MISTASIA - Behind the Scenes
On October 7th, 2014, the Mistasia Anthology, a collection of all 5 stories, will become available in paperback through Amazon. In celebration of this event I wanted to take the opportunity to give you some behind the scenes information about the Land of Mistasia.
Where Mistasia & Greenville came from?
Where Mistasia & Greenville came from?
When I began writing these stories
and realized that I was going to need two worlds it was a rather easy decision
for me to choose the names. Both have special meaning for me and my wife.
Mistasia is simply a bed. That’s right. A bed. When my wife and I started
dating I visited her at her apartment in college and in her bedroom was
possibly the largest bed I had seen anyone under the age of 5o sleeping in…I
still had half of a bunk bed that I shared with my little brother at that time.
I jokingly called it ‘Mistasia’. The first part ‘Mist’, is a variation of my
wife’s first name, Misty, and the last, ‘Asia’, joking about the beds size…I
named it after the largest continent on the planet. There you have it…Mistasia
was born. Something that my grandchildren can hopefully tell their
grandchildren a hundred years from now when they speak of their crazy old
great-great grandpa…wow that makes me like 140 years old in my head (not pretty).
The small town of Greenville actually
exists…well sort of. There is a town in Southwest-Michigan named Greenville, and I
have never even been there. That’s correct…I have never even seen it. I named
Phillip and the Whizzenmog’s home town Greenville more for the sentimental
value the name has for me and my wife. When we were in college, we had a
somewhat frightening and hilarious experience in a park lot that ended in a
strange individual screaming the word ‘GREENVILLE’ from a passenger window of their car. A
couple was lost and pulled into the park lot next to Misty and I to ask for
directions (this was way before cell phones and navigational devices). These
two actually had a paper map…google that one kids. The frustrated passenger
leaned toward the window and began screaming their destination…the town of
Greenville, and so I adopted the name for this and other future story lines.
Names
– Harper, Cadieux
One of the more difficult obstacles I have encountered as a
writer is naming my characters. You may be shocked by that, but I worry that
the name will be mispronounced, or unintentionally funny or offensive. The
storyline itself usually works out as you write…at least that is what I tell my
daughter who is a very talent writer of poetry, but struggles with telling structured
stories. I found out in my brief time as a writer (nearly 10 years now) that
the characters will dictate the details and move the story in ways you never
dreamed possible. When naming my characters, I again added some personal
touches like I did with Mistasia and Greenville.
Harper – the last name of the storytelling
character in Land of Mistasia is one of a number of street names located in the
southeastern part of Michigan where I have worked since 2000. The company that
I have worked for moves me periodically to different locations and Harper is
the street where I held my first management position in the summer of
2000. Cadieux – the name of the ruling
family in Mistasia was another street name that runs into the town of Grosse
Pointe.
Story
origin
Like many other authors that I have read and respect greatly, I
have written a few stories that have been unceremoniously thrown in the trash
can. In 2006, I began crafting outlines for a series of currently unrealized
stories called the World of Angora. After writing two full novels, over 600
pages and 100,000 words, I decided that neither were quite good enough. Those
weren’t the only stories that have been redesigned though. The Land of Mistasia
was crafted from a series of children’s stories I wrote in 2007 called Phillip
& Whizzy. (Here is one of those stories) Sound familiar? Obviously these were the main characters in the
Land of Mistasia novel that was released in 2011.
Phillip was a frog and Whizzy a fox.
Neither had any powers, but were children in a town similar to Greenville that
found themselves in situations that my 5 year old daughter would experience. A few years later, after throwing away two World of Angora novels
and growing seriously frustrated with the whole idea of writing in general, I
revisited the Phillip and Whizzy concept. My oldest daughter had been in
elementary school for a few years now and I needed to update the storyline to
suit her reading level. The animals became boys…that transformed into animals
in Mistasia. I added a sister for Whizzy, who became the heroin of the story.
Grace Tallon was added originally as a guide and to help move the story along,
but she quickly became far more than that. As I said before, the characters
begin to write themselves and Grace became such an important character she
earned her own novella, Grace’s Quest (2014).
Original
Trilogy vs Novellas
There are 5 stories currently; an original trilogy, followed by
two novellas.
The original trilogy consists
of: Land of Mistasia (2011), Return to Mistasia (2011) and Last Emerald (2012).
Land of Mistasia is the original story. It has its own ending and for
those that are unaware…isn’t the end to the story of Mistasia. Return to Mistasia
takes place around Christmas of the same year and is a cliffhanger. It leads
the reader to the final part of the trilogy, Last Emerald. There was an outline
for 4 stories in the beginning, but as the story unfolded it ended with Last
Emerald.
Not
ready to put these characters aside, I did as many authors / storytellers do…I
went into the past and told the back story of a character from Land of Mistasia
in the first novella. Whizzenmog Betrayal (2013) is the story of Ethan
Whizzenmog, one of Sorcerer LaCroiux’s minions when we first met him. He
kidnaps Rachel from her basement in Greenville and drags her into the portal to
Mistasia starting the original story. In Whizzenmog Betrayal, we learn how this
simple wizard fox turned to the darkness of sorcery.
Last,
but not least, is the story of Grace Tallon. She unexpectedly became one of my
favorite characters. Strong, self reliant and courageous, Grace is the
protector to Queen Merran Cadieux. In Grace’s Quest (2014), we find out what
happens in Mistasia after the defeat of Cragon Cadieux. It leads us into the
story Return to Mistasia and gives us the explanation of what was happening in
Mistasia while Phillip and the Whizzenmog twins had begun high school back in
Greenville.
That was the end…or so I
believed. I even wrote a blog about ending my journey with the characters that
had become so much a part of my family’s lives. (Read Here) I had even started
writing a new story called Gossamer Pen. In that story, two girls find a
magical pen that brings to life anything drawn with it. It also takes place in
the small town of Greenville. When I went back to answer one important
question…where did the Gossamer Pen come from, I found a whole new story open
up for Mistasia.
Cragon’s Revenge will be the
story to tell about the Gossamer Pen’s retrieval from Greenville and its powers
in Mistasia. I plan to begin writing it in early 2015 and releasing it in
February 2016.
In the Gossamer Pen, there are
many references and appearances by the characters from Mistasia. Check out the
novel or the forthcoming web-comics to find them!
CONTACT CHRISTOPHER M. PURRETT @
Copyright 2014: Christopher M. Purrett
