Triana asked D.J. MacHale:

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D.J. MacHale Ha! I have absolutely no background in astrophysics. But when I write a story that deals with phenomenon like time travel or worm holes, I want to make it sound as plausible as possible. Therefore I do the research and learn just enough to be able to throw in some terms that give the concepts plausibility. I try to tailor the story to fit existing theories. (i.e. in The SYLO Chronicles I used the very real concept that time travel may be possible into the future, but not into the past. That played a huge role in the story)

And I don't just do this with astrophysics. I try to add as much realism into my stories in general so that the fantasy will be believable. One example is the journey to the Necromanteo and through to the afterlife in Morpheus Road. That place actually exists! I'm sure most readers thought I totally made it up, but I didn't!

My ideal is that a reader will get caught up in a story and think: "Hey, that sounds kind of possible." as opposed to: "Well that's just idiotic."

Of course you can't please everyone. There are sticklers who have challenged some of my concepts. I saw one diatribe from somebody about how I wrote that the territory of Denduron had two suns and that was physically impossible. To them I say: "Just go with it. It's a story!"

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