Why I Write YA Time Travel

The other day, I signed up for an historical fiction class. I’m an official auditor. (Yes, I loved school and can’t wait to take a new class.) This one has an optional hist-fic writing component. Yeah, I’m all over that.

In any case, it got me to thinking. If you’ve read this blog you know I write both YA time travel and hist-fic/lit fic for “adults,” and I got to thinking about why I love historical fiction. And why I love writing time travel fiction for young adults.

1. I love historical fiction. Sometimes the things that are old are completely new and cool. For example, cockentrice (which I actually have a recipe for and am totally willing to make if someone will bring me a pig and a large capon), poison rings, cuneiform, ziggurats, and cam cloth (oops, that’s from book three).

2. Juxtaposing the modern and the ancient. I love to put the ancient and the modern side-by-side. Because when you do, you discover that although there are so many differences, they still wanted much the same things we do.

3. Young adult fiction has a lot of action. I know writers sometimes complain that writing for young people is intense—your competition is video games, texting, and YouTube. But I love that. The challenge of capturing the intensity of modern life and translating that into another culture in a way that’s fresh to our culture’s jaded eyes.

4. I love writing from Mark’s perspective. Growing up, my brother was a lot younger than I was. He was eleven when I left for college. Now I have three sons (two are grown). And getting to peek into the heads of teenage guys has been wonderful. I think they’re grossly underestimated by a lot of people. I want to give them a chance to be noble, brave, and fallible.

5. Bottomline, I love the rush of blending sci-fi, hist-fic, and fantasy. I can’t wait to finish book three because book four is already waiting to be written. And it’s taking every bit of self-control not to tell you about both of them.

Here's a hint from book three.

Excavated by Jacques de Morgan. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. 

Screwing Up the Future

Ever since I started writing the Screwing Up Time series, I wanted to travel to the future. And I knew Mark would want to travel to the future, but I couldn’t just “joy ride” there without a reason. It wasn’t until I wrote “Screwing Up Mongolia” (which hopefully will be out soon—when file conversion and cover art are done) that travel to the future became a possibility.

Mark and Miranda’s trip to the future to find Nin is only a small part of the text—the majority of the story is set in two ancient civilizations—but writing about the future opened huge possibilities. It was so fun to play there, though I had to restrain myself since the SUT series is not sci-fi and the focus of the novels always has to be Mark and Miranda and their problems.

As I created the future, the one thing I kept in mind was that human history always seems to be a constant struggle through war, disease, and technology. (I know tech seems to be “modern,” but consider the huge impact catapults, cross bows, and battering rams had in their time.) So I kept war, disease, and tech in the back of my mind as I explored how the future might look and feel. And my obsessive love of reading Popular Mechanics and Chemical and Engineering News gave me ideas on the technology in our near-ish future.

So, in book three (which I’m back to working on after a 6 weeks hiatus due to computer problems) be on the lookout for a couple of scenes set in the future and technology like DNA ident keys, toadstool chemical grenades, and camo cloth. 

PS Does anyone have any idea why the font changes in the middle of the text? I've checked the HTML code and it doesn't show a font change. This is driving me crazy. Thanks.

Babylon's Ancient Waterslide

One of the things that intrigues me about time travel fiction is the dual viewpoint it provides. You can present an historical culture, artifact, or place and see it from an ancient perspective and a modern one.

For example, in Screwing Up Babylon, several scenes take place in the fabled Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Besides the tremendous fun of figuring out how the garden was build and watered, I was able to look at it through the eyes of everyday Babylonians, who’d see it as a gorgeous but private place. Because Nebuchadnezzar II built the Hanging Gardens for his wife Amytis who was homesick for Media, it’s unlikely that an everyday Babylonian ever got to visit it. So when I wrote the scenes in the Gardens, I brought a servant there, which allowed the reader to experience the servant’s stunned impressions of the jungle of plants and flowers in the middle of an oasis in the desert. But I could also share with the reader the Garden’s impact on Henry with his modern sensibilities. He realizes that ancient technology was every bit as impressive as his own time. Yet, everything has its cost. And Henry sees the demands of the Gardens—it wouldn’t exist without the slaves turning the Archimedean Screw that waters the Gardens.

But Henry’s experience of the Gardens as an interesting artifact or technological achievement isn’t the end. He brings to the Gardens his modern experiences. So later when he and Miranda need to escape, Henry realizes that the man-made river, which waters the Gardens, is pretty much a functional ancient waterslide.  And then, I got to write one of the most crazy action scenes I’ve ever written.

The waterslide escape allowed me to show the fun side of time travel’s duality, which is its genius. We visit history without romanticizing it or feeling superior to it. And we realize that although cultures may change, people—both for good and evil—stay the same.

A 16th-century hand-colored engraving of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon by Dutch artist Maarten van Heemskerck, with the Tower of Babel in the background.

The Next Big Thing--Week 15

The Next Big Thing is a chance for authors around the world to tell you what they're working on--their next novel. The author answers several questions about their next novel and tagged other authors. So I was very excited when Melissa Pearl, author of The Time Spirit Trilogy and Betwixt (released Nov. 5), tagged me. 

What is the working title of your book?

Screwing Up Babylon.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

When I begin a novel, the inciting incident is usually a mental image with tremendous energy. With this novel, I saw a young woman in a red dress standing on a castle turret. Then, she faded away. At first I thought she was a ghost. But when I started writing the novel, I realized she was a time traveler.

What genre does your book fall under?

Screwing Up Babylon is the second in a series of time travel YA novels. It’s a combination of action/adventure, comedy, and a little romance.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

I’m actually faceblind, so I don’t think of my characters as particular actors. And I don’t cut out photos from magazines like many authors do. So to answer this question, I viewed lots of web photos of actors and actresses, and I realized that my characters weren’t as gorgeous as actors and actresses usually are. But if I had to pick actors, I’d say that Henry/Mark looks most like Tyler Posey while Miranda looks like AnnaSophia Robb. Kate looks like Jennifer Connelly. And Granddad looks like an older Alan Rickman. Finally, Peter is a taller, white-haired version of John Malkovich.

                                    

 Jennifer Connelly as Kate                            Tyler Posey as Mark                      AnnaSophia Robb

                                                                                                                            as Miranda

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book? 

When Mark discovers that his girlfriend Miranda has been kidnapped and given as a concubine to the king of Babylon, Mark does whatever it takes to rescue her.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

It will be self-published and released in October.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

The first book took a year. The second book took about 8 months.

Who or What inspired you to write this book? 

The mental image of Miranda wearing a red gown and standing on castle turret at night.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

The first book in the series, Screwing Up Time, was a quarterfinalist in the 2012 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.

Here are some wonderful writers whose work I want to share with you. They are contributors to the Winter Wonders anthology that will be published in early December 2012. (I'll have a Screwing Up Time short story in that anthology.)

Here are links to other authors who will be participating next week. These writers also will have short stories in the upcoming anthology Winter Wonders. Check out their blogs and their books!

Heather McCorkle, author of To Ride a Puca, The Secret of Spruce Knoll, Channeler's Choice, and more.

Christine Fonseca, author of Lacrimosa, Dies Irae, Transend, and more.

Tina Moss, author of A Touch of Blackness and Code Black.

And if you want to know more about Winter Wonders, click here.