a lot of moving parts to the D’nvannae Brotherhood but eventually I decided to come at it from the angle of what would someone like Twilka do after surviving the worst interstellar disaster in centuries? For a reference point I asked myself what did people do after surviving the Titanic’s sinking? Researching that was fun (I’m a huge Titanic buff) and gave me the ideas I needed to spin the story, Star Survivors.
I also found a way to meaningfully incorporate Nick and Mara from the first novel as supporting cast here.
fascinates me and I’ve had bits and pieces of his story on scraps of paper for a long time but it needs more thought before I can write it. So I was happy to have a good reason to bring him into ‘reality’ in this novel, using the backstory I already know about him.
Alpha and Mateer the first enforcer and then Jadrian, a senior soldier, popped into my head one morning with a full-fledged story and I had to write it. When a book shows up in your mind complete and ready to roll, you should never look that gift horse in the mouth – you should write! Which I did. But that meant I’d kind of short circuited Timtur the healer and his turn to shine. By the time of the events in Jadrian he was already mated and settled down. Fortunately I did figure out a way later to go back and write Timtur’s story and then a second novella about him and Megan, his human mate.
This article was originally posted on SFF Seven