Tag Archives: books

Where to find real science to build your sci-fi worlds

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If you’ve read Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary (and if you haven’t, please drop everything and go read it right now), you know the absolute thrill of believable science fiction. Watching Ryland Grace use actual physics, chemistry, and biology to solve interstellar problems didn’t just make for a gripping story. It made the impossible feel entirely real.

Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary

When your technology is rooted in reality, it anchors the reader. It builds a bridge of suspension of disbelief so strong that when you do introduce the aliens or the faster-than-light travel, the reader follows you without a second thought.

So where do you find inspiration that feels like the future but is actually happening today? Here are my favorite goldmines for real-world sci-fi world-building:

1. DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency)

Darpa

If you want to know what the military tech of the future looks like, look no further than DARPA’s current projects. This is the US agency responsible for developing emerging technologies for the military. They are the ones funding research into mind-controlled prosthetics, self-healing materials, and autonomous swarm drones. Browsing their news feed feels like reading the prologue to a cyberpunk thriller. If you need a piece of tech that sounds crazy but is actively being prototyped, this is your starting line.

2. arXiv.org

arXiv

Pronounced “archive,” arXiv is an open-access repository of electronic preprints. It is essentially where physicists, astronomers, and computer scientists drop their newest and most mind-bending theories before they hit mainstream journals. Want to read a brand-new paper on theoretical warp drives, quantum entanglement, or the atmospheric composition of a newly discovered exoplanet? It is all here. The papers can be incredibly dense, but skimming the abstracts is a phenomenal way to spark a “what if?” scenario for your next novel.

3. MIT Technology Review

MIT Technology Review

While arXiv gives you the raw data, MIT Technology Review offers beautifully curated journalism about the tech that is actively reshaping our world. They cover everything from CRISPR gene editing to artificial intelligence breakthroughs. It is perfect for understanding not just how the technology works, but how it will impact human society, ethics, and daily life. That intersection is exactly where the conflict in a good YA sci-fi novel lives.

4. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) News

NASA JPL Jet Propulsion Laboratory

For the space opera writers out there, JPL is a must. These are the folks building the rovers and the deep-space probes. Following their updates gives you a realistic look at the logistics of space travel. You can learn about the delays in communication, radiation shielding, and the incredible engineering required just to land a hunk of metal on another rock. It is the perfect place to figure out how your intrepid young heroes are actually going to keep their ship flying when the engine goes out.

Building a universe takes a lot of imagination, but a little bit of reality makes the stars shine just a bit brighter. What about you? Writers, where do you go to find your world-building inspiration? Readers, what is your favorite piece of sci-fi tech that you wish existed in real life? Let me know in the comments!

How the world building in Scythe changed the way I write

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I’ve been in a total book hangover since turning the last page of the Scythe trilogy. You know that feeling where the real world looks a little bit blurry because you’re still half-submerged in the one you just left? That was me for three days straight. As I read, I found myself constantly reaching for my highlighter, not just because the plot was a total roller coaster, but because Neal Shusterman managed to make a “perfect” future feel so hauntingly inevitable.

It’s exactly the kind of balance I’m constantly chasing in my own novels: that sweet spot where big, “what-if” science meets the messy, complicated hearts of the people living through it. I’ve been noodling on why this world felt so real to me, and since I always process things better once I get them down on the page, I wanted to share the world-building shifts I’m making in my own work after spending time in the Scythehood.

Give your “perfect” world a price tag

In my own drafts, I’m always tempted to make things go smoothly for my characters once they find a portal or a piece of tech. Scythe reminded me that the most interesting stories happen when the science is flawless but the people are still a mess. Shusterman gives humanity immortality, but then shows us the weird, psychological rot that sets in when no one is afraid of the end anymore.

If I’m building a utopia, I need to find the “emotional tax” my characters have to pay to live there. If there’s no friction, there’s no story.

Let the world be a silent witness

The “Thunderhead” (the AI that runs the world) is probably the most fascinating character I’ve encountered in years. It’s a literal god-machine, but its choice to stay out of the Scythes’ business creates more tension than a killer robot ever could. It made me rethink how I handle power in my own books.

Sometimes the most effective element in your world is the one that refuses to help. It forces your characters to grow (or fail) on their own terms, which is way more satisfying to read.

Keep a foot in the real world

Even in a future where you can “reset” your age and live forever, people in this book still care about the color of their robes and the status of their journals. It’s a great reminder that world-building isn’t just about the big ideas, it’s about the small, human vanities.

No matter how far into the future or a fantasy realm I go, I need to bring a piece of home with me. Whether it’s a character’s favorite mug or a specific tradition, those tiny details are what make a world feel like a place I’ve actually visited.

I’m already looking at my current work-in-progress with fresh eyes. I’m asking myself: Where is the human cost? What are the rules my characters can’t break? If you’re a reader, these are the details that make you stay up until 2:00 AM. If you’re a writer, these are the tools that help you build a world worth staying up for.

How to write smart comedy for middle grade readers

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Have you ever noticed what happens when adults try to write funny books for 10-to-12-year-olds? It’s like they suffer sudden, total amnesia about what it’s actually like to be in middle school.

Because I’m raising my own middle-grade (MG) humans here in California, I spend a ridiculous amount of time thinking about my audience. When I write YA sci-fi and fantasy, the instinct is to push the boundaries with massive stakes and sharp banter. But when writing MG comedy, too many adults default to sanitizing the world, dumbing down the jokes, and delivering a heavy-handed moral.

Kids hate that. (Me too, as it happens.)

Middle grade readers are incredibly smart, deeply empathetic, and they can spot condescension from a mile away. Right now, I’m elbow-deep in drafting my newest MG comedy, currently titled Super Santa. Working on this delightfully wild premise has been a daily reminder of the golden rule of kidlit: You have to write up to your audience, never down.

If you’re tackling the MG fiction space, here’s how to keep your readers laughing without ever patting them on the head.

1. Let Diverse Characters Just Exist

Kids today are growing up in a complex world, and they understand it way better than adults give them credit for. They don’t need a lecture to explain reality.

For example, in Super Santa, my protagonist has a nonbinary sidekick. I didn’t write a heavy-handed, four-page monologue explaining their pronouns. Why? Because 11-year-olds don’t need me to. They just accept that their friend uses they/them, and then they immediately get back to the actual problem at hand: saving the North Pole. Pandering is the absolute enemy of comedic pacing. Trust that your readers understand the world, and let your diverse characters just exist and be funny.

2. Never Explain the Punchline

There’s a reason kids absolutely inhale series like Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Dog Man. It’s not just because they’re hilarious—it’s because the authors trust their readers to understand irony, visual gags, and the sheer absurdity of growing up.

A fatal mistake adults make is setting up a brilliant joke and then over-explaining the punchline just to make sure the kid “got it.” Kids are masters of sarcasm. Give them dialogue that crackles and let the joke stand on its own.

3. Treat the Absurd with Absolute Sincerity

The fastest way to ruin a comedic MG concept is for the author to wink at the camera to show that they know it’s silly.

Whether your protagonist is dealing with super-powered Santa Claus powers, a sentient toilet, or an alien invasion in the cafeteria, the characters inside the book have to treat the situation as life-or-death reality. The humor comes from how seriously they take it, not from you mocking your own premise.

4. Acknowledge That Middle School is Terrifying

Comedy is usually just a coping mechanism for anxiety, and being in middle school is objectively terrifying. Your body is weird, your friendships are shifting, and the world feels huge.

When writing funny middle grade books, you don’t need to shield your readers from dark, messy emotions. Often the comedic magic is just a vehicle to explore very real feelings. Show them characters who use humor to mask how scared they are and then show those same kids finding the courage to save the day anyway.

Sidekicks with main character energy

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As a writer, there’s a secret, terrifying, and exhilarating thing that can happen while you’re drafting: a character you intended for a minor role walks into a scene and refuses to leave.

They show up with a fully-formed voice, a riveting backstory you never planned, and a perspective so compelling it threatens to derail your carefully crafted plot. They aren’t just supporting the protagonist anymore; they feel like the hero of a different, fascinating story that’s happening just off-page.

That’s what I call “Main Character Energy.” It’s more than just being a fan favorite. It’s the powerful sense that a character has their own complete, vibrant world spinning within the larger narrative. Here are three secondary characters who radiate that energy, making their books infinitely richer.

1. Inej Ghafa from Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

Kaz Brekker may be the mastermind, but Six of Crows is arguably Inej Ghafa’s story of reclamation. A girl of Suli heritage sold into indenture, her quest isn’t about money; it’s about buying back her own life and hunting the slavers who stole it. Her entire arc is a classic hero’s journey of confronting trauma and forging a new identity, happening in the shadow of a heist. You get the feeling that if the book followed only her, it would be just as compelling, if not more so. She is the moral center, and her quiet, deadly grace makes her the novel’s true gravitational pull.

2. Kenji Kishimoto from the Shatter Me series by Tahereh Mafi

Kenji isn’t just the comic relief; he’s the narrator of the story we wish we were reading sometimes. In a series defined by intense romance and angst, Kenji is the only one with enough perspective to see the utter absurdity of their situation, and he’s not afraid to say it. His Main Character Energy comes from the fact that he has a life, a history, and responsibilities—leading the soldiers of Sector 45—that exist completely outside of the main love triangle. He’s the protagonist of a gritty, found-family story about survival that just happens to intersect with Juliette’s epic romance.

3. Nico di Angelo from the Heroes of Olympus series by Rick Riordan

Nico’s power comes from the fact that his most important character development happens between books, in the shadows. We see the cheerful, myth-obsessed kid, and then we see the brooding, immensely powerful Son of Hades. His transformation is so profound that it forces us to imagine the harrowing solo journey he undertook. As a gay Italian demigod from the 1940s, he is a man out of time and out of place, everywhere he goes. He’s the protagonist of a dark, gothic tragedy who occasionally wanders into Percy Jackson’s sunnier adventure story, reminding us that the world is much bigger and scarier than we thought.

These are the characters who prove that a story’s magic doesn’t always come from the person on the cover. They remind us that every person on the street has a life as vivid and complex as our own.

One platform to rule them all, or life outside the Kindle Unlimited universe?

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If you’re an indie author, you’ve stood at this exact crossroads. It’s one of the biggest strategic decisions we have to make, right up there with choosing a cover or deciding a character’s fate. On one side, you have the bustling, high-traffic empire of Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited (KU). On the other, the vast, uncharted frontier of “going wide.”

As the captain of my own author career, I’ve piloted ships in both systems. My Throwback Series lives exclusively in the KU ecosystem, while the Conjurors Series was launched to explore the wide galaxy of platforms.

Now, with a new novel set to launch in just a couple of months, I’m standing at that crossroads again, looking at the star-charts and trying to decide which flight plan is right for this new adventure.

The Gravitational Pull of the KU Empire

There’s no denying the power of Kindle Unlimited. It’s a massive, concentrated system of readers—arguably the most voracious readers in the galaxy. For my sci-fi Throwback Series, choosing KU felt right. It allowed me to tap into a built-in audience that loves to binge-read a series, and the page-read payment model can be incredibly powerful.

Marketing feels simpler when you’re only pointing your lasers at one target. You can focus all your energy and ad spend on a single destination, which for a busy author (and parent!) is a huge advantage. For many authors, KU is their entire solar system, and they thrive there.

The Magic of the Uncharted Worlds

But then there’s the other path. The one that feels a little more like exploration.

When you go wide, you’re not just sending your book to other stores like Kobo or Apple; you’re opening it up to entirely new ways of being discovered. For instance, I’ve shared some of my work on Wattpad for free, not knowing what to expect. The result? Waking up to comments from readers in the Philippines, getting messages from someone in on the other side of the world who stayed up all night to finish a story. That global connection is an incredible feeling.

And then there’s the quiet magic of libraries. I’ve seen my books pop up in library systems in all over the country. It’s a thrill that page-read data just can’t replicate – especially when you meet fans from across the country who have read and loved my series.

That moment. That’s it. That’s the feeling.

It wasn’t a sale. It wasn’t a page-read. It was a connection. A kid found a portal to a new world I built, right there in her school library, and it meant something to her. That’s a powerful argument for making sure your work can be discovered anywhere and everywhere.

Charting the Course for the New Ship

So, here I stand, about two months out from launching a brand-new novel. Do I dock it at the bustling, predictable spaceport of KU, hoping to attract the massive crowd of subscribers there? Or do I fuel it up for a journey into the wide unknown, aiming for those library shelves and international readers, hoping to create more of those magical, real-world connections?

Honestly, I haven’t decided yet. Each path has its own quests and its own rewards.

But I’d love to turn this over to you. Whether you’re a reader or a fellow writer, what do you think? As a reader, where do you discover new books? As a writer, are you Team KU or Team Wide?

Let me know in the comments below.

Meet a few of the youngest stars of YA fantasy & sci-fi fiction writing

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Do you ever have a story in your head that feels so huge, so epic, that you think, “Who am I to write this?” It’s a feeling a lot of writers have, especially when they’re young. But some of the most groundbreaking, imaginative, and successful books in recent years were written by authors who weren’t much older than their target audience. They prove that you don’t need decades of life experience to build a new world from scratch. All you need is a powerful idea and the drive to see it through.

Let’s get inspired by a few of the youngest authors who took the YA science fiction and fantasy world by storm.

Christopher Paolini, author of Eragon

  • Breakout Age: Paolini started writing Eragon at just 15 years old. It was famously self-published before being picked up by a major publisher, when he was 19.
  • The Hit Book: Eragon, the first book in The Inheritance Cycle, became a global phenomenon. A classic farm-boy-finds-a-dragon-egg story, it was everything an epic fantasy fan could want.
  • What Made It Special: Eragon is a masterclass in ambition. Paolini wasn’t just writing a story; he was building a massive world with its own languages, history, and rules of magic. He proved that a teenager could not only write a novel, but could command the epic scale and intricate detail that the genre demands, inspiring a whole generation of young writers to dream bigger.

Veronica Roth, author of Divergent

  • Breakout Age: Roth famously wrote Divergent during her senior year of college. It was published when she was just 22 years old.
  • The Hit Book: Divergent kicked off a series that became a cornerstone of the YA dystopian boom. It tells the story of Tris Prior, who lives in a futuristic Chicago where society is divided into five factions based on human virtues.
  • What Made It Special: Divergent‘s genius lies in its powerful central metaphor. The faction system was a brilliant and instantly relatable way to explore the intense pressure teens feel to fit in and define their identity. It tapped directly into that universal high school question: “Where do I belong?” The psychological trials were a unique and thrilling way to explore character depth and courage.

Tomi Adeyemi, author of Children of Blood and Bone

  • Breakout Age: Adeyemi was 23 when her debut, Children of Blood and Bone, landed one of the biggest publishing deals in YA history.
  • The Hit Book: Children of Blood and Bone is a soaring epic fantasy that follows Zélie Adebola as she attempts to bring magic back to her oppressed people.
  • What Made It Special: This book was a cultural landmark. Adeyemi wove West African mythology and Yoruba spiritual traditions into a powerful, action-packed fantasy that felt both classic and revolutionary. It tackled deep themes of oppression, race, and identity with a fiery passion that resonated with millions of readers. Adeyemi showed the immense, world-changing power of telling stories that had been left off the fantasy map for far too long.

The next time you sit down to write and that little voice of doubt creeps in, just remember these authors. They didn’t wait for permission to build their worlds. Your age isn’t a barrier—it’s your superpower. You have a voice and a perspective that no one else has.

So go write that story. We’re all waiting to read it.

Beyond the pale elf: 5 fantasy recs with representation

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You know that feeling when you start a new video game and get to the character creation screen? All those sliders for hair, skills, and cool backstories? For the longest time, it felt like the character creator for fantasy novels had only one preset model available. You know the one: floppy hair, probably raised on a farm, comes with a +10 bonus in brooding, and has a mysterious destiny he knows nothing about.

And hey, I love that guy! But when that’s the only model available, a lot of us are left staring at the screen thinking, “Uh, none of these look like me.” You can’t find your reflection, and it’s hard to feel like the hero of the story when you can’t even see yourself on the screen.

This is why we talk about books as “mirrors and windows”—they give us a chance to see ourselves (a mirror) and to understand someone else’s world (a window). Thankfully, today’s authors are blowing the doors off the old character creator. They’re adding every possible option, background, and skill tree, finally making fantasy a world where everyone can be the hero.

If you’re looking for amazing adventures with fully expanded character-creation sliders, here are five books that are getting it right.

1. Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett

This cozy and brilliant adventure offers a mirror for anyone who’s ever felt more at home with books than with people. The protagonist, Emily Wilde, is a genius Cambridge scholar who is logical, driven, and—to put it mildly—socially awkward, and she is widely embraced by readers as a fantastic representation of neurodiversity. Her academic approach to studying dangerous fae is a hilarious and heartwarming window into a mind that works differently, proving that methodical rigor can be its own kind of magic.

2. Legend by Marie Lu

Some of the most important windows books can offer are into perspectives we might not otherwise understand. In the dystopian Republic, we follow June, a military prodigy from an elite family, and Day, a boy from the slums who is the nation’s most wanted criminal. By putting us in both of their heads, Legend becomes a masterclass in empathy, showing how two people on opposite sides of a societal war can both be heroes in their own stories.

3. Legendborn by Tracy Deonn

Screenshot

When sixteen-year-old Bree Matthews’s mother dies, she uncovers a secret magical society based on Arthurian legend and realizes her own family history holds a powerful magic of its own. Legendborn is a stunning mirror for Black girls who love fantasy, weaving Southern culture and the history of slavery into the very fabric of magic. It’s also a vital window for every other reader, powerfully reframing a classic legend to create something wholly new and deeply necessary.

4. The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune

This book is a warm hug for anyone who has ever felt like an outsider, and it’s a particularly powerful mirror for LGBTQ+ readers looking for gentle, hopeful fantasy. It follows a by-the-book caseworker, Linus Baker, as he investigates an orphanage of magical children and discovers the transformative power of found family. It’s a beautiful and tender story about choosing kindness over prejudice and finding where you truly belong..

5. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

This book is an absolute phenomenon, and one of its most powerful elements is its main character, Violet Sorrengail, who lives with a chronic illness that makes her body more fragile than others. In a brutal dragon-riding war college where weakness is a death sentence, Violet’s fight to not just survive but thrive is an incredible mirror for anyone living with a disability or chronic condition. It’s a fierce, powerful story about finding strength in resilience, not just in physical ability.

These books are more than just great stories; they are proof that the best fantasy reflects everyone. They create a world where more of us can see ourselves as the hero, ready for our own adventure.

What books have been powerful mirrors for you? I’d love to hear about the stories that made you feel truly seen in the comments below!