Introducing Prince Kaderic III

Kade is the prince of my Cinderella story, and during all the time I spent brainstorming and worldbuilding and plotting, that's all he was - the prince. He was the stock, no personality good guy. When it was time to bring his character into the story, my daughter Alyssa gave me an answer to a completely different question that just skyrocketed his character into being so much cooler.

First off, his name. The story I'm writing is actually going to be a three book young adult series that is a mash-up of the stories, "Cinderella," "The Princess and the Goblin," by George MacDonald and "Snow Queen." I'm going off of Charles Perrault's Cinderella, written in the 1800's in France, so I'm setting it in make-believe 1700's France to give the story time for it to be a fairy tale in Perrault's time. So far all the characters have French names - Charlotte, Brielle, Laisey. For the prince, I wanted to use the names from those base stories, which were all very similar, but I didn't know which to use.

In "Cinderella," he is just The Prince. In "The Princess and the Goblin," his name is Curdie, and in "Snow Queen" it is either Kay or Kai, depending on which version you read.

I went with Kai first, just because it sounded cool when my friend Sachiko was reading "Snow Queen" aloud to me, but I really wanted to incorporate Curdie into it, so I changed it to Kade, and it felt very right.

But what kind of French-type king and queen name their son Kade? I realized that Kade has to be a nickname, and he needed a real name. I decided to go with Kaderic, and Erin confirmed that idea when she looked up French royalty and found a bunch of Frederics. I don't know if he's really going to be Prince Kaderic the third. I'm still trying to figure out how important his family story is to the history of my world and where they fit in the whole thing and just how many Kaderics that have already been in his family line. We'll see.

How Kade Became Kade, Instead of Just "Good Guy Prince":

Charlotte and Kade are best friends, and early in the book they go on a morning adventure together. I was trying to figure out what they were actually doing, so I asked Alyssa, and she said, "Make him an inventor and have them try out one of his inventions." Brilliant! From that moment on, everything about Kade fell into place. His motivations, his interactions with his family and Charlotte's family, and even his interactions with the people of his kingdom - it was all suddenly clear.

So Kade is an inventor. I looked it up, and they had clocks and clockwork gadgets and all sorts of inventions in the 1700's, so the believability is good. He is basically the 1700's version of "I've got an app for that."

Oh, you need your harp tuned? I've got a gadget for that.

You need a powered hair dryer? I've got a gadget for that.

He doesn't actually say, "I've got a gadget for that," though. Sorry. And he gets help from the story's source of magic to power his inventions.

Here's the picture that screamed to me, "This is Kade!" when I found it. I realize it has nothing to do with 18th century anything. It's just a steampunk guy. But it is kade.

I just looked it up, and the title of this picture actually is, "Steampunk Guy." By AdLovett

Remove the eye goggle, take away the gun (although he should totally make a gun at some point), stick him in a waistcoat covering his gadget belt, and you'll get 18th Century Steampunk Kade. Here's some clothing options to help: