Setting the Stage: World Building in Sci-Fi Romance

My special guest today is friend and fellow sci-fi fan, Kaye Manro. Forbidden Love is Kaye’s debut book, and it’s doing really well. If you’ve been following Kaye’s Forbidden Love tour, you’ll know she’s discussed some really interesting topics. This is her last tour stop, and she’s talking about world building. Over to Kaye…

Thank you for inviting me to be your guest today, Shelley!

World building is such an interesting subject, and I’d like to talk about just how I created my science fiction environment in my short erotic SFR Forbidden Love.

While world building is important in all genres of fiction, it is doubly true for science fiction. The process involves detailed back-story that may never end up on the written page!
In science fiction, as well as science fiction romance, (SFR) authors tend to spend a lot of time on world building. In the created worlds especially those involving space travel the process usually starts with designing the star and solar system in which the planet resides.
Here’s an example from my own world building experience. When I created the premise for the Forbidden series (book one is Forbidden Love, which recently released at Red Rose Publishing) I wanted an astounding species with touches of reptilian DNA. For that, I needed the proper environment for them to exist. Their planet needed to be atmospherically disruptive and wild, a little like Venus but able to sustain life. While in opposition, I wanted the species to be an ancient and peaceful but advanced culture, capable of traveling across galaxies by way of hyper-jumps through invented event horizons.

I had a vague idea of what I should call this world, and those red-orange colors kept popping into my mind. I created the name for the planet by combining words like orange and ascorbic because it reminded me of vitality and virility. I melded the two words and Asconage was born.

As I pondered, what Asconage might be like, visions of its solar system came to mind. Asconage is a desert-like world, and I needed to create an extremely arid environment. This planet, painted in russet, ginger, and mauve with an indigo-purple and hued red nighttime sky, orbits two suns, one near and one far. The binary system makes intense heat possible without causing a total planetary meltdown. This is the main reason why T’Kon’s species developed along the evolutionary path it did. I hope this gives you an idea of how everything ties together.

I wanted T’Kon’s race, though extremely technologically and physically advanced, to have archaic beliefs and laws governing the people that preserve the purity of their species. In Forbidden Love, that’s exactly why T’Kon has a hard time coping with his attraction to Maya, the heroine. She is from a human species on an Earth-like world known as Terrain. T’Kon is an explorer and scans Maya’s world for possible contact when his spacecraft crashes into the Terrain surface.

Truly, Forbidden Love came alive only after I had spent time developing the foundation for which I based this story and that is world building. Here is how the story actually unfolded–

Forbidden Love is a futuristic sci-fi erotic romance. Yes, there is space travel at FTL (faster than light). But there is also lots of sexy sensual exploring between the hero T’Kon and the heroine Maya, who hail from different galaxies and evolutionary paths. Rules on T’Kon’s planet forbid interspecies mating. But when he crashes his spacecraft on Maya’s world close to her desert home, what else is he to do but let this lovely alien tend his, umm, injuries?

Here is a little taste of Forbidden Love:

Something cool and clammy grazed her arm, causing a shiver. He sat on the edge of her exam table, his face no longer tinged with the pale blueness she observed earlier; rather, a deep russet color washed him.

Maya stared at the alien awake and alive, his lean muscles tensing as he stretched. Slanted sliver blue-flecked eyes peered at her holding a puzzled look, a haunting icy glare.

“I—I’m Dr. Maya Belle,” she cleared her throat. “I found you hurt in the desert near here so I brought you to my lab—my home.” She squinted and sucked in a mouthful of air. “Who are you? It’s a foregone conclusion you’re not from this world. Where do you come from?” She tilted her head. “Do you understand me?”

Suddenly his thoughts tumbled into hers.

“I am on a peaceful mission. My cloaked spacecraft malfunctioned and crashed into your planet’s surface. You do know where it is.” She sensed his uneasy pause and then, “You will take me there.” It sounded too much like a commanded to her.

Yeah right, she thought and immediately tried to recant the notion. But it was too late. His icy gaze narrowed on her. Clawed fingers grasped a firm hold around her wrist. He emphasized one word. “Now.”

Bio for Kaye

As a romance author, I lean toward the adventuresome in my writing. I love science fiction and all the enticing quantum theories surrounding it. Where characters rush through outer space at Faster than Light speed, or teleport into another time, and even slipstream into an alternate reality. I like creating love scenes too with strong heroes, and captivating heroines. It just seemed natural to combine all these elements together in my stories and write (SFR) Science Fiction Romance.

Links:
Forbidden Love Buy Page ~ Kaye’s Website ~ Kaye’s Blog ~