So, basically, I was also posting this on ScribbleHub — well, I still am, but anyway — there was a time when I was facing writer's block around chapter 46 when I was posting chapter 33, so I put up a poll on which supporting character was people's favorite so I could write an author's note similar to the Book 1 end note about the creation of Magnus Chane. And Alex Reyes won that poll. Only three people voted and she got two votes out of three, but still. Anyway, here's that author's note (originally at the end of chapter 44 on ScribbleHub):
Honestly, I probably didn't put as much deliberate planning into creating Alex as people might think. She has a ton of screen time because she's the main — and probably the only real — love interest, so a lot of the time I just write her on instinct. The way I write is less about thinking "what happens next?" or "what happened before?" and more like me role-playing as every character I created, interacting with one another, in the world I built, and then documenting that play session into a chapter. There is very few, if any, character development and character arcs planned ahead, I understand my characters, so I just let them tell me what happens to them next. So, the more screen time a character has, the less I need to plan and actually put time and effort into developing their backstory and memorable traits.
That said, there was still a fair amount of thought and effort that went into building Alejandra Reyes as a character (it just happened to be less than, well, every other character you could have chosen in that poll, believe it or not), so I figured I'd go over some of that process here.
First: the name. That was actually the easiest part.
Like Magnus's mom would say, the universe rewards theme consistency. If Magnus's name was inspired by both Magnus Bane and Magnus Chase, then of course his love interest was going to be an Alex. Originally, her working name was Alexandra. Then one night at like 3AM, my brain randomly decided to replay scenes from old Zorro movies and TV shows I watched growing up, and I suddenly went: You know what? I'm making Alex Latina.
So Alexandra became Alejandra.
The Reyes last name came from me googling Latina surnames and picking one that jumped out at me. The fact that "Reyes" also means "royalty" was a complete accident, but honestly, I'm very happy with it considering Alex's whole "campus royalty" status when she's introduced.
Then came appearance, because I like having a strong visual image of characters in my head while writing. The first face that immediately came to mind was Emeraude Toubia — not for any especially deep reason other than the fact that she played Isabelle Lightwood in the Shadowhunters TV series, which was what originally got me into those books in the first place.
After that came the important part: personality.
And I'm gonna be honest here too — this was also mostly instinct.
The starting template for Alex was Zhao Min from Louis Cha's The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber, mixed with a bit of Huang Rong from The Legend of the Condor Heroes. Since Magnus was partially inspired by Clark Kent, I also mixed in a little bit of Bitsie Tulloch's version of Lois Lane from Superman & Lois.
Once I had a rough idea of her name, appearance, and personality, the rest was mostly me winging it and trusting my instincts.
Given the premise of the story — especially everything that happens in Chapters 1–5, plus the reveal in Chapter 6 — the next major thing I had to figure out was Alex's background. Specifically, I needed something that could plausibly explain how she could fall for Magnus that quickly.
Aside from the obvious answer — she didn't notice he existed at first, but once she did, she couldn't stop noticing him — the most natural direction was giving her a father who shared some similarities with Magnus. And from there, Alex's backstory kind of started assembling itself naturally.
I'll stop there for now, though, because going further would start drifting into spoiler territory. You'll learn more about Alex's parents and their history later.
Next are Alex's Stats, since she did start out as Magnus's first target.
The Detailed Stats were designed very carefully so that Magnus — under pressure from the System and completely inexperienced with all of this — could realistically believe he actually had a shot during the first week of the story. But in hindsight, especially after getting into a relationship with Alex and gaining more experience, he naturally starts realizing some things about that whole situation didn't quite add up.
Which is why he occasionally asks Alex why she decided to take a chance on him in the first place. Because if she hadn't, he'd literally be six feet under by now.
It was setup this way so that the first 5 chapters would seem plausible on paper, but still feel somewhat wrong, like something was missing, for the chapter 6 reveal to land.
But the basic stats shown right away in Chapter 1 were meant to tell a different story entirely. Specifically, they were meant to quietly establish that Alex is sexually active when she's in a relationship, but isn't particularly promiscuous and also doesn't date very often.
Originally, her stats in my first draft were:
"105 times (2 known partners)"
105 was meant to be a number big enough to intimidate virgin Magnus, but doesn't completely overwhelm him, and also a number that happily-in-a-relationship Magnus would realize later were not that big a number considering how often he and Alex do the deed. 2 partners, of course, were meant to be her first boyfriend/long-term relationship, and her mistake, that ended long enough ago that she was ready for Magnus to stumble into her life like a human-disaster.
But then I got to Chapter 12 and thought of a joke.
Originally, the idea was that Alex would say "we had a threesome," referring to herself and Magnus, while Magnus would misunderstand and think she meant Alex and Sofia. The problem was:
1. Magnus literally has a System that tells him how many sexual partners Alex has had.
2. The joke just didn't flow naturally given their personalities.
So instead, I flipped the misunderstanding around.
In the final version of Chapters 12 and 15, as you probably remember, Alex says "we had a threesome" referring to herself and Sofia, while Magnus immediately assumes she means he and Alex were with Lila the week before.
But making that joke work properly meant Alex's stats from Chapter 1 had to be adjusted retroactively to support the misunderstanding.
So: "105 times (2 known partners)" became: "105 times (4 known partners)" with the explanation for that adjustment eventually clarified during Chapter 15.
This happened long before I started posting this story online, of course, but it was still something that happened during the creative process which I promised to share.
Honestly, beyond everything I already mentioned, there's really only one major thing I keep in mind whenever I write Alex:
Her relationship with Magnus has to feel healthy. Or as healthy as it realistically can be given the System's constant presence in their lives.
So whenever I write scenes between them, I usually ask myself a few questions:
- Are they communicating well enough?
- Are they equals in this scene?
- Are they complementing each other here?
- And most importantly: are they acting like themselves?
That's really it.
As long as those things are intact, I mostly just let instinct take over. And before I realize it, somehow another Magnus-and-Alex scene is finished.
And this author's note was originally at the end of chapter 44 because, well, it was Magnus and Alex's first real fight as a couple, which highlighted all of the questions I just mentioned, while reframing their earlier lovey-dovey scenes where Magnus usually chose to take a more passive role for himself and just follow Alex's lead. He didn't do that because she overwhelmed him or he had no choice, they made that decision every time because they trust each other enough for one to lead and the other to follow naturally. When their ideologies actually clash? Well, you've just seen exactly that in chapter 44.
Other fun facts, if you're the type to care about them (I don't actually bother with this when writing scenes, this was more like after-the-fact reflection):
Meyer-Briggs Personality Type: ENFJ
Horoscope: Scorpio (November 8th)
Well, thanks again for reading my story. Hope you enjoyed reading about the creative process behind Alejandra Reyes.