To say that author David Scidmore is a deep thinker is putting it mildly. During the writing process for his second book, “Aylun,” he spent a lot of time building the cultures, people, and beliefs of the world in his story. The result: A tale with a lot to explore. Here’s a synopsis of the book:
Megan had always lived life on her own terms, but faced with an impossible prophecy that threatened everything she loved, her choices no longer seemed to be her own. Aylun’s world revolved around serving oracles and protecting prophecy, so his insights could be the key to explaining the impossible. Yet how could she force herself to work with the heartless tyrant who had so brutally abducted her?
Megan was always good at solving puzzles. For years, she used that aptitude in a physics lab as an assistant to her best friend, Jon. In the midst of a chaotic day, an accident thrusts them both into a terrifying alternate world. Almost at once, Aylun tears Megan from her best friend’s side.
Born and raised to be Shou, Aylun had always been as an agent of the enigmatic home of all prophecy, the Augury. His life had always been dedicated to serving as the invisible hand that carried out the will of Great Oracles, past and present. Still struggling with the death of his sister and friends, a mission gone wrong results in his expulsion from the only home he has ever known.
In search of answers, Megan and Aylun are compelled to undertake a mission into a place of unthinkable peril. As they struggle to find answers, Jon and his new friends, Dellia, Garris, and Kayleen, are drawn into a conflict with a dark and ancient menace that could obliterate everything and everyone they care about. As the puzzles deepen, the horrors multiply, and their situation grows more desperate, Megan’s best hope to save them all and return her and Jon to their home world lies with the very tyrant who abducted her, Aylun.
In this interview, David goes into the worldbuilding process, creating the strengths and flaws of the characters, and what happened when he put them on the page. We look at Megan, the main character and how she’s adapted into the role of a hero. David also gives us a look at how this book continues the story of the first one.
This sounds like an amazing story. What went into the worldbuilding?
Worldbuilding isn’t something that happens all at once, at least not for me. In fact, in some ways, it’s still ongoing. In the early stages of platting, I needed a reason for the world to need Jon (and now Megan.) Part of that was to have three distinct ancient cultures whose traditions and beliefs made it difficult to govern them under one set of laws. I used ancient Earth cultures as a starting point, but also, I wanted a more modern sensibility. So, I brought supernatural abilities into each culture and asked how that would make them evolve in ways different from Earth. From that, I wrote a brief history and described each of the three realms systems of government, beliefs, religion and philosophies.
That gave me a base, but a world has more than people in it. And because I didn’t know what future stories I might want to create, I needed a vast and turbulent world at a critical juncture in its history. In short, I wanted a world that could give rise to countless stories. In many ways, my vision of that world is still evolving. Perhaps more importantly, much of what I do know has yet to make it onto the page. I want to leave it a mystery to the heroes, one that will be teased out over time.
What goes into crafting your characters?
I love stories that unite people with conflicting values and beliefs and have them work together as a team. This is especially true where romance is involved. So, I started by thinking about the primary moral dilemma in the story. I tried to cast it as a question of conflicting values, then set each character somewhere on the spectrum of balancing those two conflicting values. Since the allies hold such disparate beliefs, I also needed something that would compel them to work together. So, I granted each some unique skill or insight that makes them indispensable to the group. That’s where the core of each character starts. From there, they needed weaknesses that would make things difficult for them and strengths that would allow them to persist through difficult times. Essentially, the needs of the story shaped the core of each character.
Despite all that planning and fussing that went into defining the characters, they only came to life and took on their own distinct personalities when I put them into the story and saw what they did. Most of what makes Megan Megan and Jon Jon comes from them and their unique actions and reactions to events as they unfold.
Tell me about Megan, where she came from, and how she handles herself as the hero of the story.
Because she’s been on her own from a relatively early age, Megan understands the harsh realities of the world and as a result can be quite serious-minded. At the same time, her way of handling a cruel world has often been to escape into partying and having fun, so she can be a bit frivolous and capricious. She’s fiercely determined to chart her own destiny but also confounded in doing so by the fact she cares deeply about those around her and works hard to protect the ones she loves. These forces are what guide her steps in this new and daunting world and trouble her the most in accepting the fate life has handed her.
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| David Scidmore |
Who are the new characters we meet in this book?
We meet both Megan and Aylun in the first book but don’t spend enough time to get to know them. Aylun doesn’t say more than a few lines, and aside from a handful of appearances in the first chapter, we have little idea what Megan is thinking or why she does what she does. The sole focus of the first half of the second book is Megan’s struggle and understanding her reasons for making the choices she did. We meet relatively few new characters in the second book, most of whom are part of the Augury since it’s Aylun’s home.
How does this story continue what we read in the first book?
I always wanted the series to be about more than one protagonist or even one couple. I want multiple characters whose stories readers can care about. So, from the very early stages of plotting Dellia my plan was to start the second book by telling Megan’s side of the story. I take Jon and Dellia, Gartis and Kayleen entirely out of the picture while we learn what happened to Megan and why. Aylun is a huge part of that. The mystery they confront in that first half of the story carries on in the second half where Megan and Aylun share the stage with Jon and Dellia. They work together to unravel what’s happening. While the second book is largely Megan’s story, Jon and Dellia’s role in the second half is massive, so we spend plenty of time with them to see how they grow and evolve both individually and as a couple.
Any long-term plans for the “Ever-Branching Tree” series?
Definitely. The third book is underway, and the first half goes back 15 years to follow Garris as he meets Prisha and all that went down back then. The second half will begin shortly after the end of the second book as Megan and Aylun make a discovery that threatens to repeat the disasters of the past. Beyond a third book, I’ll just take each book one at a time and try to make each as satisfying as possible on its own.
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