For the next few editions of Book Trivia I'm going to be focusing on....

The Edge of a Knife: A a currently five book series that focuses on a AU of Middle Earth in which everyone's lives are miserable and happy endings are a foreign and forgotten concept.

This was my first contribution to the Wattpad community and still remains close to my heart: as in I'm constantly going over all of it and thinking of all the ways I could have prolonged the misery and torture, and by that I mean add some stuff to tie up all the loose ends.

Anywho, prepare for a look inside the series that kick stared my further career as a writer, starting with the first book:
The Edge of a Knife

Yes I named the series after the first book. I couldn't think of anything else...

If you haven't read this book: SPOILERS AHEAD

You has been warned

1. I did not plan this book out at all.
Here is a never before behind the scenes look at the inside of my mind when I first considered writing this story.

Hmm...
Now that I'm on Wattpad I should probably write something. But what?
Fanfiction seems to be the most popular category. And most people would probably be more interested in a fanfiction than an original story.
Good point. But what fanfiction should I do?
You've had about a gazillion LOTR fanfictions in your head ever since you watched the movies.
True, but all of those are a bit... I don't know, strange? Maybe I should go with a new idea.
How about an alternate ending where Sauron gets the Ring back?
That's an excellent idea! I've always wondered that anyway. But how would he get the Ring back?
Boromir could actually succeed in taking the Ring from Frodo thus delivering it to the enemy's hands.
You are a genius! What would I do without you random voice inside my head. Now how exactly does Boromir get the Ring to Sauron?
*silence*
Hello? Helloooooo? Hey don't leave! I need to plan this story out! Hello?!
*more silence*
Well poop...
Now I have an idea that won't go away but no idea how to write it!
Hmmm....
What if everyone dies?

And the rest is history. After that last thought I pretty much just wrote whatever came to mind and thus The Edge of a Knife was written.

2. Legolas was going to have some kind of form of PTSD

No idea where this idea came from, other than the fact that I was annoyed with how underdeveloped Legolas' character was and how he is Mr. Perfect throughout the whole series, so I wanted to make him more down to earth and more believable as a character. I had an idea where sometime in his past Legolas lost several people in his life that were very important to him (*cough* his mother *cough*) and it was somewhat his fault. Ever since that day he has had panic attacks where he remembers vividly when it happened thus resulting in an early idea of what I ended up going with in the complete version. I decided to scratch this idea because it seemed really random and since I hadn't really changed much about the Middle Earth we all know and love, decided to leave it out.

3. All four Hobbits were going to go to Isengard, not just Frodo and Merry.

Originally I'd planned on having the four captured hobbits try and escape while the Rohirrim fought the Uruks. Just when they were about to escape the surviving Uruks would have caught them and they would have been taking the hobbits to-

ISENGARD TO ISENGARD
THE HOBBITS THE HOBBITS THE HOBBITS THE HOBBITS
TO ISENGARD TO ISEN-

*cough*

Sorry about that...

But yes, all four hobbits were going to be brought to Isengard. I decided to split them up for one reason and one reason alone: It was 3 in the morning and at that point I was listening to whatever random thoughts my mind was giving me. And it told me to separate the hobbits. So I did.

4. I had no idea what was wrong with Legolas.

Remember the scene where Saruman's Uruks bring Legolas into the cell where Aragorn and co. are and he was completely freaked out about something?

You do?

Great.

Then you'll probably remember Aragorn and Gimli being really confused and trying to figure out what was wrong with him and guess what?

So was I.

After finishing that chapter I sat down and kept asking myself: What the heck is wrong with the elf?

It took me days to figure out what was causing him to act so strange when one day it hit me: He was used by Sauron to kill people!

And you all know where the story went from there...

5. The attack on Edoras was going to be longer.

I'd originally thought about writing out the attack from Legolas' Aragorn's and the hobbits' POV. But back then I had very little experience writing major battle scenes and was worried that I'd over do it. So I made it a small attack and wrote it from one POV. Looking back however, it was a sad replacement for Helm's Deep.

6. Gandalf and Faramir were going to die at the Black Gate.

My reason for even considering this idea was simply because when I first introduced Gandalf into the story: I had no idea what I was doing.
His character was very difficult for me to write at that time, so I thought that having him die when Sauron got the Ring would save me from having to write more of him in the sequel. However the thought seemed really selfish and I was annoyed at myself. I said: You can't just kill off a character because they're difficult to write!

I agreed and decided to let Gandalf live, but not bring him back until later on in the sequel.

Now Faramir was going to be killed off just because I didn't see him playing a significant role in the next book. Of course that ended up changing.

7. Theodred was going to live (at least until the next book)

Honestly I'd grown very fond of Theodred in the short time spent writing his character, I wanted to keep him around for the next book but then for whatever reason I decided to kill him off.

Fun fact for you, he was the first character I killed off.

I didn't want his death to be without meaning though, so I came up with the idea that he sacrifices himself for Pippin, and that's what I did.

#sorrytheodred

8. Legolas' "death" was going to be WAY more brutal.
In the final cut Legolas dies by pushing Aragorn out of the way and taking a spear to the stomach. He proceeds to die very quickly after that.

HOWEVER

My original concept was to have Aragorn and Legolas running as fast as they could to reach the escape tunnel where everyone else is, but just as they arrive the gate is starting to close. Legolas keeps urging Aragorn along, helping him move faster, at this point Legolas had been shot in the leg instead of Aragorn so he would have been going slower. Aragorn manages to reach the tunnel just as the gate closes, but Legolas just misses it. Now this gate was different from the one in the final cut because it was made like the doors of a prison cell, so everyone could still see outside.

And what was going to happen was that Aragorn and the rest of the Fellowship (Gimli, Frodo, Sam, and Merry) would all run up to the gate where Legolas is stuck on the outside. From there on it was going to be crazy.

Gimli would be shouting for someone to open the gate (which couldn't be done) the hobbits would be looking on in fear as orcs began to appear, and Aragorn would be looking at Legolas through the bars with the most heartbreaking expression imaginable. Then to make matters worse some orcs start pulling out bows and are going to shoot at the people crowded inside the tunnel. Éomer would start ushering people out, and the hobbits would be caught in the crowd.

Gimli pulls Aragorn out of the way just as the orcs release their arrows, and then we would proceed to watch as Legolas is hit with arrow, after arrow, after arrow, after arrow, after arrow, after arrow, after arrow, after-

I think you guys get what I'm saying....

I don't really know why I changed it, except for the possibility that I wanted Legolas to have a more noble death, or I simply thought that the other option was too violent for me to write at the time.

Yes I was 15 and already was coming up with brutal R rated death scenes.

Welcome to my world.

So that's all I have for The Edge of a Knife.
I hope you all enjoyed this little trivia and I can't wait to write the one for The Return of the Shadow.

Alright I'm Out.