Moving the Story Forward

There are Lots of Challenges

In my stories about The Tenth Gateway the children have to overcome a number of challenges and solve lots of puzzles. It’s how I can get them to move from one situation to the next. It’s also how they can get through the gateways and keep moving forward to finish the game.

Most of my puzzles are either about working out rhyming clues or word games and puzzles.

Difficult Situations to Overcome

To develop the story I have to imagine many different scenarios so that each of the sub worlds in the game are consistent in significant ways but also unique. There are good fairy folk who help the children but there are also lots of nasty creatures that are trying to prevent them from reaching The Tenth Gateway.

In The Spy’s Door, for example, Sophie and Jun have to find there way through the world of gateway five to reach gateway six. The world is a dark enchanted garden with plants that bite, a ‘Dream Maker’ who wants to trap them by making them go to sleep and a huge vicious dog. 

My inspiration for the dog came from the Sherlock Holmes story ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’.

One of my favourite nasty characters is 'The Snout' who guards one of the dungeons in the evil magician's fortress. 

Thankfully Sophie and Jun get through The Sixth Gateway with the help of Morgan, a wandering minstrel who appears several times in the story. The challenge for me was to make him helpful but in a mysterious sort of way.

Having ‘Real’ Characters

My two main children characters are Sophie and Jun. Although they have distinctive personalities, they are good friends so they have to have things in common. They are both intelligent and resourceful but whereas Sophie is a bit bossy and impulsive, Jun is more collaborative and thoughtful. By Book 2 Sophie has learnt to be more co-operative and that there is strength in working together.

Aisha, a close friend of Sophie and Jun, is quiet and not as confident as the other two. She admires Sophie and tends to support whatever she wants to do. The fourth child in ‘The Spy’s Door’ is Basil, Sophie’s younger cousin. 

He is very annoying and questions everything. But even he has something to offer in the end.

Through their different cultural backgrounds, personalities and dialogue I want the children reading the books to be able to relate to the main characters. Although children in the modern day would find it difficult to relate to the adventure worlds and fictional characters created by  Enid Blyton, when I read her books as a young child I found them very believable. 

'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' and 'The Lord of the Rings; were written decades ago, but the series of books and the films based on them are still popular today. What do you think helps them to endure?