Thursday Thirteen #2 - Starcaster

Thirteen Reasons Why I Wrote Starcaster When my daughter was a toddler, one of the baby words she came out with sounded something like "star-cas-ter". I looked at her and said "What a wonderful idea!" Within 24 hours, I had worked out all the rules of starcasting, and I've only made a few refinements since. I named my protagonist after my daughter because it was her idea. I wanted to write about spies. I wanted to set the story in a time period that is unusual for fantasy. I love Jane Austen, so I thought, why not set it in a similar timeframe to her novels? (Of course, Naomi Novik has written her series in the same timeframe, but I don't think her books have the same mood as Starcaster.) Then I thought, why not make it a blend of Jane Austen and James Bond? Empire-waist dresses and revolvers! What a combination! Then I thought, why not bring communists into the mix? After all, when I think spies, I have a rather nostalgic sense of longing for the good old days of Reagan vs. The Evil Empire. I know, that's an absolutely insane thing to be nostalgic for, but there it is. I needed a covert subversive enemy group and communists seemed to be the perfect fit. Besides, I've never encountered communists in fantasy before! I wanted to draw on my military background and blend it with whimsical practicality. Therefore, we have an odd combination of apron-wearing spies with dog tags, with revolver hidden under said apron. Oh, and did I mention that I wanted it to have revolvers? The old-fashioned kind. With loose gunpowder, a ball and a big bang. I wanted to write about an innocuous-looking female that everyone underestimates -- to their later chagrin. I wanted to have a great blurb ahead-of-time, that fired me up to write the novel. My blurb about Starcaster have always gotten me great feedback. I wanted to write one of those mysteries where you never quite know which guy the girl is going to go for. I wanted to write about a guy that you grew to love -- someone who doesn't seem very appealing at first. I wanted something bad to happen to my character, something that would change her looks forever. So I had the villain break her nose. (Don't worry. It gets fixed. Sort of.) As you probably guessed, I wanted to write something fun!

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