I also had this vague “Miners’ Union” that had been mentioned numerous times in the main series (I was up to Book 4 when I took a break to write this) but that I hadn’t fleshed out yet. One of the coolest ways to “world build” as an author is to set a story in an area you want to explore and build things as you go. If you write an adventure, you’re a lot more likely to remember the details than if you just scribble some notes in your story bible.
So, I had a princess, I had a knight/bodyguard, and I had a palace in an asteroid in the Miners’ Union. I was ready to go!
But what kind of princess and bodyguard would I write? If you’ve read much of my work, you know I can never write the traditional character type without adding a few quirks.
I’m not sure why, but I knew early on that Tristan was dyslexic and had a few self-confidence issues around that. I find the hunky studs a little boring to write about without some defining traits that inconvenience them. And for Nalini, she had to be someone who could conceivably need a bodyguard (so the warrior-woman type was out), but I wanted her to be strong in her own way and definitely competent in her area of expertise. She’s a little inspired by a friend who was a middle child in a huge family and became a commercial real-estate developer and built up her own business and thrived in what was a man’s world when she was getting started (and probably still is a man’s world!).
So, that’s where the characters and the story idea came from.
You may be wondering if Tristan ever gets that land in the Kingdom or if he’s ever welcomed back into the knighthood. Well, I’m absolutely horrible at letting characters go once they introduce themselves to me and appear in a story, so my plan is for him (and Nalini) to pop up in the main series, where they may be a part of fixing just a few issues in the Kingdom. Let’s face it: the Kingdom needs some help.
That’s it from me for now. I better sign off so I can start working on Book 5 in the main series.
Oh, and if you enjoyed Knight Protector and would like to see more stand-alone science-fiction romances set in this universe (FYI, I have more knights and more princesses around…), come on by Twitter or Facebook or Instagram to let me know.
If you have time, you can also leave a review—this encourages more people to check out the books and lets me know these smaller projects are appreciated. Thank you!
Knight Protector: a Star Kingdom novel Page 23