No, I’m not going to start singing from the movie Aladdin.

I’ve come back around to a story that involves building an entirely different world. It didn’t really hit me until recently, but before my latest project, I hadn’t built a full world since the Dark Elves. The Leashed world is pretty much modern day with a few changes so that doesn’t count. Heaven Sent is based on the real world, so that doesn’t count.

For the elves, I had to come up with an entirely different way that things worked. There was magic and a medieval sort of setting not to mention a race of elves that lived underground and never saw the sun. So that took some adjustment, to say the least. But it turned out okay.

Now I’m dealing in another fantasy world. This one’s closer to steampunk. I won’t claim to be a huge follower of steampunk so it’s certainly my own version of things. There is technology but it’s more circa the 1800s. Modes of transportation are mainly trains and horses, although I think there may be some rudimentary automobiles. There is magic. One of my main characters is a divinely blessed judge. When in his judgment trance, he can sense truth and lies. So he serves as judge and jury in one. Another key element to my story is a combination drug and spell called ‘hextasy’. When you take it, the sex is ramped up to amazing levels but you can only be satisfied by the one you most desire. Anyone else doesn’t qualify. It can kill you. Thus, one of the bases of my story.

It’s fun (thank god!) but it’s probably going to be long. I’m at 20K now and I might be a third of the way through it. I’m not sure. The story and the characters keep on changing on me. Not drastically–well, mostly–but enough to keep altering things. I got a whole new character in the mix who wasn’t supposed to be have but a bit part but… well… he reminds me of Luc from Heaven Sent. He all of a sudden presented himself and said “hey, didn’t you know that I…” <<sigh>> add to it that the cps have fallen for him and there you go.

So anyway, the new story is currently called Judgment but that’ll likely change pretty soon.  The cps pointed out that it was very reminiscent of a Heaven Sent title so it might get confusing. I might end up calling it “Sursein Judgment” or just “Sursein” after the god that blessed the judge character mentioned above. We’ll see.