Creating a New World in Ebooks

As I come to the finish line on me series of Ebooks the Doorknob Society Saga, I’ve been reflecting back on creating a new world. The series started off with a very simple idea, using something mundane and making it extraordinary. A way to fascinate my young daughter with an everyday object was something I thought was fun. It grew into so much more as the story expanded.

From Cape May to the Diesel Factories and the Dying Star Markets, the worlds (or should I say dimensions?) of the Doorknob Society are ever-expanding and growing. They have become in their own way another character in the books. The small amount of information that is conveyed in the books regarding the locations and histories of the Societies is minuscule in comparison to the amount I have written as background on each of those things.

I am one of those people who is obsessed with history and I couldn’t create a new world without knowing it as well as I possibly could. So as I wrote about the Diesel Factories I came up with the back story of how it was first created by the Impossible Engineers in the Middle Ages. It’s smoke stacks were originally forges used by the Engineers to create the devices needed by the other Societies. The advancements proceeded quickly with the streets fast turning into a highway for all the different groups to converge. I know street names and buildings that exist in that dimension that never found their way into the story.

But I couldn’t see myself doing it any other way. My characters have become friends and family that I care for as I Shepard them along their journey. So I need to know the locations and the back-stories of everything that I am working on.

I often get asked how I come up with my ideas, as I think most writers do. The truth is they come from all over the place it is just a matter of beating them down from the rough hew metal we find into something that resembles a story or character. For me characters are what drives everything forward they can make a story soar or sink all depending on their actions. When I began to fashion the story of the Doorknob Society I had a good idea of the characters I wanted to portray. But as I wrote the story and those characters came to life on the page. Edgar Magnus, was a sketch of a person when I first wrote about him, but as he appeared on the page and I used the back story of The Mapmakers Union. He became the wildly popular character he now is and was I feel always meant to be.

There is much more to the universe of the Doorknob Society Saga, more tales to tell, more characters to discover. Who knows maybe this won’t be the end after all.