In one sentence, my book is an inside look into the mind of a reluctant hero in an underwater world where a seemingly endless battle is raging.
She is forced to decide between honoring promises or forging a life she never knew she wanted. The central theme is the shift from naivety to maturity, with hefty doses of PTSD, good versus evil, and a romance thrown in for good measure.
(not my image)
The little mister’s is loosely based on his favorite TV show (Warehouse 13) and is centered on a character he invented who is trying to solve the mystery of a vanishing painting and ends up on a time traveling adventure.
(also not my image)
In a few weeks we’ll introduce you to our characters, but today I’d like to take you on a walk through the world building process for my story.
When I first got the idea for my story, it was centered on a future world where space travel was the norm, and instead of underwater installations, it was set on intergalactic planets. I decided to shrink the universe into a single underwater world after deciding that space travel stories were a dime a dozen.
The idea of Atlantis was a late addition, but I felt that it gave the book a familiar surface on which readers could hang their hats. With “Atlantian” in the title, and a deep water image on the cover (dreaming ahead, I know), the prospective reader would immediately understand that we are talking about a fantasy underwater world.
The background of an embattled people was part of the central theme of the book, a decades long war in which the protagonist had been involved since (I’m not going to tell you, because this character has a lot of secrets.) She joined the war as soon as she was old enough to board a subship. (See what I did? Like a starship, but underwater. Do you like it? Would another word be better?)
As far as the details of the underwater world and it’s political state, the battle is between “The Consortium” (a collection of underwater states) and “The Allies.” The protagonist works on a Consortium warship. As the book progresses, the reader will gradually learn more about what drew the main character, as well as some of the secondary characters, into the battle.
Here is an excerpt from the book describing a small piece of the main character’s world.
As I stepped into the Bubble, I looked around. The view from here was comforting; the crew seated or standing at their stations, the captain greeting me with his warm smile, and a 300˚ view of inky ocean all around, punctuated by the roving beams of the Intrepid. One of my favorite things about the Bubble was the mesmerizing quality of the water gliding past. The ripples and rivulets formed on the surface of the ship were nothing like looking out of a stationary installation port, where everything seemed frozen and lifeless. Down on the floor, very little sea life existed. But here, some daring fish, often with sources of illumination built in, would fly past, likely as curious about our ship as I was about them.
Did I mention that the little mister is on the autism spectrum, and writing has been his nemesis for years? After his teacher challenged him to set a writing goal and complete it for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), he pulled out all the stops and created something to be proud of.
The little mister’s original world is modern times in South Dakota, pre-COVID, but takes place in multiple time periods once the action starts. He visits prehistoric times, the future, ten years ago, a different future, medieval times, 9 years ago, the old west, a tiny bit in the future, and returns to the original world. Here is an excerpt describing one of his settings.
When we stopped, we were in a huge room with hundreds of beds. The room smelled of feet and there were no fans. I noticed that the walls had glowing icy looking tubes. The beds had people with wires plugged into their arms on them.
I realize that these descriptions are vague (in large part because I don’t want to spoil.) There is so much more to explain and understand about the setting of my book. I would like to know what questions you have about the setting and we can explore more in the next newsletter. Questions about the little mister’s world are welcome as well!
You can send me questions via email (authorannespringer@gmail.com), Facebook (Anne Springer, author), or Twitter if you follow me there, or you can respond in the comments section of my post on Substack. (I’m pretty sure there should be a link in the email if you are reading this via email. Still new to this newsletter thing.)