Time for another awesome guest post! This time I’m honored to be hosting Karyn Pearson, a writer of paranormal fantasy! Take it away Karyn:

The Birth of the Hellfire Trilogy: An Origin Story

So one of the questions I’ve been asked as an author of a series is: how did the Hellfire Trilogy come to be? Did you plan to write three books? To be honest, I was surprised that Spark developed into a full fledged novel. When I first started writing it, I didn’t think I was going to have enough material to write a book from start to finish. I genuinely had no idea what I was doing or where I was going, which at first, was pretty scary. But despite my fear of writing something that might only turn out to be a few pages long, I pressed on. And as I kept writing, the tiny idea I had began to sprout and grow.

Before I knew it, I hit ten pages, then fifty, and suddenly, I was done. I finished NaNoWriMo, and Spark was the fruits of my 28 straight days of writing. As I fleshed out the post-apocalyptic world I envisioned, other parts of the world, places and settings made themselves known to me. It was as if someone had drawn back a veil and I could clearly see what lay beyond. The more I learned about this universe I created, the more I knew that there was still so much more to write. Ardentia’s story wasn’t finished yet. She still had things to do.

I asked myself then, if there’s still a story to tell, what will happen? I ruminated on this for a while.

One day, a startling opening scene came to mind—Ardentia’s home town was under siege, a bright pyre pierced the heavens. In that moment, I knew that that would be the start of a second book. I took more time to think. Even with the prospect of a second book, one more book wouldn’t be enough to tell Ardentia’s tale. She had a very important part to play in upcoming events. And just like that, I knew there would be a third book.

My next problem was: what will I call them? I had to think for a while. I wanted a specific theme that would carry through all three books of the trilogy and make them feel like one whole. It only took a matter of seconds before I realized the importance of the image of fire. So I decided to make a theme of it: Spark, the start of a fire. Inferno, the peak of the blaze, where it’s at its most devastating. And lastly, Embers, the glowing remains of what the fire has destroyed. Thus the Hellfire Trilogy was born.