During a routine walk home from dropping off recycling, a novel title was born.

Two promising authors, Chazahari Birdsong and Aiden Quinn, were discussing Disney movies and the realism of the cartoon characters, specifically the personalities of the three fairies in 'Sleeping Beauty'. Chazahari made the remark that they were very realistic -- magic not included.

This simple statement sounded so much like a title of a novel to Aiden Quinn, that Aiden insisted the pair write a novel entitled 'Magic Not Included'.

Chazahari had already been playing with the idea of a fantasy novel involving magic, written from a parent's perspective. But in figuring out the mechanics of 'Magic Not Included', it became apparent that thirteen year old Vivian needed to be the protagonist.

Another surprising fact is that the last third of the novel was written first. Then the writers realized it was too short to be a novel, and lacked sufficient backstory for the characters who were flung into the climax of the story and needed more build-up. And so they went back and added scenes, completely out of order, creating the earlier chapters. Indeed, Chapter One was one of the last chapters perfected.

The pair had agreed to keep the novel in a strict third person limited style. That means that only what the main character sees, hears, feels, or thinks is shown to the reader. Revealing the thoughts of different characters, especially within the same scene, is sometimes called head-hopping, and can lead to confusion for the reader. During the writing process, a number of companion scenes were written that did not make it into the novel, as Vivian was not present for these events.

But near the end of the book there is a scene that breaks that rule -- in a way. Using magic, Vivian is able to see what others are doing. That chapter was the most difficult to edit, as the timing of the various events had to be taken into account. It took three or four attempts to get it right.

Intended as a stand-alone novel, the fact that both Chazahari and Aiden have stated that they have scenes in their heads regarding this family after the events in 'Magic Not Included', begs the question of whether or not this novel will be the beginning of a series.

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