I am delighted to welcome Maressa Mortimer to my blog as part of her blog tour for her latest book Beyond the Hills, the second in her fictional series the Elabi Chronicles, which is publishing on 18 June. Here she explains the journey of building the world and its characters.

When you’re new to writing, everything is exciting. I started with a diary-style story based on a game. It was so much fun, I decided to write a book. It needed a lot of work, but as it was November, I learned about a new thing, NaNoWriMo. While my NaNo-project (Sapphire Beach) was being edited, I looked around and learned about ‘World Building’. Listening to a podcast, I dutifully took all the steps, thinking about food, terrain, culture and language. I decided to use Latin words, and turn them into names. That is how the city-state of Elabi was born. 

HOW THE IDEAS FORMED

When I was writing the first book in the series, Walled City, I was intrigued by one of the minor characters, a very unpleasant girl named Macia. She had a tragic backstory, and I kept wondering about her. Would she ever be influenced by the others? Walled City almost done, it was at an Association of Christian Writers Day that I crafted a scene for the next story set in Elabi. That happened through a writing exercise based on Colossians 1. Someone was trying to escape Elabi! I didn’t know who or why, only that the person was petrified, trying to buoy themselves up with that passage. Would it work? And whereabouts were they trying to run away from? 

November arrived again, and I knew I would be writing Macia’s story and it would be about the power of the Word of God, as there was nobody to speak to her about God. So I took a deep breath, typed Chapter 1, and remembered how, in Walled City, tiny portions of the Forbidden Book had been in circulation. Would it be enough to touch Macia? 

LOOKING AHEAD

I loved writing Beyond the Hills. It’s different from Walled City; a little slower, I suppose. Macia’s family was…interesting. I learned about paddleboarding, and now I want to try it, although I’m not anywhere near as fit and athletic as Macia. I love learning through my characters, and I’m looking forward to writing book three, which will deal with the area called Downstream. I’m plotting characters and writing notes already, but it will probably be my next NaNoWriMo project. 

My main aim in writing is to explore faith and Christian living, and it’s been wonderful to use World Building for this, as it allows you a lot more freedom to do so, I feel. Although Elabi, with its rules against beliefs and emotion, wouldn’t be my preferred holiday destination, the place has blessed me in many ways, and I hope others will enjoy these books.

Maressa Mortimer is Dutch but lives in the beautiful Cotswolds, England with her husband and four (adopted) children. Her debut novel, Sapphire Beach, was published December 2019, and her first self-published novel, Walled City, came out on 5 December 2020, followed by Viking Ferry, a novella. Beyond the Hills is the second book in the Elabi Chronicles, and will be released on 18 June 2021.

Maressa is a homeschooling mum as well as a pastor’s wife, so her writing has to be done in the evening when peace and quiet descend on the house once more. She loves writing Christian fiction, as it’s a great way to explore faith in daily life. Her books can be found on her website and you can follow Maressa on both Instagram and Facebook @vicarioush.ome