Meet The Authors Showcase Edition #1 (1 of 3)

A showcase with @aerys_the_mad, author of The immortal science

1 what inspired the idea of your story?

This is a story I originally wrote as an assignment for my creative writing class in undergrad my senior year. I have always been interested in imagining what the world could be like and how it could be better, and as such, was drawn to science fiction. For this story in particular, I wanted to build a world that was as close to a utopia as possible – a world where people could travel freely, have their essentials taken care of by a benevolent world government, live with dignity and be themselves (albeit there is still a bit of stigma against mental illness in this story but that is because this is still ultimately not a utopia, even if it is close) – but also needed to present a conflict that humanity would need to struggle against, which of course, in this case, was aliens (space is the final frontier, after all).

2 what is something you struggled constructing with your story?

I did originally struggle with creating a conflict for this story, and this was part of the reason why I decided to stigmatize mental illness in the way that I presented it in the story, as it gave the two leads, Cyrano and Esfir, something to have disagreements over, and thus, created a conflict. In a utopian society, if there are no problems, the only ones that can arise are either interpersonal due to difference of opinions on certain topics, or external ones – in this case, the potential of aliens coming to earth, and the question of whether they are a threat to humanity or not. The idea of simply having a peaceful race of aliens descend to earth and to have everything go happily as planned does not make for an interesting story, and in turn, does not engage readers in a way that is useful. In the story, the prospect of Cyrano being in some way connected to these aliens, whether it's due to her origins or something else (I've left this deliberately open for interpretation), along with the social mores around mental illness, was what provided the driving conflict in the story but this was something I only arrived at later after the struggle of building this futuristic utopian world.

3 what did you enjoy writing most of your story?

There was a lot about it I enjoyed, but I think tied for the top spot (for different reasons of course) was the worldbuilding aspect, and writing the love-making scene between Cyrano and Esfir. As I explained earlier on, I love to imagine the what-ifs of the future. I wanted to imagine what the world would look like if we all came together for the common good so that we could all live peacefully while looking out for humanity rather than our own selfish individualistic desires. Plus, it can be challenging to not overwhelm your reader and instead to sprinkle in small bits of details about your world throughout the story, and I appreciate the challenge. As for the love-making scene between Cyrano and Esfir, I enjoyed that because I had never written this type of scene between two women (I do have experience writing m/m fanfiction though so it wasn't my first time writing anything explicit). It was also a challenge to not overdo it on the erotic elements because in the end, this sort of scene is meant to advance the plot, not to be gratuitous, and I was also writing this as a class assignment. Regardless, though, it was fun to write, and I got to showcase Cyrano and Esfir's relationship dynamics and how they can ultimately lean on each other for support in many ways.

4 what's the overall response of your story from your readers?

The response from the people who have read my story have been overall positive, with a lot of emphasis placed on the writing style, which I appreciate. Since this is a short story, it is not as popular as, say, a full-length novel would be on Wattpad, but I appreciate my small but vocal following. I will also say that I received an A for this story in my creative writing class, and my classmates were into it as well. So I'm happy overall at how it's been received!