I like to write books with rotating main characters.  I can travel for a while in one and then switch to another.  In each of the Senta books, I used four (usually) main characters.  I rotated them around a bit though.  I follow each one for a chapter.  In book 4, I flipped between characters several times per chapter, and in a way, I think it makes that book a weaker book than the others.  Of course there was a good reason for doing it.

In the Voyage of the Minotaur, the characters followed are Iolanthe Dechantagne, Terrence Dechantagne, Zeah Korlann, and Senta.  Through Senta’s eyes, we see the wonder of magic.  Through Zeah’s, we see things from a reasonable man’s point of view.  Reality is skewed for both of the Dechantagnes– his because of his drug addiction and hers because of her ambition.

I wrote Book 3: The Drache Girl next, and switched characters.  This book’s main four are Senta, Saba Colbshallow, Radley Staff, and Yuah Dechantagne.  Yuah takes Iolanthe’s place, quite naturally because she has taken Iolanthe’s place as the highest ranking woman in the Dechantagne home.  Saba Colbshallow sort of takes Terrence’s place.  Staff has to be one of the characters because of the plotline that he shares with Iolanthe– again, making it better if we don’t see inside her too much.

When I decided to write a book between those two, it seemed natural to keep Yuah and Saba as main characters.  Of course Senta had to be one too.  For the fourth, I chose Cissy the lizzie.  She becomes important in book 3, and I realized that I hadn’t yet shown the world from a lizzie point of view.

In the prequel book 0, I followed Senta, Zeah, Yuah, Terrence, Iolanthe, Cissy, and Augustus Dechantagne.

For book four, I had many more characters to use as viewpoints.  Writer Isaak Wissinger and Kieran Baxter were characters who would both appear in book 5, both of whom had interesting stories that I had created in my mind, but had not really hinted at.  So, I made them main characters in book 4 to tell those stories.  I also had Saba, Cissy, Yuah, a lizzie chief named Hsrandtuss, and several different viewpoints from Senta.

Book 5 returns both Iolanthe and Zeah to story-telling prominence.  Saba continues, as by this time he has become a very important part of the story.  Of course Senta is the fourth.  When I was writing though, I accidentally wrote one of the Senta chapters from Radley Staff’s point of view.  I thought about going back and rewriting it, but it worked so I left it.

So rather than viewing the world through the eyes of one character, this series is viewed through the eyes of thirteen.  I am working on book 6: The Sorceress and her Lovers, and it too follows four main characters.  They are Senta, Saba Colbshallow, Hsrandtuss, and Iolana Dechantagne (Iolanthe’s daughter).