Questions which have been driving the development of the Icarus universe (A sci-fi writer's working process)
On Facebook, a friend of mine, MP asked: "I never remember you mentioning the Icarus project , was this something you developed after I left Colorado?"
Yes and no. Some of the stories have their roots in ideas that I had since high school, and others are completely new ideas that changed things I had planned to write for years.
In my head, Icarus is only a year and a month old at this point (March 2018). It is part of my re-branding and reset of my writing career, complete with a brand new pen-name. When we were going though my mother-in-law's house after she committed suicide, I found that she had kept a couple of pages I did of a "Star-Cops"-like universe a few years ago. It was one of those stories I started, but never finished because of how bad my bipolar got. So when I started to think about what I wanted to do with my reinvention of myself, the idea of doing a Star-Cops story was in the water--if only because more than one person who read the few pages I did wanted to see me complete the story.
Due to the extended break I took from writing to help support Khari after her mom's death, I had another year to think about my relaunch and what I wanted to write. One of the ideas was Axe Murderer of Titan, a title I dreamed up years ago. When thinking about it one night, an idea drifted though my head.
"A thousand people live and work in outer space. What are they willing to do to survive when the Earth suffers a global EMP, going dark, cutting off their supply line?"
Very rapidly, I ended up with a problem--getting a thousand people into space--something I just couldn't picture happening in the next century. But I also had a ton of story ideas coming out of the central idea. So I kept thinking about how it could happen.
One of my goals was to make the Icarus universe international space. ("Icarus" is my code-name for the global EMP which I still don't know the cause of.) Being a lazy writer, or maybe just a realistic one--the Icarus universe was originally planned to be hard science--one night I was thinking about how I am fairly sure that I can write about Americans in space, and maybe the British. To do international space, I was going to have to research other cultures. In a moment of laziness, I asked:
"Why can't I just give the Ancient Egyptians rockets and be done with it?"
My muse really liked that idea which lead to me wondering what the heck happened to reset Egyptian culture to its Ancient roots while also making me a major space power. Answering the question was very important because once I had the idea of giving Egyptians rockets, New Egyptians started to show everywhere in the Icarus universe.
The solution actually came about thanks to Axe Murderer of Titan, a title I came up with about a decade ago. (You know how it goes, sometimes a title is so good that you have to make the story happen.) At some point, the idea became about reality television and things producers are willing to do for ratings. But it came with lots of problems. Ironically, the solution came because me and Khari went to pick up a friend at the light-rail station. We were using Khari's phone to track where our friend was. And the idea of using a cell phone to track people fitted into the tech level of Icarus. Naturally, there was a question. . .
"What if Wolfgang Katz has an implant?" which opened the door to fixing a lot of my plot problems with Titan. Basically, I decided to make it a really good device with lots of abilities. At this point, the various ideas all met and blended together--the result is that the New Egyptian Empire was the pioneers of astro-implants and Star Trek-like force fields.
So that is how the ideas have been developing over the last year. I find it all very exciting.
Yes and no. Some of the stories have their roots in ideas that I had since high school, and others are completely new ideas that changed things I had planned to write for years.
In my head, Icarus is only a year and a month old at this point (March 2018). It is part of my re-branding and reset of my writing career, complete with a brand new pen-name. When we were going though my mother-in-law's house after she committed suicide, I found that she had kept a couple of pages I did of a "Star-Cops"-like universe a few years ago. It was one of those stories I started, but never finished because of how bad my bipolar got. So when I started to think about what I wanted to do with my reinvention of myself, the idea of doing a Star-Cops story was in the water--if only because more than one person who read the few pages I did wanted to see me complete the story.
Due to the extended break I took from writing to help support Khari after her mom's death, I had another year to think about my relaunch and what I wanted to write. One of the ideas was Axe Murderer of Titan, a title I dreamed up years ago. When thinking about it one night, an idea drifted though my head.
"A thousand people live and work in outer space. What are they willing to do to survive when the Earth suffers a global EMP, going dark, cutting off their supply line?"
Very rapidly, I ended up with a problem--getting a thousand people into space--something I just couldn't picture happening in the next century. But I also had a ton of story ideas coming out of the central idea. So I kept thinking about how it could happen.
One of my goals was to make the Icarus universe international space. ("Icarus" is my code-name for the global EMP which I still don't know the cause of.) Being a lazy writer, or maybe just a realistic one--the Icarus universe was originally planned to be hard science--one night I was thinking about how I am fairly sure that I can write about Americans in space, and maybe the British. To do international space, I was going to have to research other cultures. In a moment of laziness, I asked:
"Why can't I just give the Ancient Egyptians rockets and be done with it?"
My muse really liked that idea which lead to me wondering what the heck happened to reset Egyptian culture to its Ancient roots while also making me a major space power. Answering the question was very important because once I had the idea of giving Egyptians rockets, New Egyptians started to show everywhere in the Icarus universe.
The solution actually came about thanks to Axe Murderer of Titan, a title I came up with about a decade ago. (You know how it goes, sometimes a title is so good that you have to make the story happen.) At some point, the idea became about reality television and things producers are willing to do for ratings. But it came with lots of problems. Ironically, the solution came because me and Khari went to pick up a friend at the light-rail station. We were using Khari's phone to track where our friend was. And the idea of using a cell phone to track people fitted into the tech level of Icarus. Naturally, there was a question. . .
"What if Wolfgang Katz has an implant?" which opened the door to fixing a lot of my plot problems with Titan. Basically, I decided to make it a really good device with lots of abilities. At this point, the various ideas all met and blended together--the result is that the New Egyptian Empire was the pioneers of astro-implants and Star Trek-like force fields.
So that is how the ideas have been developing over the last year. I find it all very exciting.
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| It may have started out as Star-Cops fan-fic, but it has turned in so much more. |
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