Where in Which World

The world of Amassia is based on what earth will be like in 250 million years.

Today, I want to look at the question of where we place our stories. From distant planets, real and imagined, to cities we've lived in, or at least know of. The where of a story-world helps tell the tale.

The idea of location was inspired by Helen Lowe's #YearOfWorldBuilding here on the Sup Blog, and Merrie Destefano's Tweet on the places her novels are set.

One thing is sure, LA, California is a popular place for us!

Rachel Marks'
Otherborn series.

In California alone, not only do we have Merrie's Fathom, Valiant and Lost Girls and Rachel Marks' Otherborn series.

Merrie Destefano's books on Amazon.

Then there's my Ava Sykes Novel, Blood and Water (In Vampires Gone Wild) and in part, all of the Quantum Enchantment and Quantum Encryption series. (Though plenty of that story takes place through the portal, in the land of Gaia.

And then, branching out, Amanda Arista has a new book set in Philadelphia, The Truth About Night, in the Merci Lanard Files

But this city of brotherly love is a little different. It has a magical underbelly, a place no one thinks could be responsible for the crime and drug problems... until Merci Lanard starts digging into her partner's death.

Set in the magical under-
belly of Philadelphia -
The Truth AboutNight

Amanda says, "Philly seemed like the perfect place to put it. I needed an old city, with deep history stretching back to the beginning of America. I needed a big city with a full infrastructure that people could get lost in. And I needed a place with enough crime that it would keep Merci busy her entire life. Just add werewolves!" Currently on Amazon

Helen Lowe's Thornspell is set in a magical kingdom 'not-too-far-away' from the Holy Roman

Thornspell set in the mid-Renaissance.

Empire of the mid-Renaissance era, ca. 1450 - 1520.

Helen says, "It's a setting that evolved to suit the original "creative flash", which envisaged the main character, Sigismund, in a small, European-style castle and evolved in step with the cultural, technological, and historical fabric of the kingdom. The Holy Roman Empire of the era was a diverse but loose confederation of states that stretched from Italy in the south to Denmark in the north, and from the Netherlands/France in the west to Lithuania/Poland in the east -- so offered considerable scope for a magical kingdom or two in the mix."

The Wall of Night Series set in the world of Haarth.

Her Wall of Night series is a different story.

"It is set within its own unique world of Haarth, within a universe that is not our own. Partly that is because "otherworld" settings are customary for epic fantasy, but also because it's just how I always envisaged the story, from its earliest beginnings that were very much influenced by the Norse 'twilight of the gods.'"

I agree with the 'otherworld' tradition of epic fantasy.

Writing as A. K. Wilder, The Bone Throwers series is set in the world of Amassia, a place where life has taken a slightly different evolutionary track. The planet is based on what earth will be like in 250 million years, a single continent surrounded by sea... in habitated by the Mar, the once upon a time human beings...

Book #1 of the Bone Throwers series set in the world of Amassia.

Where are your favorite stories placed? We'd love to hear about them in the comments.

* * *

Kim Falconer's New YA Fantasy Series is out May 5, 2020 - The Crown of Bones. (Writing under A.K. Wilder)

Also, check her urban fantasy  - The Blood in the Beginning - and Ava Sykes Novel and the SFF Quantum Enchantment Series. 

You can find Kim on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Or pop over and throw the bones on the AKWilder.com site.

Contact at kimfalconer.com

Building Fantasy Worlds

Image by Surreal Artist Jacek Yerka

Hi Everyone,

I chatted with the Sup authors last week about how they created their worlds. So revealing! Here's what they had to say:

"The idea of a dark or twilit world was inspired initially by the swift nightfalls of Singapore, when I lived there as a child." Helen Lowe

"I always try to weave as much fact into my fiction as I can ..." Rachel A. Marks

"I didn't have to build from scratch, just point out what was different about Para-Dallas." - Amanda Arista

"I like to explore how environment shapes my characters, politics, beliefs, and then I let my imagination go wild." Kim Falconer

And then, there's George R. R. Martin -  [who] "... enjoys being surprised by his own work. He thinks of himself as a “gardener”—he has a rough idea of where he’s going but improvises along the way. He sometimes fleshes out only as much of his imaginary world as he needs to make a workable setting for the story.

Tolkien was what Martin calls an “architect.” Tolkien created entire languages, mythologies, and histories for Middle-earth long before he wrote the novels set there. Martin told me that many of his fans assume that he is as meticulous a world-builder as Tolkien was.

They write to say, ‘I’m fascinated by the languages. I would like to do a study of High Valyrian'—an ancient tongue. ‘Could you send me a glossary and a dictionary and the syntax?’

I have to write back and say, ‘I’ve invented seven words of High Valyrian.''” —Laura Miller, in The New Yorker

Why is world-building so important? 

The environment our heroes and villains live in is a major character of every book. It may be silent, behinds the scenes, shaping outcomes without the reader noticing, but it must exist or there's nowhere to for the story to unfold. And it must become real.

Some authors say that readers will believe in anything as long as it’s plausible, but I think Orson Welles proved that wrong when he read The War of the Worlds, by H. G. Wells, over the radio, causing mass panic. No, Martians weren't landing.

Fantasy readers don’t expect a world to adhere to Natural Law, but they do want it to adhere to its own laws. Ursula Le Guin reinforces this saying inner coherence, not plausibility, holds the reader enthralled. 

So let's look at how some of the Sup authors build worlds, and make them plausible, to us.

The Dark Cycle Series

Rachel A. Marks - The Dark Cycle Series

"When thinking about how to begin building my story world, I always try to weave as much fact into my fiction as I can. In my mind, this creates a more vivid reality for my characters to populate. The best part of imagining Aidan's world when writing DARKNESS BRUTAL was being able to take the gritty reality of LA where I've grown up, play it up by overlaying urban legends I've been hearing since I was a kid, and then enrich the rules with supernatural mythos. And then make sure that the only one who can see this invisible world of demons, angels, and ghosts, is the main character, Aidan. So, part of the conflict the main character has in his journey is also a conflict in the world itself. 

"Seventeen-year-old Aidan can see demons, smell emotions, and feel the past in his skin, but will it be enough to save his little sister from the deal his mom made with a powerful demon all those years ago? "

The Wall of Night Series

Helen Lowe - The Wall of Night Series

"The Wall of Night world was with me for many years and the idea of a dark or twilit world was inspired initially by the swift nightfalls of Singapore, when I lived there as a child, then developed further when I spent a winter in Sweden with its "endless nights". 

The Norse myths with the "twilight of the gods" was also a considerable influence on the development of the world. As the story and the world expanded away from the Wall of Night to the Southern Realms of Haarth, influences from other landscapes played their part, from the khlongs of Bangkok influencing the River City of Ij, to the Nelson region of New Zealand shaping the physical character of the Duchy of Emer."

"The Wall of Night: fortresses of shadow and decay and an ancient war reigniting in a world where everyone could be an enemy and no-one is what they seem. Lost powers, undiscovered secrets, and a society divided by prejudice, suspicion, and fear -- and Malian, heir to the warrior House of Night and a promise that has endured down centuries: that she will not stand alone." - Good Reads: Daughter of Blood

Diaries of an Urban Panther

Amanda Arista - Urban Panther Series

"I live in Dallas and not too many books I had read captured the true urbanite quality of the city. It’s got everything that NY and Vegas with more cars and less smog. Drive 10 minutes and be in a vibrant down town or drive 30 minutes and be out in open land with cows. So I started there with my world-building, and just smoothed a layer of paranormal over the top of that. 

I was looking at the normal weird stuff and explaining it with paranormal things, like graffiti is actually protection spells and sounds in a dark alley that are actually were-creatures. I didn't have to build from scratch, just point out what was different about Para-Dallas. So my main character Violet could ease into the magical along with the reader. She still got her coffee, I still got to write about magic and things that blow up."

When Violet Jordan becomes a midnight snack for a werepanther, his infectious bite invokes the first element of her destiny to become the leader of the Dallas Wanderers. But if push comes to claws, can Violet make a fatal strike against the men threatening her new family, her new home and her first boyfriend in ages?

The Ava Sykes Novel Series

Kim Falconer - The Ava Sykes Novel Series

"The Aftermath. What a mess. The initial repair efforts deserved a medal. Having relief funding in the trillions helped. Who couldn’t make things as good as new, with that kind of backing? But fifteen years later and the funding isn’t so generous. It dried up completely in Anaheim, for example. There’s nothing there anymore but capped fracking wells and an abandoned amusement park. Kinda sad. I’d heard Disney Land was amazing, back in the day. Earthquakes will do that to a place, if earthquake it really was. There were all kinds of conspiracy theories, and then, there's the sea . . ."

"Undergraduate by day, bouncer by night, Ava Sykes works hard to build her life in New LA, a city experiencing the Aftermath of a seismic disaster. Her prospects improve until she stumbles upon an evil no sane person would want to confront. Suddenly, her life, her city and everyone she cares about is in danger. Pushed to the edge, Ava taps a power she never knew she had . . . and uses it."

What are some of your favorite worlds in books, or films? Feel free to share them in the comments.
xxKim

Kim Falconer's latest release is out now - The Blood in the Beginning - and Ava Sykes Novel. Find this novel in a store near you.

You can also learn more about Kim at AvaSykes.com, the 11th House Blog, and on FaceBook and Twitter.  Or on GoodVibeAstrology.com

She posts here at the Supernatural Underground on the 16th of every month and runs Save the Day Writer's Community on Facebook. Check out her daily Astro-LOA Flash horoscopes on Facebook. 

The End of Chaos - When Can We Do It Again?

It's very strange to be a debut author after more than a decade of striving to get through that gateway. But it's especially strange if your debut is birthed as three books released in eighteen months. *gulp* I feel that I can now tell this tale, at long last, and maybe, through my own weakness, fellow writers out there can figure out how you'd do it better, or you amazing readers can see how the cheese is made. For now, I'm just glad I survived.

The truth is, there are enough ups and downs in merely creating/editing/proofing a first book to make the most sturdy soul blanch. Because as the edits begin you become acutely aware, as you comb your way through rewrites and plot spaghetti, that this is only going to be the beginning of a very foggy journey. There is a long way still to go. But in spite of your doubt, you trudge your way through the edit phase of Book One even as you begin the daunting task of attempting to create a sequel—though you've become fairly sure through the multiple rounds of edits on Book One that you're actually a talentless hack, a charlatan, who couldn't write copy for the back of a cereal box.

Needless to say, doubt and the fear of impending failure become your familiar bedfellows as you complete those edits, then tie up the over-sized manuscript for your "bridge book", all the while being terrified everything you've been working on is a flim-flamming cliche. Your dreams at night now consist of rooms full of people laughing and pointing at you in mockery. And in the waking hours (or the witching ones) you wander in a brain fog between your coffee pot and your writing desk, making interesting mosaics on your flooring from dribbled vices like wine or Milk Duds.

But still, at long last, you turn in the jumble of words called Book Two just as Book One releases out into the world.

Shockingly(!) not too many people trash your attempt at a debut. It's actually received with interest—if not fanfare—and you feel better. You think, Huh, maybe I can do this author thing. It hasn't killed me yet!

And then the edits for Book Two begin. Your editor also reminds you of that whole "Book Three" thing you should already be half way through. *blink, blink* Book Two begins to feel contrived and underdeveloped as you attempt to untangle it, and your panic bunnies start jumping through your subconscious again, this time with great clanging symbols of ineptitude.

But, yet again, you turn in the edits and somehow manage to patch together something resembling a trilogy finale. And just as Book Two flies out to readers, you feel yourself come back to reality with a weighty thud. Because in the midst of the fog, you've forgotten your children's names, lost the dog somewhere, and you're pretty sure you accidentally went to church in your pajamas several weeks in a row. Everyone who knew you BC (Before Contract) wonder if you're even still alive, but you are on a first name basis with every Starbucks barista in town. Still, you somehow have this wide-eyed amazement at finishing (of a sort) this vast task that felt insurmountable only a year prior.

You've turned in the over-written Book Three, and you are PUMPED to have this thing nearly in the bag!

*PHEW*

So, you work like a BOSS on those Book Three edits. You make those intelligible scenes and massive plot holes your b*tch. And then you smile in satisfaction as it all wraps up and is handed back in. You've finished edits for Book Three in record time, gotten your editor's high-fives for climbing Trilogy Mountain, set up all the marketing madness you can manage for the final release, and suddenly you sit back and look at your cat named Noodle and . . . and . . .

And a dark thought creeps in. What. Comes. Next? 

For eighteen straight months you've had your bones, brains, and soul pouring into this beast of a task, this epic arc of a story, and now, well, you need to figure out what's your insides gonna do now? Because who would you be if you weren't hunched over your keyboard with bagel and smear crusted in your hair?! You'd have to, like, be normal again. Uhk!

This, my friends, is what my debut journey felt like. True confessions: I was scared of my inability to do this task as my agent and I jumped into the unknown, and now I am feeling the heavy lack of it. Because there is an alluring adrenaline to impossible deadlines, and I am definitely an adrenaline junky. I'm a go-go-go creator when pushed. I'm also apparently a massive masochist because I cannot WAIT to do this all over again. And again.

And again.

So stay tuned for the next leg in this insane journey, hopefully it'll include another sarcastic main character and shadows lurking around every corner. ;)

_____________________

Rachel A. Marks is an award-winning author and professional artist, a SoCal girl, cancer survivor, a surfer and dirt-bike rider, chocolate lover and keeper of faerie secrets. She was voted: Most Likely to Survive the Zombie Apocalypse, but hopes she'll never have to test the theory. Her debut series The Dark Cycle, described as Dickens' Oliver Twist meets TV's Supernatural, begins with the Amazon Bestseller, DARKNESS BRUTAL.

Buy: The Dark Cycle
Her Website: Shadow of the Wood

The End of an Era

In coming to the end of writing my debut series, I assumed I'd feel so many amazing things. I'd be relieved, and thrilled, and I would at last feel like a real author. Because I'd done it. I'd actually done it; the thing I had no knowledge of how to do at the beginning of this, I'd kicked its butt, made all my deadlines, edited until I drew blood, and played out my vision in a majorly epic way. I'd completed the journey.

But . . .

That's not how I felt at all. As I turned in my copy edits for the final book in The Dark Cycle to my publisher, I mostly just felt . . . sad. A small hole opened up in my gut and it was more like I was now saying goodbye to a best friend than rejoicing in a job well done. A million doubts and questions clouded my head. Had I done everything to make the series stand out? Had I given my characters the finale they deserved? Will the readers be satisfied?

But most of all: what in the sam hill am I going to do without these kids in my life?

I had spent three years with a group of characters I'd grown to love and they'd become a part of my every day thought life, to the detriment of sleep and sanity many times. But now, their story is finished. And it's time to move on.

If I have learned anything through this crazy whirlwind that was producing these three books, it's that I may never feel like a real author, a character's story never really feels complete, and there's always another amazing story to be told right around the corner.

In the mean time, I'll focus on what's ahead of me and try not to feel ill equipped for the next leg of the journey. I'll take away from this adventure the realization that I've done it once and I should be able to do it again.

So, here it goes . . .

__________________________

Rachel A. Marks is an award-winning author and professional artist, a cancer survivor, a surfer and dirt-bike rider, chocolate lover and keeper of faerie secrets. She was voted: Most Likely to Survive the Zombie Apocalypse, but hopes she'll never have to test the theory. Her debut novel is DARKNESS BRUTAL, the 1st installment in The Dark Cycle (Skyscape). Book 2 was released February 2nd, 2016 and is titled, DARKNESS FAIR.

Her website: www.RachelAnneMarks.com

The Ghosts of Mugu Rock

Now that the second book in The Dark Cycle, DARKNESS FAIR, is out I get to talk about more of the research adventures I've had in creating the tale. I'm obviously in love with ghost stories and there are several of them related to the famous rock near the Naval Base at Point Mugu of Pacific Coast Highway where the finale for Darkness Fair takes place.

The tales begin with a story fit for faerie tales, where the legend of Princess Hueneme was born, a young Chumash girl who was the daughter of a great chief. Her beauty was well known and so, of course, many men fell in love with her. But she chose the young man who was already wanted by another woman. Needless to say, this angered the other girl and revenge was sought.

The rival went to a sorcerer to learn a spell in order to curse the couple. She became so talented at working magic that she was able to enchant the man to run away with her, and when Princess Hueneme followed, the evil girl made sure the curse would last. So, even though Hueneme took the man back with her to the village, she never regained his love. She soon became so distraught from the loss that she tossed herself off the cliffs of Mugu and turned to stone, becoming the rock we see in hundreds of car commercials today. Her horrified husband was at last free of the evil girl's spell, but once he learned of his wife's death he grew so hopeless that he followed his wife into the sea, his hair becoming the kelp that wraps around the stone made from the spirit of his wife.

Over the centuries more stories emerged, creating The Lady of Mugu Rock, who is the ghost of a poor native girl that was brutally murdered by a rich landowner. She has been seen many times wandering the area of the rock (and she is the ghost that makes an appearance in Darkness Fair). There have also been more suicides in the recent decades, as well as a plane crash which killed everyone onboard; 88 souls.

When you go to the spot today, you can only stand on either side of the rock as the initial highway from the 50's has been washed away by the tide (if you watch Mad, Mad, Mad World, you can see it whole). Now it's been fenced in and only rebels climb around to peek over the small cliffs. I won't say if I may have perhaps been naughty and pretended not to see the signs. ;)

____________________________________

Rachel A. Marks is an award-winning author and professional artist, a cancer survivor, a surfer and dirt-bike rider, chocolate lover and keeper of faerie secrets. She was voted: Most Likely to Survive the Zombie Apocalypse, but hopes she'll never have to test the theory. Her debut novel is DARKNESS BRUTAL, the 1st installment in The Dark Cycle (Skyscape). Book 2 was released February 2nd, 2016 and is titled, DARKNESS FAIR.

Her website: www.RachelAnneMarks.com