Do you like to know what went on behind the scenes of a story?
As a long time reader, I’ve always been curious about how an author came up with an idea, or “met” the characters, or why they chose to tell a story that way.
That’s why I make a point of doing a “why I wrote” post for each project. It is mostly for readers, but it also for me, so I can look back and remember what I was thinking and feeling at the time.
Echoes Beneath started as an invitation to join Pets in Space 10. The invite hit my inbox at the right moment. I was looking at my publication schedule for 2025 and feeling like I needed to add a project somewhere.
My schedule is typically a SciFi book, a Big Uneasy book, and something else. In the past that something else has been an anthology invite project, a short side story to a series, or a book or books I’ve been wanting to write (example of this would be finishing my Out of Time series).
And the other cool thing about the Pets in Space 10 invite was that I managed Pets in Space for five years, before handing it over to Carol Van Natta five years ago. It was exciting that Pets in Space was celebrating ten years and that I got to be part of that.
So, of course, I said YES.
And I knew my story would be part of my Project Enterprise universe. It’s a big universe and I have a lot of fun playing around in it. And part of the fun of playing in that universe is the sense of “no limits” that I get when I start plotting.
It’s outer space. It’s distant outer space. Who knows what the rules are in another galaxy?
And then I got the wild hair to have my hero be a geologist. I’ve been married to a geologist for over fifty years now, so I thought to myself, “How hard can it be to create a plot for a geologist?”
And, honesty moment, he keeps telling people I kill him in my books and I won’t let him be the hero (why would I let him get another girl? I mean seriously) so I thought it would be fun to sort of let him live and get the girl.
So I thought I was golden for this story. And then reality set in. I’d managed to live with a geologist for fifty years without actually learning much geology. Embarrassing. To be fair, he’s lived with me that long and has yet to write a novel…
Luckily for me, the hubs isn’t the only geologist in the family. Our Son is also a geologist and has the further credentials of being my space battle consultant. In other words, he’s got an imagination that lets him see past the actual science.
The hubs? He struggled with that when I asked him questions for my plot. But we managed it so now he can’t say I never gave him anything in a book. (Haha)
So this is the “why” behind Echoes Beneath, with a little of the “how” thrown in just because.
Do you have a favorite “behind the scenes” story? I’d love to hear about it!