Scaping The Surface

 -Ties Between Tales-

If you become a writer/author, heed my words; you don't need to connect your books together. However, I am a glutton for interconnected universes and so, yes, my books are connected in way or another. Reappearing franchises like "Maelstrom" or "Elemon" appear in multiple books, and characters from some books appear in other books.

The most important tether between my books are The Worldscapes. The Worldscapes are five places that are like realms, or dimensions, or states of being. While there may be many universes and realities, the Worldscapes are linked throughout. Let's walk through them.

The Fleshscape

I know. It sounds gross. But, by my logic, everything living and intelligent has some sort of flesh. In my books, The Fleshscape is the closest thing to our real world. Unlike the other scapes, The Fleshscape encapsulates multiple realities. So, the physical world of "Zeus Did It Again" and the physical world of "Ravenous" are both in The Fleshscape, but they're not on the same version of Earth. Think of every physical world as a backyard and the picket fences are the barriers between versions of Earth.

The Mindscape

If The Fleshscape is where ideas are made physical, The Mindscape is where ideas are purely conceptual. The Mindscape appears in my book "Pavement" as a blue space with white constellations constantly changing, based on blueprints. This scape also features an endless ocean that contains all shared knowledge in human history. A person within this world can make their ideas into physical creations.

The Rescape

The Rescape has actually appeared the most in my books, thus far. Like the other scapes it appears in "Pavement" and it appears in the short story "The Rub", as well as "Zeus Did It Again". This scape is an endless desert with equally endless stone pillars stretching up into the sky. The stones resemble human beings. Within this desert is The Memory Bank, hosted by The Banker. By giving parts of your own memory, you can see shared memories within The Memory Bank.

The Dreamscape

The Dreamscape is where imagination sits. It's another collection of innumerable worlds, but these are fictional worlds. This is basically how we can all play pretend and say superheroes and video games and TV shows all have a real place in reality. This world doesn't so much as appear, it's more like parts of fictional worlds bleed into other worlds. Inhabitants of The Dreamscape's many worlds make a brief appearance in "The Tide".

The Unscape

Complete and utter darkness. Pitch black. Nothingness. The only moving shapes that come from The Unscape are things not meant to exist, never meant to be given form, and devoid of purpose. Monsters, creatures without accurate definition. Unknowable things. "The Shadow" is a part of "Pavement's" main character-his negative aspects-given form by The Unscape. It's not a place of pure evil, just a place where existence isn't on purpose.

-The End of Scapes-

As a connective element of my stories, The Worldscapes aren't just there to draw connections. The Worldscapes are there as a catch-all. When a story needs to talk about fiction-we have The Dreamscape. When we need to talk about memories-The Rescape. They're not sources, necessarily. More like features.

I like to talk about identity, memory, imagination, the things we, as people, understand. Things we can't touch, but we know they're as real as the things we can. I guess I liked the idea of giving pathos to those untouchable things. I think creating and using The Worldscapes allows me to represent the topic I like to write about. Maybe that makes them just a little real too.

Thank you for reading.

Be kind.