne is a completely new addition to Birth of the Storm, someone who didn’t exist at all in any early versions of Kari’s stories, and I only created her to fill space (and then fell in love with the little nerd).

I guess, in the end, I’d love to detail so much of old vs new renditions of each of my stories (Book 2 has a LOT to go on, lol). But most of them will have to wait, since we poke at spoilers if we keep going… For now, if there’s questions, I’m always available on Twitter and totally willing to answer just about anything!