Author’s notes for Shadow Magic – Zelgadis and Amelia.

The basis for “Shadow Magic – Zelgadis and Amelia” is a novel I began writing when I was about 15, about a woman who was forced into a loveless marriage, but goes to her husband’s brother to learn magic. At the end she discovers that the two men are the same person and she hasn’t been unfaithful at all. Needless to say, I never finished the thing. The title for the novel was “Singing Magic”, so a little of that title remains in “Shadow Magic”.

I believe strongly that two or more plot ideas mixed together make the best stories, so what I described above is one half of the story and the other half was generated by a gripe of mine. Almost everything I write was originally a pet peeve of mine. Here’s the complaint; very often in Slayers, Zel strikes me as Lina’s equal and occasionally – her superior. So, I think Zel could really cast the Giga Slave and I don’t like it when anyone acts like he can’t do anything without Lina.