As I continue to write my next book, I’ve thought a lot about what brings the characters to life. I find that stories where the characters struggle with each other or have entirely different desires are the stories where I remember the characters the most. In some stories, the main characters hate each other, but have to find ways to work through it. In other stories, they may not work through it. If they don’t hate each other, they might just be different enough to make working together difficult.
When things get tough, however, they must figure out how to work together. It’s those differences in the characters that make the stories interesting and sometimes, unpredictable. But not all of the characters’ oddities are big things. Maybe they have an odd way of speaking, or a different reaction when they are nervous, or their perceptions of others are skewed. All of these things can help bring a story to life, if handled well.
It mirrors life and the interactions with people each day. Everyone has their own quirks, perceptions, and desires. In order to work well together, doesn’t require we be the same. just like a good story, it requires figuring out how to work with those differences.
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My last book, Collected Lives, takes place near the end of the twenty-second century, with vacations and tourism to Earth by off-worlders controlled by major corporations. The largest corporation, Collected Lives, has several enemies. The story follows the events as four people from different portions of Collected Lives’ process are thrown into the middle of a larger problem.
My fantasy, A Map, a Mage, and a Sacrifice, is set in a world with limited technology, but where sacrifice is a necessary element to magical power. The greater the pain and suffering, the greater the magical power generated. The few mages in power use voluntary sacrifice of the citizens to generate power they use to protect and defend the empire. But their rule may be coming to a close.
Malignance, my third book in my time travel series that began with Resonance and Dissonance, is on Amazon as a kindle and a paperback. That was a fun series to write, and for now, it is completed. I have also placed all three books from that series into one volume titled The Machina of Time.
If you’re looking for a science fiction story, try my book The Promise of Dust, which takes place in a cloud city floating in the atmosphere of Venus. Or Progenitor’s Legacy: Deceit, which takes place many years in the future on a tidally locked world that orbits a red dwarf and has been reached by humanity in their search for the alien progenitors who seeded the galaxy with nano machines.
If a young adult science fiction is more to your liking, check out my series This New Earth, that starts with Demons of a Dead World and Secrets of a Dead World.
If you are looking for a young adult fantasy, check out my book The Threads Unbound.
DANIEL R. BURKHARD 