Hello! Many fans ask authors where they get their ideas. Treachery in Tymal is my first novel intended for adults—my previous book was for children. Like many authors, I wrote several other books that just didn’t work out. However, I’m still very new to writing.
I like the genres cozy mystery and science fiction, so I married the two together. There are other science fiction cozy mysteries that I used as my inspiration. The Vacuum of Space by Julia Huni is my current favorite. It’s about an IT worker who refers to her job as being a janitor. She lives in a space station and handles the computer maintenance of several processes that allow the station to operate properly. On a routine job, one of her robots encounters a dead body. Things take a sharp turn after that. In my previous life, I used to work as an engineer and found the main character very relatable.
My main character also has a job, a programmer, that should be familiar to readers. She struck out on her own and is creating a new business around this game. I used this game to bring in her love interest, who’ll also help her solve the murder mystery.
A second science fiction cozy mystery I love is Murder on Moon Trek by Diane Vallere. Here the main character is an alien, but she’s having very human experiences. My goal was to create a main character living in the future, with special powers, who is still identifiable to readers. I did this by creating a back story that could’ve happened to anyone. My main character has an older sister who’s the golden child that gets all of mom and dad’s attention. They mostly forget my main character throughout her years growing up.
The television series Star Trek inspired the genre of this book. The episode “The Empath,” inspired the big idea in the book about some humans having superpowers and what society looks like with this mix. I used Star Trek because it’s a long-time favorite. But, I didn’t directly use the Star Trek universe. Instead, I created a world where I defined how humans have changed, how the economy runs, what the general power structure is like, and so on.
Do you have more questions about where I get my ideas? Please ask me in the comments below.