The Dark Part of the Forest: Author’s Note and Apology

Amelia DesMarais, Author, 8th grade

Hi! This is Amelia DesMarais, the author of The Dark Part of the Forest. I’ve been writing this story since sixth grade, and it’s been it’s my main Newspaper project. The reason I’ve published so many stories is because of this series! So I’m here to apologize for not finishing it. Take note: this is what happens when you don’t properly plan out your story and procrastinate. So if you’re a young writer, don’t do what I did. Make an outline, set a timeline for when you’ll publish each installment, and stay organized.

So, I’d like to just get a couple of things out of the way:

  1. Tily’s name isn’t pronounced Tilly. It’s like a tile: Tily. I came up with this name a while ago, and I regret it because it’s very strange. I intended to, at some point, have Tily blame her parents for her strange name so I could have some explanation for that.
  2. Even more than that, I regret giving my two antagonists names that start with x (Ximen and Xanithan). It’s not great writing. I’m sorry.

Now that I have that out of the way, I’d like to address what I had planned for the story. I never quite got around to explaining the title of the story. Pretty much what happened is that, once Samantha was expelled, she gave up on magic and decided to pursue a more normal career. She ended up resenting her magic powers, so when her brother, named Ximen, wanted to practice taking someone’s power, she let him take hers. His power, which was difficult to use for good, made him dislike the way magic worked, which caused him to take more people’s powers, and later grew into toxic, festering hate for the world. He did the same thing Samantha did in Leanna’s story, except that he believed he could do it better because he didn’t have to rely on anyone else. I think the reason he keeps Xanithan around, rather than just taking his power, is that he kind of feels sorry for him, but mostly because he really just wants to be friends. In the end, those wonderful protagonists of ours would go out in the forest and save the day, as expected. How, you ask? I haven’t figured that out. I guess you’ll have to make up your own logic.

To close, I’d just like thank my sister, Sophia, for reading every single one of my published chapters of The Dark Part of the Forest (when she was in middle school she was in Newspaper, too, so go check out her articles! They’re still around). Also, thanks to Mrs. Pixley, our amazing advisor. Have a nice day, and please read my story if you haven’t already!