The following is an article from a six-part series that explores aspects of  creating the storyline for the End of an Age quadrilogy (yes, that’s a made-up word).

The four-part End of an Age series did not begin as a series and is actually two ideas that became combined.

The first idea was about a girl who possessed powers and also had to evade conspirators.  The characters quickly became intriguing to me, but the story had trouble getting traction.  It needed another element besides the premise.

The other idea was about a coronal mass ejection that destroyed the electrical grid and satellites powering technology.  Although there was plenty of survival and grit and uprising potential, it needed characters to drive the story forward.

It dawned on me one day that I had characters needing a situation and a situation needing characters.  When I put the two together, a story was born.

One problem I had with the character story involving Alexia and Reuben was where in their “adventures” to write the book.  Once they were placed in the CME scenario, it was obvious to begin on the first day of the disaster.  But the arc I had in mind covered several years.  It turned out that putting them in such an enormous event made telling the whole story a necessity.  A four-part series was born.

Another detail I had to make a decision on was how “contemporary” the time setting should be.  More on that consideration in the next article which addresses the exploration of When.