Posted by Adam Quinan on February 15, 2002 at 18:03:42 from 192.75.48.2:
In Reply to: why is Peter Duck "made up"? posted by tasha on February 15, 2002 at 16:22:26:
In Swallowdale, there is an explanation of Peter Duck's origin which says that he was made up on a winter holiday in East Anglia by the Swallows and Amazons with Captain Flint. In fact Peter Duck was started before Swallowdale but SD was finished and published first.
In one of the books about AR, the author (perhaps Christina Hardyment?) includes an unused chapter from an early draft of Peter Duck which is about how the Swallows and Amazons came to make up the story. It is written a bit like the way they made up a short story about how they came to be on Wild Cat Island in the storm at the end of S&A with various of the children putting in extra bits or correcting what one of the others had said.
At some stage AR must have decided not to have the introduction and just went straight into the story.