Here’s part two of the MM development series! While the last post was about initial concepts, this one goes over the first and second drafts of Misfit Mansion, which was titled “Home for Horrors” at the time. These versions were similar to the final but had different story beats and plot differences. Text-heavy post incoming!

First Draft

Home for Horrors followed Iris, Kel and Agnes and their foster home for monsters, which was hidden outside the town of “Forget-Me-Not Ridge.” The house was sealed by a door demon named Latchkey, who is only weak to silver. When Mathias tried entering the house to prove to his “friends” that monsters are real, his silver pendant repelled Latchkey’s powers, allowing the horrors inside to escape. It was then up to Iris, Kel and Agnes to find the escaped horrors and bring them home. This version of the story had small episodes centering around the escaped horrors, including a three-headed dog, a dullahan (headless horseman), a crow mage, and a living doll. Also, shapeshifting blobs!

Plot Outline:

Three-Headed Dog Chapter- Iris runs into the woods to find the escaped horrors, while Mathias runs into a ghost boy looking for his missing three-headed dog. Mathias is then chased by said dog, but Iris manages to save him by uniting the ghost boy and dog, letting them both pass on into the next life.
Dullahan Chapter- Iris, Kel and Agnes go into town, finding a dullahan woman terrorizing the mayor. She’s angry he’s been telling fake scary stories about her during the festival. Iris and friends pacify the situation, and the mayor promises to stop painting the dullahan in a bad light. Iris and Mathias also decide to team up to find the escaped horrors using some of Anemone’s equipment, which Mathias secretly takes from her.
Crow Mage Chapter- The harvest festival begins, but is threatened when a crow mage and his crow lackeys turn all the vegetables into monsters, angry that humans have never shared with them. They’re only stopped when some of the kids dress up as scarecrows, the crows’ one weakness.
Living Doll Chapter- This chapter featured Dahlia, but she had the power to turn fiction into reality. During a scary movie night, Dahlia appears and makes the movie real, causing chaos. Iris and Mathias work together to survive the night, which only ends when Anemone appears and destroys one of Dahlia’s favorite dolls. Iris then invites a distraught Dahlia to live in at the house with her.

The story followed some similar plot lines to Misfit Mansion, like Iris hearing Larkspur’s voice throughout, and his eventual attack on the town, but it was pretty different in how the characters developed.

Kel and Agnes didn’t have as much of a role aside from supporting Iris.
Mathias worked with Iris early on and wasn’t as antagonistic. His main goal was to befriend a group of town kids by proving monsters exist, since they always thought he was making it up. He eventually decided it wasn’t worth befriending them, as Iris was a better friend anyway.
Iris and Halloway have a moment of understanding before Larkspur escapes.
Anemone tricks Iris into taking her to the house, where she destroys Latchkey and frees Larkspur. Anemone also later regretted her ways at the end after seeing Mathias in danger.

Ultimately, this draft was way too long and clunky, and needed a lot of editing. I thought longer about it while working on Star Knights, and eventually came back with a new version in mind.

Second Draft

This time, I focused more on the core of the story, and got rid of the episodic format, cutting the dullahan and crow mage parts, and changing Dahlia’s scene to be in a toy store. Agnes and Kel were given more important roles and had their own character arcs, Mathias was more antagonistic, and the story focused more on Iris’s search to find a family instead of the missing horrors. This would be the draft that was sent to the publisher, although it was still slightly different from the final!

Along with the book summary, I needed to provide examples of finished pages. Below are sample pages of the book’s original opening scene, where you can see some of the differences.