How one piece of writing advice reshaped my story, and led me to write the prequel I never planned…
Long before I wrote the first sentence of The Weaver’s Understudy, when the story was still a constellation of world-building notes, character sketches, and outlines half-doodled in the margins of my notebooks, I came across a piece of writing advice that changed everything:
“Your villain should be the hero in their own story.”
It caught me in my chest. Not because I hadn’t heard it before. Maybe I had in passing, but this time, I felt it. It stuck in my mind like a burr, and I kept turning it over, wondering how it applied to the character I was then only starting to shape. One birthed from a frustration I encountered in genealogical research. At that point, Alphaeus was simply the antagonist. The one who stood in the way of Isolda, my main character. The one who seized the throne. The one who caused heartbreak, conflict, and grief. I hadn’t yet stopped to ask what brought him to that moment. But what if I did?
Digging Deeper
What began as a world-building exercise quickly unraveled into something far more layered. I asked questions like:
What was Alphaeus promised—and what was he denied?
Who did he love? What did he lose?
Did he think he was doing the right thing?
Spoiler alert: he absolutely does.
Alphaeus believes he sees the truth no one else is willing to acknowledge. He believes he's sacrificing his own ambitions for the greater good. He believes the prophecy points to ruin, and that only he has the will to prevent it. He’s not a cackling villain in the shadows. He’s a man forged by duty, regret, and an unwavering interpretation of fate. And once I let myself view him through that lens; not as an obstacle, but as a protagonist in his own right. He began to eclipse everything else.
Writing the Story Behind the Story
That little piece of advice didn’t just deepen my main novel. It spawned a whole new story. One I didn’t expect to write.
One that refused to stay silent. That story became The Recall, a prequel novelette that follows Alphaeus before he ever stepped into the throne room as a usurper. When he was still a devoted scholar. A second-born. A man with a future he’d fought to earn, only to be summoned back by a crown he never expected to protect.
Telling his side of things has been one of the most creatively fulfilling parts of my author journey so far. It’s a reminder that behind every act of villainy is often a wound, a fear, a moment of choice that could have gone differently.
Writing Takeaway
So if you’re an aspiring author, or just deep in your plotting weeds, let this be your gentle nudge: Don’t neglect the villain.
Let them whisper their version of the story. You might not agree with them. You might not like them. But you will understand them. And sometimes, they’ll surprise you by becoming the very heart of the tale.
Want to meet Alphaeus?
You’ll get glimpses of him in The Weaver’s Understudy, but his full, tangled origin unfolds in The Recall, my upcoming prequel novelette, coming later this month. Ream subscribers will get first access to the story, cover reveal, and exclusive lore entries at my launch on June 18th. Not quite ready to subscribe there? Join my newsletter for a quieter kind of magic, you’ll get the story delivered straight to your inbox later this summer.
However you enter the tale... the unraveling begins soon.
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