Eltia: Return of the Warrior

Eltia: Return of the Warrior is the first of a fantasy-adventure novel series following the story of Anna Johnn, a girl living in what she assumes to be a normal life in her homeland of Ygen. However, when she discovers a gateway into another world called Eltia, her reality is shattered as she discovers an ancient prophecy regarding her role in this new world. She is the descendant of one of the original Destined, the guardians of Eltia, and she is now expected to take up her ancestor's sword and fight as the new Warrior of Fire. While Anna desperately tries to deny her fate, despite being chosen by the dragon Zeira, the other Destined are beginning to rise, and an ancient evil is stirred by the presence of its foe. Despite the terrifying magic stirring within her, Anna must make a choice: Will she go back to the life she knew? Or will she take up the mantle of her forefather and become the savior of Eltia?

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I began writing the first version of Eltia when I was in sixth grade. I had just finished reading Eragon and I had been inspired by the fact that the author, Christopher Paolini, had written the book at fifteen years of age. So I started writing, despite having no idea what my overarching storyline was going to be and despite the fact that all of my characters were basically the same person but with different names. The man character's name was Anira Powell, and was quite shamefully based on me. Every other character was named after my friends. The story was quite honestly, terrible. It read like a manga, with a lot of transformation sequences and complicated magic. Three years later, I completely gutted the story and developed the characters into actual people. Anira Powell became Anna St. Johnn, and eventually changed to Anna Johnn. I'd be lying if I said Anna is completely different from me, but she only shares some basic similarities. Anyway, I changed many of the characters' names, their appearances, and their backgrounds, and I even came up with a halfway decent plot. By my sixteenth birthday, I'd finished the rough draft of Eltia. I promptly put it away and left it to sit for nearly six months. For the past year and a half, I've been working on revisions, trying to clarify the plot and cut away the unnecessary bits, and I really think I'm near to finishing it. I hope and pray that once I am done, I will be able to publish it, and that at least one person who doesn't know me personally will read it and someday tell me they liked it.

John 1:5
~Christine