The Royal Thief

Extra: General Randomness

So The Royal Thief passed 50,000 reads sometime when I wasn't looking, so you guys deserve another little extra thing! If  you're about to ask me what the hell this one is, don't, because I don't know, I just thought it was funny when I wrote it. Hah, kinda how all of my writing goes... 

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SCENE: A small room with white and orange walls decorated with large wattpad logos and signed posters of the book cover of The Royal Thief. Many high swivel chairs with comfortable cushions are scattered around, all facing generally in the same direction, towards a large armchair situated in front of a very bright window. All that can be seen of the chair's occupant is its rather short silhouette. Seated in all the other chairs are you guys. TIME: The present.

The soft lull of Billy Joel's greatest hits playing from the loud speakers begins to fade as THE READERS stop swiveling around and talking and turn towards 18GOODA, seated in the armchair.

18GOODA: Hello, and welcome to... er... you know, wherever we are!

READERS: Shouldn't you know where we are...?

18GOODA: Actually, as you're about to find out in this new extra, charmingly formatted as a dramatic play in one act, I know very little.

READERS: Yeah, what's up with this extra anyway? Beside the whole play script thing. What's that title mean?

18GOODA: Simple! It means this extra is all about the things I didn't expect to happen in The Royal Thief, but happened anyway.

READERS: I get it. Mostly. But maybe you want to explain a bit further just to make sure we're all good?

18GOODA: My pleasure. See, as a lot of you probably already know, characters are a lot less like Barbie dolls than they are like creepy, possessed Barbie dolls that move without you touching them. And a plot line is really more of a vague, blobby squiggle that occasionally doubles back on itself and makes loops and holes and inexplicable gaps and... you know what I mean?

READERS: ...

READERS: ...

READERS: ...sure.

18GOODA: So obviously, sometimes things happen that I wasn't really expecting.

READERS: Example?

18GOODA: Well, like... Luca and Morane. I was definitely not expecting any romance in this book, but... it happened. But that's not such a good example because it was planned before it happened, even if it hadn't been planned from the beginning. A better example: finishing this book. Wow. Completely unexpected. Like, what, people actually start books with the plan to finish them? This is normal? WEIRD.

READERS: Are you going to tell us anything interesting or...?

18GOODA: I have lots of interesting things to tell you! Like, guess the biggest thing, besides finishing, that was not planned?

READERS: That absolutely unforgivable thing you did to us at the end of the epilogue?

18GOOD: Nope! That's been planned for basically forever! LOL guys look at this awesome thing I have in the media. Cool right?

READERS: (Glaring at 18GOODA's silhouette) No.

18GOODA: Well, okay then, if you won't guess then I'll tell you—the revolution wasn't planned.

Several READERS fall off their chairs. Most openly stare at 18GOODA, who stays sitting, smiling innocently (not that you can tell, 'cause, you know, silhouette and all) back at them.

READERS: Excuse me?!?!

18GOODA: Whoa, tone down the punctuation guys. I can hear you just fine. Yeah, the revolution was not planned in the beginning. It is, however, in my first draft of the plot plan, minus most of the complications. I believe that plan was drafted somewhere around... chapter ten? Twelve? Oh, I forget.

READERS: You seem to have forgotten a lot-- such as the fact that a book needs something between the beginning and the end!

18GOODA: Oh, shush. It was a different book back then, I was a different writer. Listen, guys, it's kinda annoying to keep typing 18GOODA. Do you mind if I just use Abi?

READERS: (Shrug) Sure, whatever.

ABI: Great. Now, who wants to know what characters were not planned?

READERS: Not really us.

ABI: Awesome! Let's see, Beck was made up pretty much on the spot... actually most of the original rebel crew was, except for Nali. That includes Kemp, too! I didn't know Morane was going to meet her brother. I wasn't entirely sure what I wanted to do with her family, actually, and I didn't entirely decide until the moment I wrote the scene when she finds out he's her brother. I did have an idea involving her brother, but in my head, it was always Kayim, her older brother. Not that he had a name yet. He didn't get one until I wrote Born in Ashes. That was another unexpected thing. I didn't plan to write an accompanying book of short stories, but me and my sister wrote The Cutthroat and things took off from there.

READERS: Uh, Abi...

ABI: Yes, yes, I know, some of you haven't read Fire and Ashes: The Rebels' Stories. If you want to know what I'm talking about then you can go read them. If not, just hang on for a few lines. So, anyway, most Fire and Ashes stories are written without any plot plan. I did have a bunch of ideas for The Cutthroat, but in the end it was just us throwing as many obstacles as we could think of at Nali and then thinking of ways around them. It was fun. Born in Ashes also had no plan. I kinda wanted to write a long, epic poem for it, but my sister wasn't going for that. (Sighs loudly) Then Burned... if you remember, I took forever to write that one. It was so much more emotional than I had expected to write a backstory for a character I knew was going to die. But once I finally came up with plan—after rejecting several bad ones—it was much better. Emerald Fire also took forever to write. I wanted to give you guys a good chunk of backstory about the relationship between Tobias and Aiden and Jaden but only some of that made it in-- it wasn't planned well.

READERS: Nice. You didn't plan anything in this book, did you.

ABI: Did too! Like... uh... the ending of the second book has been planned since pretty much the second chapter of this book!

READERS: ...you planned the ending of the second book before the middle of the first book?

ABI: It's not as bad as it sounds. See, the end of this book kinda originally was the middle. And the end of the second book was the end of everything.

READERS: ...

ABI: Oh, didn't I tell you? The second book was also unexpected.

READERS all face palm.

Curtain