Trivia
When I first started writing the original Quest back in High School I never dreamed it would turn into a whole entire world for me. In fact, The Quest was only supposed to be a one parter, but as I developed the characters more and more and grew to enjoy writing about them I found myself thinking of new adventures for them, thus The Quest became the Quest Saga. There's still a bunch of little stories I've thought up and/or written that don't fit into the current stories, so perhaps one day I'll put them all on paper as side stories to the Quest. Anywho, enough babbling on my part, let's get to some fun, useless facts! =D
Tis true! =O Kain's little sister was not part of the original story when I first started to seriously write out my story. In fact, she came very close to not ever being "born". This is a little shocking in my mind because she is my absolute favorite character to write (Li ties or comes in a very, very close second depending on the point of the story). Nancy was inspired by a friend of mine Nancy Pham, we were taking driver's ed together (whether she remembers me is another matter entirely). Nancy Pham saw that I was working on a book and she wanted to be a character. I didn't have a problem with it per se (cause I had quite a crush on her at the time). The problem was that I wasn't sure how to write her into the story, as I was already on Part 5 JOURNEY TO HURST. So I didn't want to begin her as a major character since it would mean going back to the beginning and totally rewriting the story which would be a pain in the ass (or so I thought at the time). At the same time, however, it was Nancy Pham and I couldn't not have her as at least a decently powerful character. Love interest was out (although that was the first thing to pop into my head, the crush and all) because I liked the idea of Kain being a swinging single. I had already written myself in as James Raptor with Hua Li as his wife. I began to think of Kain's brother/sister relationship with Li and I started to wonder what a real little sister would be like given Kain's and Li's personalities. So I wrote her in right where I was, in Part Five. Nancy's first official entrance into the story was kicking Marcus Addison's ass, or more specifically his nuts. I instantly fell in love with the character so I immediately went right back to the beginning and added her in bits and pieces. The rest, as they say, is history and even though I still have pages of the story from before Nancy existed I still simply cannot fathom what my story would be like without her. Strange how things work out, ne?
The original cast members, ie the original main and major supporting characters were only Kain, Li, James, Raphael, Michael, Elizabeth, Julie, Noknor, and Garrison. Of course there are many dozen supporting characters now, but in the beginning only this handful. Mara, like Nancy, was added late in the game. In fact I had completed the novel also giving it two rewrites (of course by the time I had it publish I had rewritten it at least seven more times) before Mara was ever even mentioned. Mara is based on my friend Mara Chavez (supposed to be Maria, but some goof at the hospital left off the i). I knew her while we were in jr. high school, but she had moved off into Houston by the time we got to high school. We kept in touch here and there, but it wasn't until about a year or two after graduating that we got somewhat chummy. Anywho, when Mara stated she wanted a character nod, her being James Raptor's twin sister seemed so natural. Her part started off much smaller than what it's blossomed into, and now Mara is another of my favorite characters to write about. Maybe she'll get her own book one day, her story of how she got to be Jestura or something. Who knows?
I get this question fairly often, because many people assume that Li is designed after the super popular video game doll Chun-Li from the Street Fighter 2 series. Nope. In fact, the Hua Li character was thought of before I had even heard of Street Fighter 2 much less played it (however, now it is one of my favorite games of all time and Chun-Li has always been my favorite pick). In truth, Hua Li is named after the super beautiful, super amazing, super-well, pretty much everything, Chinese actress Gong Li. The first time I saw Gong Li in a film (Ju Dou, 1990). I instantly fell in love with her. The character is actually modeled after a gal I once knew, I great lady no longer a part of this realm. We didn't I use her name for the character? Eh, that's a mystery that may never be solved. When I first published with 1st Books in 2002 there is a dedication to "My own beloved Beauty", and this is her.
When my very original ideas for the Quest began, Li and Kain were husband and wife. I had written a number of chapters before I decided that I perferred Kain as Arcainia's most eligable single guy and that I thought Li worked better as the faithful lover waiting for her true love to return to her arms. This switch led to a somewhat humorous response from a friend of mine who was helping me to edit my early work, because since I was still in the process of making Li and Kain cousins, she became confused and thought that Li and Kain were both married and cousins. Not quite a Luke & Leia, but it did make her do a double take in the middle of our 10th grade Enviormental Science class.