Maggie my love, will you show us more of your first drafts of The Raven Cycle? Seeing how far the story has come is really really dang cool.

maggie-stiefvater:

Dear fvord00101,

I share these ancient teenage drafts with the world only in hopes that other aspiring writers will learn from how terrible a writer I was when I began. As we all are. And in the hopes that anyone reading this post as the first introduction to my writing figures out that I have improved in the last fifteen years.

The guide to the name differences in the old drafts:

Sean = Ronan

Adam = Noah

Secret = Orphan Girl

Scott = Declan

Jackie = a Lynch sister who got deleted

Here’s a bit about when Ronan finds Niall Lynch’s journal:

Yes, Sean/ Ronan, we know, and no, you’re not the only one:

Here is Gansey as an old man with Knowledge:

A draft where Sean discovers he is a dream thief:

And a draft where Gansey has gotten theoretically younger in body but is still basically an old person. Also, Glendower was actually Llewellyn who was actually the Wild Hunt. Enjoy.

(these are puny, I imagine, so more readable photos here)

The Raven Cycle was a series that I picked up and put down and retooled many times between 15-19, and even though I wrote other terrible novels at the time, this one, more than any of the others, reflected my current interests and desires and fears and inability to avoid italics.

urs,

Stiefvater