Tag Archive | The Rebel of Delta Rho Chi

Creating Fictional Worlds: A Journey from Washington State to Montana

Oct26

How The Rebel of Delta Rho Chi was born

One of the joys of being an author is in the inventing of fictional worlds in real places. When I started thinking about this story this is what went through my head:

Nicole’s journey took her into the mountains of Montana on the winter solstice.

“What If?” I mused, a young man wanted to break out on his own and move to a place where he knew no one and just started his life over? I know! He answers an ad in a magazine and a few months later he’s living in the boondocks of Montana or Idaho or some other remote western state.

Oh yeah, he also needs to have a tie in to The Darling of Delta Rho Chi, since it needs to be part of series. Sam Paxton is the obvious choice. A young man living in the shadow of his older half-sister, Riley, who we met in book one.

Next, I needed a heroine; a heroine suffering from a calamitous event … who has a very good reason to drive all the way from the Gamma Alpha Beta house at the University of Washington to the boondocks of, er, someplace. Let’s call her Nicole.

Nicole’s intended journey that fateful December day from Ellensburg to Big Mountain. She ends up stranded at the red ‘X.’

Out came the maps. Being that the story is set in December and during Christmas break, Nicole needed a hometown someplace in Washington. I picked Ellensburg. It’s a nice town and one I was familiar with, having grown up in nearby Yakima. From there she could travel eastward to the mystery destination. What about Sun Valley, Idaho? I soon learned it was over 500 miles and 8 plus hours of travel from the heroine’s hometown. Plus, I knew Nicole’s parents would NEVER agree to that trip.

I Googled ski resorts in Montana and up popped quite a few. Red Lodge was 716 miles east of Ellensburg and Big Sky was 604. Whitefish, at 425 miles, seemed just far enough to make it difficult for Nicole to get home but still had the elements needed to make it work.

When I was 12 years old I became obsessed with designing the layout of houses. I used graph paper and would spend hours drawing them. This is my rough layout of the fictional Malloy’s Lakeside Lodge.

As the story took shape, more research was needed. Like knowing the specific weather on specific days. What was the layout of the lodge? Where could that lodge be located? What was the floor plan of Nicole’s family home?

All those details are, to me, part of the fun of story creation and I hope that you, my readers, will enjoy being immersed in the fictional world of Sam, Nicole, Dusty, and Beej! – Barbara DeVore