The Story Behind The Scholars of Elandria
When people ask me where I get my story inspiration from, I usually quip, “insomnia and anxiety.”
And I mean…that’s not wrong. Authors hate being asked that question. The truth is, we don’t always know. Our stories might appear as random ideas or from a hundred different sources.
There’s a quote I love from Orson Scott Card (though I’m not a fan of who he is as a person):
“Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don’t see any of them.”
And when we are collecting these little tidbits, they come out in the strangest ways in our writing. There’s no way to remember where they all come from.
So, where did Elandria and the Sage come from? Oi. Where do I start?
I build worlds as I lie awake at night. It calms my brain. The world of Elandria began as a beautiful, peaceful place for me to go. It’s based after the Scottish Highlands, which is one of the places I remember feeling absolute peace.
The Scholars began in frustration with the real world. I was tired, quite frankly, of idiots. Politicians were saying dumb shit every day. My boss was a huge bully. How could she critique me as a history teacher when she thought Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt were the same person?
With the rise of “fake news” and blatant denials of scientific and historic facts becoming the news, I wanted a world where SCHOLARS are valued. Where knowledge is valued. I wanted learning to be a priority.
Soon, that morphed into a ration-based magic system. I’m an atheist, and every fantasy book has a pantheon of gods behind its magic system. I wanted one based off the natural world. There are no gods in Elandria.
The Sage of Elandria, Amarice, is similar to many characters I’ve created over the years. I’m going to get vulnerable here for a second. I’ve got PTSD from childhood trauma and a slew of self-confidence issues. My female characters are always the type of woman I want to be. They have agency, and they are brave. They are confident in themselves—often arrogant—and well-respected.
Amarice is who I wish I could be.
But the first book is primarily told from Quinn’s point-of-view. I started writing it from Amarice’s POV, but it didn’t work. I wanted someone to see Amarice from an outside point-of-view. Over time, I fell in love with Quinn. His character growth is much more similar to my own.
I also deliberately keep Amarice a bit too perfect and mysterious in the first two books because I want her crash in The Sage’s War to be more impactful. Yes, in book 3, we finally get to see what’s going on in her head, and we delve into her emotional wound.
Originally, The Sage’s Consort was just a straight-up fantasy romance, and it was supposed to be a standalone. But as I started plotting it, I noticed…that wasn’t much of a plot. I’d be finished in ten thousand words.
The answer came from the NaNoWriMo forums. Someone had essentially the same problem. They had created their perfect fantasy world, so they had no real plot. Someone asked, “What would threaten your perfect world? What is at stake to make it not perfect?”
A lightbulb went off in my head. Elandria was too perfect. A magical utopia. So, what would threaten my world?
The rise of religious zealotry. Corrupt politicians. Racism and classism. Misogyny.
The plot came quickly after that, and then it turned into a trilogy. Oops!
By book 2, my original intent of having my intelligent Scholars as the ruling class had made me really examine my values. I saw how classist and ableist this mindset was. I ended up siding with “the bad guys” in their ideologies. Writing this series helped me grow as a person.
I could talk ad nauseam about everything that went into crafting this series. But this is its origin story. It’s not fancy. There’s no “lightning struck me, and I had the whole book planned” moment.
But I think the important thing here is that The Scholars of Elandria series took on a life of its own. It changed me. It pushed me in ways I never imagined. And I hope that it does the same to you.
~Krystal
