Bad Fairy is gonna get revamped as a trilogy now.  It’s about time.

The original version, telling the full life story of Delia Morningstar (Sleeping Beauty’s “bad fairy”), was 255,000 words and nobody would want to take that on.  But there were a lot of problems with the idea of revamping the book into three parts, and the most important problem is that there’s nowhere that it divided naturally.  I’m actually going to have to rewrite it completely so each volume is a complete story with a beginning, middle, and end, and a conflict and resolution.

I already know the shape of the first book; it’d basically be the main character’s life up until she graduates from circle (which is the fairy version of school in my book, for those who haven’t read it). I plan to invent more conflict within the circle setting, more competition among the girls I guess, and of course my little Delia will really enjoy that. (I can’t say the same for her circlemates. Haha.) If I can invent enough of a conflict and resolution in the first book—ending with my main character having come out on top only to have it mean nothing in the scheme of things—I think it could be a satisfying book one of a trilogy.

I’m not sure about books two and three. I do think it might give me the opportunity to expand some of the sections I mostly just eyeballed as a montage, like Delia’s first boyfriend saga in book two and more of the day-to-day existence of her life in hiding for book three. I felt like these things got a little lost as I swept over them in an attempt to squeeze it all into her life without dwelling on it. I think my conflict is obvious in book two—the well-known Sleeping Beauty-inspired tangle between Delia and the royals of her kingdom, mixed with her feelings for the princess—but book three might end up so emo and mostly introspective that even the little bits of romance in there might not save it. A throwdown with the triplets might be interesting, but I don’t know if I can make that happen any more than it already did in the original—and that was kind of a silent battle because they didn’t even know they were fighting her ’til they lost.

We’ll see what I come up with.  I will be writing this one in spurts whenever I can, but I don’t expect a finished product soon.