Fantastic America: The Magic Unleashed didn’t start out the way it’s ended up. But there are some ideas from my original inspiration that are still part of the novel (and series) today. Magic returning to the modern world is the first premise and one that has only expanded as I wrote.
I explored how people, groups of people, and governments would react to a literal change to the status quo. Would they embrace the changes? How would religious institutions react? On an individual level, how would people behave as magic, miracles, and monsters came to life around them? Finally, how would people changed by magic see their place amid all that chaos?
Next I wanted to make this world more layered than the one we know. So I’ve created a larger canvas with societies in the distant past. Groups who experienced the last magical age that came and went before recorded history. Creating places and people so dependent on magic that their way of life disappeared when magic failed was more fun than I expected. I can’t wait to share those traditions (and the traces they left behind) with my audience!
Finally, I wanted to explore more of the canvas I created to explain the origin of magic, miracles, and monsters. Worlds beyond Earth that have been an unknown part of life on our planet for millions of years. That story is the connective tissue between the return of magic, our ancestors use of magic, and the bleak times of no magic. The bleak times shaped a world that forgot magic was possible to begin with. Which was all fun and games till magic flowed into the world again.