About The Golden Rays of the Morning Sun

My short story, The Golden Rays of the Morning Sun, is now up in the 1st Quarter 2021 (January 1) issue of Abyss & Apex. Nice way to start off the new year, yes?

This post goes into how that story came to be, and as such, is pretty much chock full of spoilers. So, if you haven’t read it yet, I invite you to do so now.

<Spoilers Ahead!>

For me, a story idea usually starts out in my head as a picture, or an imagined experience, or a particular application of some science fictional or fantastical technology. In Golden Rays that initial image was of a group of rays–like manta rays or stingrays–floating over a hillside, rather than underwater. (Along the way I learned that a group of rays is called a fever.)

I’ve been a fan of Australian artist (and now novelist) Kathleen Jennings for several years, from back when I stumbled upon her Dalek Game illustrations. Way back in 2016 she tweeted (as @tanaudel) a sketch, to which I replied mentioning this particular image I’d had in mind, and then…she replied.

Needless to say I was over the moon that she sketched that up. (Oh, and I might add that a few years later Kathleen won the 2020 World Fantasy Artist Award, so there’s that.)

With this sketch in hand, or at least on-screen, all I had to do now was actually fashion a story around it. Which, for me, is a very time-consuming and strenuous effort. Some writers can just whip out stories left and right–I’m not one of those. It’s a lot of work for me to devise a plot, then get the characters all working to put that plot into motion. And…sometimes the story ends up going where you wouldn’t necessarily think it would.

For instance, as you now know by having read the story–you have, right?–those rays that Kathleen drew do eventually show up in The Golden Rays of the Morning Sun (get it? Rays? Get it?), along with private military contractors, cyborgs, and brain rehosting.

So, like, who knows where an initial story idea (or sketch) might take you?

The final version of Golden Rays doesn’t differ drastically from the first draft I eventually settled on to send out to readers for critiques. Though there was a LOT of meandering about while getting from the vague plotline I’d come up with to that first draft.

One of the things I was uncertain about was simply the structure of the drafted story. There’s a lot of ways to tell a story, but the default is sorta that you introduce the characters, set up the problem, grow the tension, then have a boss fight at the end. Arguably Golden Rays does do that–if you squint at it and don’t expect any fist/sword/light sabre fights. But here’s how I characterized its structure:

• ACTION! ACTION! ACTION!
• Debate
• Flight
• Debate
• Journey’s end

Not exactly a Marvel movie plotline, eh? I asked the opinion of those who provided critiques how well that structure worked for them, and they assured me it worked just fine. (And clearly, as it turned out, Wendy at Abyss & Apex thought so as well.)

The one place that did need work, and I’m very grateful to Paul H for pushing me on this, was the plausibility of Mika’s resistance to rehosting. I mean, there’s honestly a lot to recommend it, especially if your body hasn’t been very good to you over the years. Initially I went with “a human requires a body to be human.” But what about when you could do so much more if you were unconstrained by the biological limitations of flesh? The human body alone can’t survive in space, or in the deep seas, or without food or air, but what if you could rehost into another physical form that could? Would you? And if not, why not? Discuss. That’s exactly what Mika and Kibo did. They reached different conclusions, but each had very good reasons for the choices they made.

Win. Win.