Wonderland - The March Hare and The Dormouse

The first of the Mad Hatter’s constant companions is the March Hare. On the one hand, he can sometimes be helpful, if a little irritable as well. However, he has a split personality, which is a hare. Mid-sentence he may well stop talking and begin hopping around the dinner table, nibbling vegetables.

He’s the Mad Hatter’s oldest friend, always sticking by him through thick and thin. He’s grown accustomed to the Mad Hatter’s antics, almost coming to enjoy his constant obsession with tea time.

The Dormouse is a far simpler creature, spending most of his life asleep. This is due to his awe-inspiring power of omniscience. So that the raw power of seeing everything at every moment doesn’t blow up his head, he needs to be almost constantly sleeping.

On the occasions when he does wake up, it is to offer cryptic prophesies about the future. It was one such prophecy that influenced the Mad Hatter into seeking out Alison in the first place.

The March Hare and the Dormouse were another case of characters who changed very little since they were introduced. In the case of the March Hare, he went a long time not being quite mad enough. Looking to the original book, he simply seems to share many of the habits of the Mad Hatter, however I wanted to make him more of an individual character. This was why I gave him the split personality. I had earlier toyed with the idea of giving him no free-will, being forced to do whatever he is told.

The Dormouse, it could be argued, is exactly as he appears in the book, sleeping most of the time, only waking to deliver lines of nonsense. When I read the original book I thought it would be fascinating to consider that the Dormouse’s nonsense might have something more to it. The story he delivers at the Mad Hatter’s tea party, was one I took to be the creation of Wonderland. And later, at Alice’s trial, I seem to remember he noticed Alice was growing, certainly before everyone else. It was from these pieces of evidence that I decided to make him omniscient and prophetic.

Wonderland - The Mad Hatter

Our spotlight-steeling secondary character is none other than the Mad Hatter. Always ludicrous and often making no sense at all, he is the driving force behind the plan to recruit a saviour and stop the Unfit Kingdoms.

At best he uses the wrong words to describe things, and at worst, he spouts entire sentences of nonsense and riddles without answers. He’s obsessed with the idea of tea time, never liking to stray too far from his table, and always with a cup of tea in hand. He also loves birthdays, often deciding to celebrate them, despite the date.

He’s an excellent singer, though again this comes out as warped nursery rhymes. He’s certainly not intelligent, but does sometimes see things in an interesting light, which can lead to inspiration.

Not being very good in a fight, his first instinct is to run, but when backed into a corner his first line of defence is usually his tea, or failing that, a sandwich. However one scene does involve him sword-fighting with a teapot.

He gets on particularly well with Alison, even though his antics often cause her frustration. However he seems to have a vendetta against the mysterious Skinster, who works for the Unfit Kingdoms. The two certainly have a past. As the Mad Hatter himself puts it:

“We have something of a congratulatory relationship…”

Definitely one of the most fun and easy characters to write the only thing I need to be wary of with the Mad Hatter is writing forever, because his conversations are so odd and cyclical.

From early on I made the mistake of making him odd and eccentric as opposed to mad. I went back, read the source material and decided to add a few traits from the book. I’ll admit, the usage of incorrect words was something of my own invention, but everything else appears within the text.

He was originally intended to have a much darker past, with his madness having come from years of torture at the hands of the Queen of Hearts, but this conflicted with the rest of Wonderland’s inhabits who are all naturally mad.

Wonderland - Alison

Straight-forward and fairly logical, Alison likes her life ordered and planned. More often than not it can take only a small thing out of place to annoy her to the point of shouting. All of this unfortunately makes her a poor candidate for Wonderland’s saviour, with her disbelieving everything about it.

She also has a problem with opening up to people, often appearing reserved or even cold. She prefers to keep herself to herself and has few friends. Far from being a cruel or nasty person, Alison does perhaps take sarcasm a bit too far on occasion, causing distress.

But when the refugees from Wonderland appear, she slowly begins to change for the better. As she becomes their unofficial teacher, she begins to understand them and see the people behind the madness. She becomes protective of them and willing to fight for their cause.

Alison was another of those characters who I struggled to understand. Like Sam, she was sort of a place-holder. She was the disbelieving woman, and that was all. Eventually I came up with some ideas and decided to try some new things that I hadn’t explored before.

Where her relationships with other characters are concerned, I tend to go back and forth on a number of people. I can’t make up my mind whether or not she should have a boyfriend, though at the moment it’s looking like no. For the most part I’m certain that she at least tolerates her boss, Mrs. Holtermez, if only because she’s an old woman.

At an early point in the story, I was going to have her very slowly fall in love with the Mad Hatter. This was again, based on me trying things that I hadn’t in other novels. This was a large part of the story for a long time, but eventually I began to grow tired of the idea and didn’t think there was much to do with it.

Wonderland

Let’s imagine a world where Alice in Wonderland was more than a story. What if it was little Alice who told her father stories of her time in a miraculous world? He writes the books, none the wiser to the fact that his daughter had stumbled into another place, impacting it forever.

Now, over a century later, the world of Wonderland is in peril. A mysterious cataclysm threatens to tear the world apart, forcing the largest mass migration in history. The denizens of Wonderland are fleeing to the next place in line – Earth. But along with them come the Unfit Kingdoms, monstrous tyrants based around the four suits of a deck of cards, who want to take Earth as their own.

And all of this chaos comes crashing into the sleepy town of Fiddrington, in the English countryside. Because whilst the rest of Wonderland is just looking for a place to stay, a small group have banded together, looking for a savoir.

Namely, Alison Lewis, who has been chosen, apparently at random, and because her name sounds vaguely like the original Alice. Naturally, being a normal, rational-minded person, Alison spends a large majority of the first book completely denying the situation, deciding it’s all either a dream or a hallucination.

But in spite of herself, Alison soon becomes friends with Wonderland’s people and agrees to help restore their world and save her own from the Unfit Kingdoms – if only because she thinks it will end her dream.

Though she and everyone else must also be wary of the dreaded Skinster, a gruesome entity who seems to influence all of the Unfit Kingdoms and always has his own agenda in helping them.

I first wanted to write a book within the Wonderland mythos after watching the anime Ouran High Host Club do a parody episode of it. It was interesting to see a unique take on the famous characters. I would like to say that my interest was furthered by Tim Burton’s film version, but I found it mildly disappointing.

The Walt Disney film, I found to be so-so, but the original book provided most inspiration. It was then that I decided to do my own thing with them.

I reimagined all of the characters, attempting to make them mad in my own way, as well as adding several new characters of my own design, namely the Unfit Kingdoms and the Skinster.  

As of this moment the books in the series are intended to go:

- Wonderland: Blazing Hearts
- Wonderland: Frozen Diamonds
- Wonderland: Deadly Clubs
- Wonderland: Earthy Spades
- Wonderland: Grim Jokers  

Dawn and Dusk Investigations - The Enigma Killer

Even more mysterious than Inspector Dusk, the Enigma Killer is the person who sets all the series events in motion. He spends the whole time in the shadows, pulling the strings from afar. He only involves himself personally when an investigation ends, killing one final victim.

He always appears to Desmond at the end of investigations, offering cryptic and often threatening messages, hinting that he is closer to Dawn and Dusk than they know. A calculating master of routine and predictions, the Enigma Killer never says a word, preferring to speak through messages, some of them written years in advance.

From what little we see of him, it is clear that the Enigma Killer is a cold psychopath, calmly arranging death and chaos without a second thought. Older than all of the immortals, more than any of them, his crimes are the pinnacle of his existence.

The part of the Enigma Killer that took me the longest was which historical villain he was. Obviously after the likes of Jack the Ripper and Josef Mengele, the series needs to culminate in the most famous of historical villains. Like choosing Dusk’s identity, it took a while.

For a long time it looked like I was going to have to invent my own historical villain, based on how I wanted the eventual plot to go. However I eventually decided to forego that idea when a found a real historical villain who fitted better. This did necessitate changing who Dusk was, but only to some degree.

The second reason there are so many seemingly quite pointless characters across the books, many of whom do not speak, is because one of them is the Enigma Killer. Again, like choosing who he was historically speaking, it also took a long while to decide who he was out of the characters as well. I had considered three other characters before I decided upon who the Enigma Killer finally was.

Even after he (or perhaps she?) is revealed, the Enigma Killer still doesn’t say a word. This is purely a stylistic choice. It was something completely unlike my normal villains, who often rely on monologues and grand speeches. I also feel that a silent, almost monstrous death glare can say so very much.       

Dawn and Dusk Investigations - Dusk

The other lead of Dawn and Dusk Investigations is Inspector Dusk. He’s first introduced rather distantly, not wanting anything to do with Desmond. But he soon comes into focus, bringing with him the series’ mythology.

He’s effortlessly mysterious telling Desmond in their first meeting, that he will never explain his plans and that Desmond should just do his best to keep up. From then on it can safely be said that everything Dusk does is second-guessed.

Dismissively referring to Desmond as his ‘assistant’, Dusk shows off the typical aloofness and arrogance you’d expect from a detective. However as things progress he begrudgingly admits that Desmond isn’t a complete moron and that he may have a few ‘clever hunches’ every now and then.

A large amount of his knowledge on the immortals, and his intellect in general, comes from the fact that he is one of them. Stemming from this is his pathological fear of the past. Everything in his house is constantly being updated. He never eats food more than a few days old. His television is always switched to the twenty-four hour news channels. He won’t step foot in a museum and will punch anyone who asks about his personal history.

In part this is because he suffers from amnesia, not remembering anything before the moment he became immortal. He actively fears remembering his past because, as he himself puts it:

“The Enigma Killer picks the best of history’s monsters. I’ve been at this job a long time now, so tell me: How many people did I kill? What atrocities did I commit? What could I have possibly done that warranted my immortality? Something tells me, I’m not the exception – I’m the rule.”

Dusk has been one of my most troubling characters, taking the longest to form. When I started Dawn and Dusk Investigations I knew little more than ‘he’s clever’. It took a heck of a long time to define any kind of personality, to make him more than a just a brain. The fear of the past helped to some degree, giving me a wealth of scenarios to play on.   

What took just as long was figuring out how he’d look. For an alarming length of time, he became an old, bearded man who wore a hat. Part of me thought this was somewhat unique, but I eventually realised that it wasn’t.

From there I eventually reverted him back to the original image I had, a younger man with black hair, who wore chequered shirts.

His thought process is very shrewd, as I said, never expect to know what he’s thinking until the moment is right. He’s not quite Sherlock Holmes, noticing every detail of the scene around him, in fact as per detective tradition he goes on to insult the famous detective, saying:

“Sherlock Holmes is an idiot. He spends too much time noticing everything when if he was a competent detective he’d only notice the important things.”

Whilst Dusk does find things others may overlook, his work is usually more focussed on ‘the bigger picture’, along with using his cleverness to mask his responses from both the enemy and the audience.     

Dawn and Dusk Investigations - Desmond

Always having a child-like passion for mysteries and crime, Desmond was over the moon when Kalander Incorporated head-hunted him to be their new Inspector Dusk. Whilst at first feeling overwhelmed by the severity of his new job, Desmond soon gets to grips with hunting immortal murderers.

Though still a very intelligent man, Desmond is a little behind his partner, Inspector Dusk. He still manages to catch some things his mysterious colleague misses, with a playful rivalry developing between them. Despite this, and some of Dusk’s more annoying habits, Desmond is considered to be faultlessly reliable, springing into action whenever needed. Though able to handle himself in a fight, he is far better at avoiding conflict where possible.

He is often stoic and won’t tolerate too much from Dusk. Getting consumed by the investigations and guilt when people continue to die, it can be easy to forget that he is very thoughtful and caring.

The only things that can immediately take him away from the investigations are his girlfriend Kayleigh, and his family. He desperately tries to keep Kayleigh away from his work, for fear of her safety, whilst his mother is in a coma, and he visits her often.

Much like Sam, Desmond took a while to form in my mind. I focussed more on the plots of Dawn and Dusk, than the characters. For a long time, something developed that I was deliberately trying to avoid – I’d made my own Holmes and Watson.

The focus was more on Dusk, with Desmond merely tagging along as the narrator, who had things explained to him. When I realised what I’d done, I made a conscious effort to enhance Desmond’s intellect, making him closer to Dusk. He’ll never be smarter, in most cases, but certainly close.

Whilst he’s more professional with Dusk, I added characters like his girlfriend and his mother in order to show Desmond in different situations and give him a greater depth of character.