Magic Thursday: Building That World

with Imogene Nix

 

As a writer of SFR (Science Fiction Romance) and PNR (Paranormal Romance) I get asked how do I come up with my fantasy and outer planetary worlds? Well, according to my mother it isn’t from her!  (She still tells me she doesn’t have any clue where that came from!)

The first and easiest answer I could give would be... It’s all there in my mind.  But that’s an easy answer which doesn’t really give a reader any insight into the way my brain works when creating my scenes and worlds.

So, if I muddle through the mess of my mind (or more accurately described as a quagmire), perhaps I can explain it.  As a child I had what would be considered a fertile imagination. <g>  One which I fed with the masses of books I devoured including the works of Trixie Belden, followed for a period by Barbara Cartland and so on.  I was able to weave infinite fantasies in my head because we all know that’s an interesting place to be.  You know those long annoying car trips?  They weren’t annoying when you could imagine all sorts of things happening...  spinning fantasies while cloud dreaming.  Yep.  That’s me. Then I “grew up” and put aside those fantasies. Or so I thought...

In later years (or at least since I began writing) I have allowed my mind to return to those fertile fields.  To ask myself (figuratively) what would happen if...? And that is how the worlds of my mind are conceived.

Perhaps there’s a grain taken from the books I’ve read or even the Science Fiction Movies that rate in the top 10 for me, I honestly couldn’t say.  Last year I participated in a blog hop with the Science Fiction Romance Brigade, while I was working on my final Warriors of the Elector Novel (Starburst), where we were challenged to think of solstices, and theirobservances.  Now the thing was, I rarely had planet based scenes, so that was an issue for me.  But my brain found a way to finesse a single scene, something that gave an insight into the lives of these Ru’Edanians in their religious element. It was right there inside my mind the whole time. (I just didn’t know it beforehand!)

Before that, while I knew on one level that the Ru’Edanian had a rich culture and that their homeworlds were mainly agrarian, I couldn’t have described their religious beliefs, the way women are subservient and subjugated.  In my mind, I knew these facts.  Are they important?  Yes, they are because they tell me more about the people.  It gives me an insight into their psyche as a collective.   It also gave me the final clue to finish the series.

I also marry my science fiction with science fact when building my worlds. Quality Science fiction needs to have a basis in Science and I need that to create a habitable world.  Right?  So even when I wrote the scenes in Starfire with Jemma flying through the canyon, I had to know about rock formations, canyons and planetary evolution, even down to the various layers of atmosphere.

So the idea forms, goes on paper and then I flesh out the worlds with the help of research to make them believable.  

So...As a thank you for sitting through my meandering tale of world building... I’m going to give away a copy of Starburst in PDF format.   

To win, all you need to do is tell me what you’d like to see recreated in a science fiction landscape.

 

Starburst

Meredith Gentry is a woman with a mission.  To decode everything found on the Alpha Star Colony.  Maybe, if she’s lucky, she might finally get closer to the one man who makes her burn.

Chowd Sturat Sur Banden is different.   He’s always known that and that the differences have kept him apart from everyone else.  Until now.

At the end game, will these differences keep Meredith and Chowd apart for good?  Will his own unwanted heritage tear them asunder forever?  And will the crew of the Elector finally prevail over Crick Sur Banden?

The Warriors of the Elector’s cataclysmic conclusion has arrived.