A Time Captives Turn of Events

Or how Adriel saved Time Captives.

I've mentioned Adriel many times. With good reason, he's my favorite. And after reading chapter one of The Crossways, which I posted two weeks ago, I'm hoping you're curious.

You might be wondering, who is this guy? Whatever happened to the Time Captives? Why does he exist?

The answer is simple. The Time Captives were the most uncooperative characters I'd ever worked with. I'd dragged them along as far as I could at the time, but they were being so ornery. They would hardly talk, even to each other. Most of them refused to show any personality. No one would tell me what they were going to do next. All of the Hubbards from the past had zero backstory, which made them especially hard to work with. Plus, I still had Anna along instead of Emily, and I was trying to stay inside Jill's head...a really bad idea. I was ready to give up on the project. I really was. Yet somehow I knew not to.

What did I do instead? I said to myself, "I've never explored what it's like for the Calhortans. Why don't I do that?" So I said "See ya later" to the Time Captives and relocated to a new setting.

I knew already that the people were slaves, so that meant I would be writing about slavery. I really don't know how I decided I would write about a boy. But I went through our very tattered baby name book (my sisters and I love names and we've been creating characters and fictional families since, well, since I was like, two, and baby name books are handy for that) and wrote down a list in the front of my notebook of all the interesting and unusual real names I thought I could use for Calhortans. Very few on that list do not appear in the story. One of the first names on the list is Adriel. And somehow I decided to use it.

I'm not sure how I decided to start off with a whipping either. It just happened. Because I gave Adriel a name and all of a sudden he was a full three dimensional character. His stubbornness, his rebellious streak, his devotion to his sisters...it was all there. And he rarely gave me any trouble. There was one point where he was dragging his feet, but I can hardly blame him, considering the circumstances. For a while, I didn't know what Adriel had to do with the Time Captives, but he ended up having an extremely important part to play.

I consider Adriel the character who saved Time Captives. With him, I finally wanted to write the story again. I finally loved my characters. I finally wanted to know more about them. I finally had something that worked. Of course, there were still some major things that I had to change, but I wanted to write the book again. And that's how Adriel saved Time Captives.

I still have room in the cover reveal and blog tour! You're more than welcome to participate!