The Magic Telescope – Setting

My first book, The Magic Telescope, is about a boy named Seth. He really wants a new Gazer 3000 telescope for his birthday but gets a second-hand telescope instead. With help from his cat, Sinbad, he discovers that it’s no ordinary telescope–it’s magic–and he’s about to experience the adventure of a lifetime.

The setting is an essential story element that includes all the details of the time and place(s) in which your story takes place. I talked about the setting for this story in a previous post which you can read here.

In my last post, I mentioned we had done some traveling recently. While traveling, I got to visit one of my favorite places and part of the inspiration for the home setting in The Magic Telescope.

That place is Walnut Creek Lake in Papillion, Nebraska. The pictures I took don’t do it justice. It was always so nice to go there and reconnect with nature. I’m glad I got to visit even if it was only for a bit. I even use this as a setting in another story I wrote called, The Lake. That one was published briefly on Authonomy. I plan to polish it up and republish it in a short story collection at some point.

The other place that inspired my vision of Seth’s home is my original hometown in Mississippi. There are a few special places on my family’s land where I always loved to hang out and that’s where I envisioned Seth’s getaway spot. I can’t find the good pics on my phone at the moment, but here’s one I took in one of those spots at night a while back. These places will show up in other stories as well.

I got to work closely with the illustrator (although we were miles apart) and he (Eumir) did an amazing job. I gave him descriptions of my characters and he brought them to life beautifully. I think his vision for Seth’s hideout makes me think more of a mountainous region. I’m right at home there, too, actually. I love the mountains. But from the readers’ point of view, I think the beauty of it is they can see this part of the setting in any of the above-mentioned places, or even their own backyard.

I wasn’t able to get pics of Nunamaria on Europa (that’s the moon of Jupiter that Seth and Sinbad are zinged to), but I did find some neat pics on Nasa’s website.

Image from Nasa

They say writers should write what they know. I know these places well and they’re all a part of me. I can’t help but write them into my stories. I’ve learned a bit more about writing and world-crafting since I wrote my first book and I can’t wait to put that knowledge to use. Sometimes it’s difficult to find the time to write. It’s 1:58 as I’m typing this. Sigh.

But rest assured, I am working on more stories. I’ll talk more about setting in my other books in posts to come, good Lord willing. But next up I have a few more author interviews. Keep an eye out and keep lookin’ up.

If you would like to grab a copy of The Magic Telescope for your favorite young reader or yourself, it’s available at Barnes & Noble and Amazon. Thanks for taking time to read this.

God bless,

~T