It all started with an image. I spent weeks trying to find that image, but trying to locate a picture you saw on the internet at least ten years ago is just as challenging as it sounds. I even used the AI tool Gemini to create something similar so I could try reverse image searching. It did not work. But find it I did! And when I saw the above image, all those years ago, I thought to myself, “Ooh, that’s a cool character idea,” and thus, Liana was born. (Image created by Brent Hollowell. Check him out! Very cool artist!)
Fun story about how I finally found it: I had given up hope of ever finding it, and I was going through an old SD card that was a backup for my old Windows phone I had back in the day and right at the bottom of the camera roll was a screenshot of my lock screen, and there it was! I am eternally grateful to my past self for having accidentally taken a screenshot of the lock screen!
Now, about her name: it wasn’t always Liana. It was originally Romania (pronounced Row-man-ea) until after an embarrassing amount of time later, when I realised that there was a whole country with the same name. So I thought about it and chose Liana as a replacement name.
My original thought was that she was a ranger, travelling the world, taking jobs as she finds them, and she would inevitably encounter my current protagonist, Enzo (his character introduction will be coming soon!) and help him on his journey. But as this world grew, so did my ideas. What if Liana’s raven companion was more than just a plucky sidekick? What if they could communicate? But that would be magic. As we have touched on in my previous post, non-royals are not allowed magic. So… what if she were a royal? A princess of one of the three kingdoms? Can’t be Amidral (the kingdom in which Enzo’s story takes place) as I had already made that royal family. Kulog, one of the neighbouring kingdoms, have weak magical powers, and animal communication is a strong ability. That leaves only one option: Ekhner, the last of the three kingdoms. But I still liked the idea of her being a ranger.
On top of that, I had an additional idea: If she could communicate with her raven, that meant she would get detailed reports of the terrain around her. This allowed me to share a passion of mine with Liana: cartography. I love maps, especially those of fantasy worlds. My home office walls are covered in maps from Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, Witcher 3, and Legend of Zelda (the many variations of Hyrule). With her raven’s help, Liana could be one heck of a cartographer. That would allow her to make money by making and selling maps to commoners, nobles and even royalty.
That was where her character development ended for ten years. She was a supporting character who would have a bigger role in the second book of my trilogy. It was only in the last year that this supporting character has blossomed into the protagonist of her own book. I was toying with an idea of a spin-off/prequel book for my main trilogy, and here I had a character with an interesting story ready to go. And then I was told it would be easier to publish a stand-alone book rather than trying to pitch an entire trilogy; my brain automatically thought, “Oh, I’ll just finish that prequel!”
And now Liana is the main character in one timeline of the prequel book: Legends of Tiros: Blood and Magic, where we see Liana’s story unfold, how she ended up leaving home, delve deeper into her magical powers, and the events of her life between her leaving home and her appearance in my original trilogy. Honestly, she has turned out to be a far more intriguing and deep character than I ever planned, and isn’t that just the best?