Why I Spent Twelve Pages Introducing Two Sisters

When I began writing The Tale of Two Beasts, I knew there was something I didn't want to do.

I didn't want to introduce two adult sisters, explain that they had always been close, mention a few childhood experiences, and expect readers to accept that their relationship was important simply because the story said it was.

I wanted something more personal.

I wanted readers to grow up with Tessa and Sera.

I wanted them to meet two little girls before either understood what life would eventually ask of them. To witness the moments that shaped their personalities, the experiences that brought them closer, and the small differences that became more noticeable as they grew older.

Most importantly, I wanted readers to become emotionally invested in them—not merely recognize their names when they appeared on the page.

A Childhood Is More Than a Backstory

We often meet characters in novels after their personalities are already established. We learn about their past through conversations, memories, or explanations scattered throughout the narrative.

There's nothing wrong with that approach. It works beautifully for many stories.

But Tessa and Sera needed something different.

These sisters begin life with an extraordinary connection. They share a family, a childhood, and experiences that few people outside their home could fully understand. Yet being sisters—even twins—doesn't mean they experience the world in exactly the same way.

Tessa is spirited, imaginative, and fiercely determined to discover what she can accomplish. She possesses remarkable magical abilities, but those abilities sometimes bring difficulties she never asked for.

Sera is thoughtful, disciplined, and naturally protective. Where Tessa pushes against boundaries, Sera often sees the reasons those boundaries exist.

Neither is right about everything. Neither is wrong about everything.

And neither becomes the person she is overnight.

That's why the prologue follows them through different stages of their lives.

At eight years old, their understanding of love, responsibility, and protection is naturally different from what it will be at eighteen—or thirty.

I wanted readers to experience those changes rather than simply be told they happened.

The Meaning of a Childhood Promise

One of the most important moments in the prologue involves a promise made when the sisters are very young.

It's the sort of promise a child makes with complete sincerity, without fully understanding how complicated life can become.

Children see the world differently from adults. To them, love is often wonderfully straightforward. If someone is frightened, you comfort them. If someone is in danger, you protect them. If someone needs you, you promise to be there.

And you mean it.

But growing older changes the questions we must ask ourselves.

What does it really mean to protect someone?

Does loving another person mean keeping them safe from every possible danger?

And as someone grows more independent, how does the meaning of protection change?

These are questions I wanted woven into the sisters' lives from the beginning, not introduced suddenly when the plot required them.

A promise may remain sincere throughout a lifetime, even while the people who made it change.

That possibility fascinated me.

I Wanted Readers to Know Them Personally

This was perhaps my strongest reason for writing the prologue as I did.

I wanted readers to remember Tessa as a little girl discovering her abilities. I wanted them to see Sera learning to take responsibility, sometimes before she was old enough to understand its weight.

I wanted them to witness their celebrations, disagreements, achievements, embarrassments, and ordinary family moments.

Because those smaller experiences matter.

A character doesn't become meaningful only when something dramatic happens. Sometimes it's a shared laugh, a childhood mishap, a quiet conversation, or an unexpected act of kindness that makes someone memorable.

Those moments are what make fictional people begin to feel real.

And when readers encounter Tessa and Sera as adults, I hope they'll carry those childhood memories with them.

They won't simply be reading about two women with a complicated relationship.

They'll remember the children those women once were.

They may even find themselves understanding a character's behavior because of something they witnessed many pages earlier.

That's the kind of connection I hoped to create.

Could the Prologue Have Been Shorter?

Certainly.

Almost any story can be shortened. A dozen pages of childhood could become three pages of explanation—or even a few carefully placed paragraphs.

But shorter isn't always the same as better.

I wasn't trying to reach the main adventure as quickly as possible. I was trying to give that adventure an emotional foundation.

There is a difference between knowing that two people love each other and having spent enough time with them to feel that love.

For this particular story, that distinction mattered.

I wanted readers to appreciate the sisters as individuals before asking them to follow the larger events of the novel.

I also wanted their childhood to feel like a life that had genuinely been lived, rather than a collection of convenient explanations for what happens later.

The Story Begins Long Before the Adventure

Fantasy often invites us into extraordinary worlds filled with magic, mysterious creatures, danger, and adventure.

I love those elements. They're part of what makes the genre so enjoyable.

But beneath the extraordinary, I'm most interested in the ordinary human experiences we recognize in ourselves: family, affection, independence, loyalty, fear, and the sometimes difficult decisions that accompany love.

Magic can make those experiences more dramatic. It doesn't necessarily make them less human.

That's why The Tale of Two Beasts begins where it does.

Before the larger adventure, before the difficult choices, before the reader fully understands what the title might mean, there are simply two sisters growing up together.

I wanted readers to know them first.

Not as names in a fantasy novel.

Not as characters whose importance must be explained.

But as Tessa and Sera—two people with a shared childhood, different dreams, and a bond that has helped shape their lives.

If readers finish the prologue feeling as though they've known these sisters for years, rather than twelve pages, then those twelve pages have accomplished exactly what I intended.

— Richard Scorpio

---

The Tale of Two Beasts is available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback editions.