In Horizon, where the three narrators span the height of the Bone Universe - from (yes) the ground, to the top of the bone towers, but that first line remains - fear and danger are tied together by the sky, and the lack of things, the birds and all that threatens this community.

In the Bone Universe, day turns to half-light and night, and fear becomes danger. The moment of fear and the startled birds of Updraft became birds used to attack and deceive the community in Cloudbound, the sky filled with something sudden. That was the right decision, as the phrase is Kirit’s, and Cloudbound’s narrator, Nat, has other verbal tics.īut the thread was still there, the thematic line still pointing to fear of the unknown, and also to the known. In Cloudbound, the line only echoed slightly - “expeditions like this,” “in a situation like this” “ would not get away like this,” as my characters descended into a place where there was no blue sky, no distinction between morning and evening except a slight shift in filtered light. The sentence moved down a bit in the chapter as Kirit and Ezarit prepared to face the day, but it stayed through all of the drafts, fully intact. It was a thread I tied for myself as I walked the maze of that first novel draft, and all those that came after. “On a morning like this…” was my way into the book. For a few days, that sentence was all that existed of Updraft while I brainstormed sensory details and overheard Kirit bargaining with her mother about whether she could fly with her through the dangerous skies. And by the time this sentence happens, the birds have rightly cleared the air to make room for my monsters.īut all that was to come. The first monster to appear in the Bone Universe, in fact: skymouths. Her community’s fear: a terrible predator. There had been birds at some point recently, but these were gone. On a morning like this, fear was a blue sky emptied of birds.Ĭraftwise, the sentence captured in one quick glance time of day and setting. But this one sentence hit my heart and my ear fully wrought and I put it on an otherwise white page and let it sit there for a while. Both would go on to become part of Updraft and Cloudbound. I’d already written two short stories set within the world of the Bone Universe. When I sat down to write Updraft, a single sentence started me down a particular path. … In which the author gives away a line from the final chapter of her trilogy. And almost-siblings, always friends Kirit Skyshouter and Nat Brokenwings seem to have lost everything, including each other. As the city crumbles, Kirit, Nat, Ceil, Moc, and others must learn how to trust each other in order to save their families, friends, and community from destruction. In the Bone Universe trilogy finale, the living sky-city of bone towers is on the brink of destruction. Fran Wilde is here today to talk to us about her novel Horizon. Here’s the description:

Updraft novel