It’s the end of March, and you know what that means? That’s right. It’s just one more month to the grand relaunching of Marvellous Adventure, featuring the fourth installment of The Adventures of Emily Monroe! To help count down the time, we’ve been highlighting past issues with some authorial commentary. It’s time now for a closer look at Issue No. 3…and remember not to read the notes unless you’ve read the story!

Marvellous Adventure No. 3 — “Picturing The Past”

Commentary: This was a difficult story to write. Presumably that had something to do with not knowing the ending. It was just one of those situations where you’ve painted the plot into a corner and the only way to move it anywhere is to blow out the wall behind it. So that’s what I did. And boy is that a killer ending. (Sorry, that’s very obvious.)

That had consequences too. There was a loose arc I was developing for this first set of Emily Monroe tales. That arc is postponed until further notice in favour of the new one. Let’s just say that Emily’s actions have some serious repercussions for a lot of people, and for the stories from here on out. This will become clearer with the next story in April. Indeed even in this story there’s a theme of Emily needing to deal with the fallout from her actions.

Another reason this story was hard to write was dialogue. I’m no great shakes when it comes to people talking realistically. And with a new character in Aunt Marie, I had to figure out just how she would speak, what her relationship with Emily was like, and how that would impact their conversations. I am, however, somewhat fond of the scene in the Whitehawk facility between Emily, Newport, and Stephanie. And bringing Stephanie back after what seemed to me to be a long time (remember you can read them one after another now, but I wrote them ages apart) was fun and let me get to know her a bit better.

All in all, I like this story best out of the three published so far. Maybe you could say I was beginning to hit my stride with the world and the characters (to some degree). I will still be learning about both for some time to come. There are more fun adventures ahead, so don’t forget to come back next month to learn something of what will happen next in The Adventures of Emily Monroe.

And if you do enjoy these stories, try spreading the word about them. I just love recommending stuff for people to read, don’t you? Let your friends know about this blog, where you can download the first three issues, and also about the official Facebook page for Marvellous Adventure. See you on April 30!

Until then, remember the motto: Adventure With A Capital A!