Melanie Nilles

Some books you can’t put down. I’m not talking about books that one reads, but an upcoming book that I wrote. It’s still with me and doesn’t seem inclined to leave me anytime soon.

Dark Angel wrote itself in seven weeks, too short for me to tire of it and be ready to let it go. While in the middle of another story, I had the idea come to me so strong and vibrant that, like a bucket of fresh water to someone dying of thirst, I couldn’t resist it. After a week of struggling to focus on the other project, I gave in to the intense need to write the story that I already knew was meant to be called Dark Angel. The story stayed with me so strong and true that I lived it with all my senses. I’ve never had that happen before. When I finished, I wanted more. The connection to the characters clutched me and led me on, but I knew I could never write anything like that again. It’s as if someone poured the story into me and I was just the vessel through which they told it. It was all there for me ready to go. I made some discoveries about the characters along the way, but for all I knew, they could have been real people in real lives, rather than my imagination, and I was simply observing.

Although I originally wrote the story from one character’s POV, another stood out so strong that he was screaming to be heard. I couldn’t ignore him and later added scenes as if he told me what to write. I already knew what had happened, because he had hinted through his actions and words to the main character. He became almost a secondary main character, but I restrained him to a strong supporting character.

What was the inspiration for yet another story about angels? Therein lies the inspiration–these angels are aliens that have evolved on a world where flight is necessary, but their ancestors came out of the sea that covers the world. I won’t explain the details here, because it would give too much away. However, I will say that they have a higher level of technology and have visited Earth many times in the past. The idea stole me away. I don’t deny the belief of angels in a religious sense–I am a believer–just not that they all have beautiful wings. I asked myself, “What if the images we see in paintings of human figures with wings were really visitors from another world, a culture far more scientifically advanced, but one which early human civilizations didn’t understand and revered as supernatural beings?” The story evolved.

In truth, Dark Angel was a 99% rewrite of a novella-length story I wrote at the end of my college years. I took a few pieces I wanted and put them in a new setting and changed it from a bland first attempt at fantasy to a piece of science fiction for young adults. I had always wanted to rewrite it, because I knew it had something I liked. Not until nine years later and several other stories, did I see the true story underneath.

As a fan of science fiction, I don’t subscribe to the notion that angels have to be beautiful and have white wings as we commonly see in art. I see the notion as more open. Humans are not all the same, so why would a species that looks human with wings have to all look the same? Besides, after watching DNAngel (an anime series), I liked the idea of black wings. Why not? It added intrigue, because white wings are so ingrained as being of good angels. Why can’t an angel have black or brown or red or gray wings? If they are really just a mortal species, they can be anything that fits. Birds come in many different colors, after all. But since this was a species that didn’t evolve on Earth, they needed to be different. I created a whole world and evolutionary history for the Inari.

Now, I needed a fictional place amid the real place. What did I know and what would fall within reason for a plausible setting on Earth? I know upper midwest America. I live in North Dakota. How many books have a setting so remote? Too many are set in big cities, which I admit that I am not too familiar with. Why not the open prairie? What better place could an angel hide?

How can a person with black wings hide–another problem I had to solve and that brought in a fantasy element. Certain Inari can hide their wings, but only those with a link to the Starfire crystal, a group of entities from nonspace that can only survive in crystalline form in our dimension. Ah, so where’s the problem? Such power as the Starfire grants its wielder is too much of a temptation for many Inari, as it would be for many humans. That is why the individuals that the Starfire entities have chosen to care for it sometimes hide on Earth, occasionally showing their true forms to guide events in human civilizations.

Return to modern day, the fictional small town of McClarron set in central North Dakota. Internet, cell phones, and small-town teen life. If you’ve come from my website, you may have seen the description under the books section. I’ll leave you to that.

This story came to me in a blur and has stayed with me for over a year. I can’t yet put it down and hope that when it is available in both e-book and paperback formats next spring that you’ll enjoy it as much as I still do.