Segment 4 (Chapters 12 – 14) Strife Family Conflict

 

Alex’s homelife comes to light in these chapters!

 

The reader is introduced to his wife, kids, and a live-in sister-in-law. There is conflict (strife) when Alex arrives home and a sudden emergent situation that puts his family’s life in danger.

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Morgan, Alex’s wife, was an engaging character. When I first created the character many decades earlier, she was just a spouse. However, I needed her to be more than that—I needed her on the space station and on the moon. So, although at times she was a loving mother, I needed her career to be more important. But how do you do that with kids? That is where Rachel came in.

 

Occasionally you create characters because they are necessary for supporting other characters or the story. For Rachel, she initially served as a ‘placeholder’—someone to care for the kids while the parents focused on the colony in space. When I started the final manuscript, I had Rachel grow into a character that allowed me to provide the reader a behind-the-scenes look regarding Alex and Morgan’s marriage. Rachel, eventually, will become an important part of Alex’s life, as well as his children.

 

I tried to end each chapter with a bit of mystery or capture the reader’s attention enough to want to read on. The empty house across the street was a way to stage the emergent situation that would take the Strifes away from their house, purposely disconnecting them from their home on Earth.

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FYI—if it wasn’t clear, the person hiding in the house across the street taking pictures was Olivia Maddox and her camera man, Tommy.

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Please message me on my Facebook Author page if you have questions, comments, or want to know more about Chapters 12-14.

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