Brothers Avatar

The Legend of Two Avatars

Book 1 – Family

Author's Note

Woo! I made it through! What a journey it has been, but we've finally made it through the first book out of four. I just wanted to take this time and thank whoever has made it through all 20 chapters, so I just wanted to take this time to reflect and share some interesting tidbits about writing it, if y'all's interested.

I want to take some time to publicly address some of the reviews and complaints I got. I responded to most of these in private messages but I want the public to see them as well.

Taresc's Secret: Firstly, I got the criticism fairly often that they wanted Taresc to reveal his secret to the group earlier (You all were pretty impatient to figure out when that'd happen). Well my excuse is that, Taresc was deathly afraid of his brother retaliating against him if he found out. So Taresc was going to die with this secret, Lozulia only knew because Xulo was going to die if he didn't do something. And it had just the result he was afraid of when his brother did find out.

Floridness: I have a tendency to use overly complex words and sometimes use them incorrectly. I used to write a ton of poetry so some of it definitely comes from that. But I like using fancy words sometimes, it conveys what I want to convey

Moving too Fast: Now, I see this a lot, and I absolutely agree. In only twenty episodes, we've already taken down two generals and gained the trust of Hintrichi. Looking at my already predestined 4 Book structure, I surely could have stretched some of it out a bit, but I think that the story sorta slows down a bit here, (In a good way though!) characters get to breathe and goals are more realistically achieved.

Ages: Lozulia is 15 and 3 quarters. Pio, Taresc and Xulo are 16. Ibera and Minege are 17.

Shang: Our favorite dual-bender from Scattered & Together only led them off the island. I meant to mention it, but I forgot.

Taresc in the 2nd Invasion: Yeah, during the Cersiek-Xulo fight, he was just holding the wall together while Stormbenders tried to beat it down. It might be a little plot hole, but I don't think it's that important, he wouldn't have been that useful in the fight anyways.

Battle Sequence Skipping: Guilty as charged. My biggest struggle as a writer is by far writing fighting sequences. It's so hard for me to imagine them up in my mind and keeping them interesting. Also just describing the action as a whole is just so damn hard for me! Most of the time I usually will just write -Fighty-fighty- in the story as a placeholder and come back later to fill it in with details. A funny thing that almost happened was that I almost published a chapter with -Fight Sequence- still in it (I can't remember for the life of me which one it is).

Minege Disappearing Act: I think Measures for Sanctity explained why she would just run away sometimes, but I tried my best not to just forget her.

Crowded Conversations: It is pretty difficult to make a conversation with six people not crowded, that's why I try my best to split them up from time to time. But at least for a while, we won't be having groups of six.

Last Time On Brothers Avatar: The idea of a summary before each chapter explaining the last chapter was brought up and I was wondering if you all would like that. If it's a problem I'd be more than willing to jump in and do that for you all.

My process, I just want to tell you how this all goes on my end. So this started out with me writing down all my idea on a brainstorming page. I write down some characters that I want in the show, some major plot points I want in. That page then grows to adding character descriptions, goals, character arcs and individual brainstorm parts (for specific parts in specific episodes).

Then came the document called "Brothers Avatar Plot." I laid out all 40 episodes on this and started thinking out how the plot would work. I figured out the general course of this story, the major plot points and such. Then I started filling in the blank spots in between with very unspecified episode ideas. From there, I then figured out what I wanted to do with Season 1 and I gave every episode a description of what I wanted to happen in it.

This process does take me a bit of time because certain episodes I leave very vague. Just as an example (and foreshadowing *winky face*) one episode in Season 2, all I have for a description is "Conditioning?" So don't get too excited, it will take me a bit to actually figure out what's precisely happening with Season 2. At the same time, I'm also thinking about beginning the writing on a novel.

Production Changes, they happen. I just want to share some that happened in the midst of writing Brothers Avatar.

Ibera and Lozulia: A really interesting thing happened with these two characters while I was writing them; they switched personalities. I originally intended for Lozulia to be brutally blunt and sarcastic and Ibera was going to be a bipolar mix of wild-crazy and cool-collected. I think I decided to make Zuli so crazy because at that point of the story, it was so dark and depressing and really needed a healthy dosage of cheer.

Sex of Pio: I struggled with Pio's gender. He was originally a boy and as you can tell he stayed a boy, but the idea of Pio being a girl was definitely played around with. She would have still ended up with Xulo and all plot points would have stayed the same… but I really wanted Pio to be a boy. He works as a boy and while changing him to her might have decreased a bit of the "gayness" of Brothers Avatar, I couldn't change him.

So as I wrote out the descriptions on my "Brothers Avatar Plot" document, some of the episodes were supposed to have different names, but I changed them for one reason or another. So I might as well share.

-Episode 1 – The Better Child – I changed this based on the fact that when writing it, I never really brought up Taresc's inferiority. Plus, it makes Taresc seem a tad bitter.

-Episode 4 – Crescent Island – It's just so boring, plus it's more about the Fire Sages than anything.

-Episode 5 – The Mine – Just so boring, plus When Gravity is Lighter has a better ring.

-Episode 6 – A Battle for Course – This one is pretty interesting. I just didn't like the sound of ABfC so I came up with the brilliant title A Struggle for Command. Also Minege and Lozulia never actually battle, just compete. You'll see later why it's so interesting.

-Chapter 10 – Lozulia's Loveboat – This one I really fought myself over, but in the end I just had to go with the ship. It made sense with my original plan for the episode with having Lozulia really trying seduce Taresc and Xulo doing all his zany ideas. But in the end, it became a really heart-warming episode with the story of Lido and Xulo's wild antics become a side plot, so LL wouldn't have fit. Also The Ship has a double (kinda triple) meaning, see if you can figure it out.

-Chapter 11 – Different Shorelines – This felt a little too sappy and dramatic for me, sadly I couldn't really think of anything better than Scattered & Together.

-Chapter 12 – A Struggle for Command – Yeah, this happened. When I renamed episode 6, I had no clue that I already named episode 12 ASfC. Awkwaarrrrd. It's okay though because originally the episode would have them go through 3 different people's failed plans of trying to take down Cersiek, struggling to figure out who commands the team (hence the name). Eventually they listen to Taresc because they run out of people to come up with ideas and boom! Cersiek is defeated. I changed the plot for two reasons. One, because writing 3 different take-downs would have been awful. Two, because it makes no sense that they wouldn't listen to Taresc, just last episode he had a brilliant plan that saved them all!

-Chapter 12 – The Cersiek Advent/The Advent of Cersiek – It just doesn't make sense, I thought it sounded cool though.

-Chapter 12 – Knocking on the Front Door – Yeah, I had trouble with naming this one. I changed this one last minute because in reality they weren't knocking on the front door. They were sneaking not really attacking; they were really going around the back metaphorically.

-Chapter 14 – Strangers & Yearning. I already used a _ & _ style title with Chap11 and also the Strangers motif never came into play. Also there were three instances of being "gone" in the episode so (Captain Cao, Taresc, Their old lifestyle) gone was better.

As I mentioned before, I planned the whole series out and I wrote out the plot of each episode before I even began writing the first episode. But sometimes what seemed good then, didn't seem good later as I was writing them. So I wanted to make note of some general changes that happened to the chapters as I wrote them.

-Chapter 2 – I was going to have Taresc and Xulo fight the Stormbenders destroying Dayue, but fail, and then have Minege run through on Tanton.

-Chapter 4 – I was going to have Lozulia and Xulo fight to see if Zuli was good enough to join the group. It felt excessive after she already proved herself in the battle with the Stormbenders.

-Chapter 7 – I did not expect for there to be this sexual tension between Xulo and Ibera. I also never intended for them to have known each other. In fact, I don't believe that I really expected them to talk before the Stormbenders arrived. It all just fit into place, although the sexual tension really didn't go anywhere.

-Chapter 8 – I may or may not have bended the rules of the swamp's mystical powers. In the show they only ever really say that see people from your past present and future. Well, I added that you can see your heart's deepest desires. In that regard Taresc's vision switched between either seeing his parents or seeing an accepting Xulo. In the same regards Xulo's vision was switching between Lido and all the past Avatar's bowing to him in respect. The second change was that I was going to have the chiefs realize that Team Avatar and Pio weren't friends and because they were so sick of Pio, they run him out instead of them fleeing. Last random thing that I changed: I was going to have Woorq be Pio's pet and have him pick Taresc when Xulo pulled the choose-yo-avatar on the team. I made that change pretty early in development, however.

-Chapter 9 – I S.T.R.U.G.G.L.E.D. with part of this chapter. It was the part after they returned from their showcase. Part of me wanted them to realize that they know nothing about each other and have that be a real driving factor in the episode. But the other part I wanted for the main driving force be that Pio and Ibera couldn't get along. Perhaps to you, they don't seem that parallel, but for me I couldn't see these two intersecting at any good point. Eventually I overcame it and said that the reason Pio and Ibera didn't get along was because they knew nothing about each other.

-Chapter 10 – See the section above about name changes for more details, but basically I meant for this chapter to be light hearted, not a heartstring-tugger. I also meant for Lozulia and Taresc to be together at this point, not just hinting at it happening in the future. It felt rushed though to have them already dating at this point.

-Chapter 11 – BIG CONFLICT on this one, a conflict between interesting character combinations and story conveniences. I always wanted them to be separated in 3 pairs of two, but how I wanted the pairs to be was a struggle. My first was Xulo-Lozulia, Pio-Taresc and Minege-Ibera and my other was the one you saw. With the first combo, you get character combos that you don't get to see interacting very often or sometimes ever. But the second one was perfect for plot convenience, because I needed Pio and Xulo to start falling in love and I needed Lozulia and Ibera to be friends. Eventually I gave in to plot convenience.

-Chapter 12 – See name change section.

-Chapter 16 – I was originally going to have Guil be a part of the assassination attempt on Hintrichi, but I need him out of jail for… reasons, you'll see… later… much later… like Season 4 later.

-Chapter 18 – I was going to originally have Regille be doing most of the chasing during the Xulo-Ibera section, but decided against it for a couple of reasons. The most prominent reason was because there wouldn't be any reason for Regille to take Xulo to Aurut herself and then be like, "Ok, Imma just go back to the Air Temple for no reason and you are gonna wait for me to come back and execute this boy, kk?" Also I wanted Regille to wait for her entrance, after all if Regille was chasing them, it'd be a five second scene. For the boat scenes, I didn't intend for Minege to save the day at first but I'm happy she did, she certainly needed some retribution after MfS. Also, Pio and Minege making up wasn't supposed to happen either or them becoming friends, but it makes sense since they do have pretty similar personality types.

-Chapter 19 – The Basher thing was somewhat last minute; the fact that he becomes a mini-celebrity in the Northern Water Tribe was not expected but I kinda like it.

-Chapter 20 – Originally there wasn't going to be really any conflict in getting the carriage from Wilner's Traveling Show, but I found it really boring that they just sorta show up and the performers just sorta strip. Cue Weffu.

Now I just want to do some reminiscing on the series, point out my favorite episodes and just generally gab it up.

I think my favorite episode has to be episode 10, The Ship. A lot of this episode was kind of improvised in a sense and I absolutely loved how it came together. I love how the ride to Eastern Air Temple mirrored their little boat rides back in the day (all not planned). I love how it really balanced comedy and drama, with Xulo's plots to get the crew back to work versus Taresc's telling of his younger brother's demise. Kreffti is one of my favorite characters I've written (at least my favorite tertiary/secondary character), and originally it was going to be a man but I love her as a woman. I feel like I was the most "masterful" with this episode, my best display of nuances and character growth. Although looking back, I had a good amount of grammar mistakes in that chapter, go figure.

I think my least favorite episode is Minege's Lament, episode 3. I think that I was a little heavy handed with my writing of this one. I tried too hard to be a "novelist" when writing this one. My second least favorite would probably be the Flying Chakras, I like the beginning and middle, but the ending wasn't great for me. I just hate how it ends so abruptly… but I don't hate the episode and I also don't hate Minege's Lament.

My favorite fight scene probably has to be the one in episode 13, The Belligerence of Romance. I love the fight scene between Pio/Xulo and Ibera/Lozulia, it tops all others in my opinion. Like I've said before, I really struggle with writing fighting scenes, but for this scene it really just flowed out of me onto the paper this chapter.

The episode I had the biggest struggle with was most definitely Episode 18, Storms of Order. This episode was mainly comprised of fighting, fighting and more fighting. The page was filled with a lot of FIGHTY-FIGHTYs the time I wrote it. The boat scenes weren't too bad but Ibera and Xulo's fight against the disciples was… torture. Hopefully it ended up okay, but this episode did not come out without struggle. Also, I hate the title, so bland, but I didn't have any patience at this point.

As for the future of the series, I plan to release a book 2, 3 and 4 with time. Book 2 will come soon and I'm really excited, because a lot of cool things happen in it. I also want to upload to Avatar Wiki, but I admit, I'm really confused as to how… if someone wants to help with uploading or just upload it themselves with credit to me, I'd be rather grateful.

Some bad news is that updates will slow pretty drastically when I'm at college in the coming month, I'll still be writing but twice/once a week won't be as viable as it was this summer. I must admit however, I'm getting rather smitten with the series and I might sacrifice some more of my time to this series during school.

I'm going to plan on releasing the first chapter of Book 2 – "Becoming" on August 22 (knock on wood) or perhaps earlier, so be on the lookout or just follow me as an author!

As for final words, I'm just in awe that I've written a whole book… wow. I originally used this as a ways of practicing writing for when I decide to actually write a novel, but what a ride it's been! I just wanted to thank everyone for reading, reviewing and making this all worth-while.

Thank you.

-Edgar G Connors

*P.S. I might try and do a mid-author's note for Book 2, so submit some questions and I'll try and answer them after Episode 10 or 12 (12 is more of a midpoint, but 10 is the literal midpoint…)

*P.P.S. Here's a link to a map of Season One of Brothers Avatar: imgur dot com /XBEvPPt (They won't let me put urls in here, so I'm sure you can figure that out.)