World Building Spotlight Archives

Closeted Magic

World Building Spotlight / M Pax / September 8, 2026

A worldbuilding post from the Rifters universe…

There is a closet in the Caslow County Library, where Daelin Long serves as librarian. Sometimes it exists, and sometimes it doesn’t. When it does, it can be found one door beyond the restroom.

At first glance, the closet looks completely ordinary. The wooden doorframe is carved with strange symbols, but the door itself appears unremarkable. Beyond it is a small storage room, only about five feet by three feet.

The symbols on the doorframe respond only to the librarian, and only if the library has accepted that person as its true librarian. When the true librarian touches one of the symbols, it glows blue.

The closet is far more than a storage room. The librarian can use it to jump between universes, allowing the closet to hide and shield them from dangers coming through the rift or from enemies pursuing them. The closet can also enchant portraits, transforming them into vehicles for communication across universes.

Like all objects and devices derived from the rift and its energies, the closet’s magic is available only during the season of the rift, which lasts from the summer solstice to the fall equinox.

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Every Hero Needs a Family. This One Shapes the Rifters.

World Building Spotlight / M Pax / August 4, 2026

Daelin Long’s Family

Daelin’s siblings didn’t grow up in a conventional family, but they are fiercely loyal to one another.

The eldest is Darlin “Daelin” Dae Long, followed by Charming Moon Knight, and the youngest is Cobra “Cobb” Moondae Buckley. Each sibling has a different father, which explains why they don’t share the same appearance or even the same last name. Family, for them, has never been about bloodlines or surnames. It’s about the bond they forged growing up together.

Their mother, Roslyn, is a free spirit who embraces the nomadic life of a rock-and-roll drummer. She drifts from band to band every few years, chasing the next gig and the next adventure. While Roslyn loves her children in her own way, the constant moving and uncertainty left them craving stability.

As the eldest, Daelin naturally stepped into the role of caretaker, often acting more like a parent than a sister. That responsibility shaped who she became, but it also created tension. When Daelin left for college and eventually moved to New York City, Charming and Cobb struggled with feelings of abandonment.

Each sibling chose a very different path. Charming pursued a career in paleontology, fascinated by the stories hidden in Earth’s distant past. Cobb found his place in computer engineering, attending school near Atlanta and thriving in a world built on logic and technology. Daelin sought a stable life far removed from the chaos of her childhood.

Their relationships with Roslyn took different paths. Daelin has no interest in speaking with her mother, while Charming and Cobb maintain occasional contact. Despite their differing views, the siblings remain deeply devoted to one another.

Years later, fate brings all three back together in Settler, where they’ll face dangers far greater than the instability of their childhood. No matter how different their lives have become, they will always be there for each.

Every Hero Needs a Family. This One Shapes the Rifters. Read More »

How a Rifter Mission Works

World Building Spotlight / M Pax / July 7, 2026

Worldbuilding from the Rifters Universe…

The Rifter season runs from the summer solstice to the fall equinox. During this time, the rift opens only at night, and only in one place: between two obsidian pillars deep in the forest. That means there is always a watch.

Every night of the season, a pair of Rifters is assigned to guard the rift. These assignments are made by the current Rifter leader, who also serves as the Envoy between Earth and the Governors, the entities that control the rift on the other side.

Most nights are quiet. But not all.

The rift does not connect to just one place. It links Earth to forty-one other universes. Anything from those places can sometimes slip through.

Detection

Some visitors are easy to see with human senses. Others are not.

Rifters use specialized equipment to detect what normal senses miss, including optilyzers, enhanced vision goggles, and enerlyzers, which detect abnormal energy signatures around the rift.

Containment

When something crosses through, the goal is not always destruction. Whenever possible, Rifters attempt to contain the entity and send it back through the rift. Not everything cooperates. In more dangerous cases, neutralization is required. Rifters carry neutrolyzers, which can stun or, if necessary, eliminate a threat. A neutrolyzer is no guarantee, howeer.

Sometimes situations escalate beyond a single watch pair, and additional Rifters are called in. All Rifters are effectively on call throughout the season.

What Makes a Rifter

Rifters are augmented. Tattoos along their wrists enhance strength, speed, stamina, and healing, allowing them to survive encounters that would otherwise overwhelm. Technology and augmentation only go so far.

The most important skill a Rifter has is adaptability. Every breach is different. Every visitor behaves differently. Improvisation is often what decides whether a situation is contained or becomes a crisis.

Routine and Failure States

Most nights during rift season are uneventful. Routine watches are cold, long, and quiet. The rift does not open. Nothing crosses. The pair stands guard until relief arrives, then returns home. That is the best outcome.

A bad night begins when the rift opens and something comes through.

If containment fails or response is too slow, a breach can reach the nearby town of Settler, Oregon, before the Rifters are able to stop it. At that point, the situation escalates beyond a rift incident and becomes a full threat. Once dealt with, stories and explanations to those unaware or the rift must be inventive and plausible.

If a watch fails entirely, the consequences are worse.

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The Cost of Being a Rifter

Fantasy, Science Fiction Books, World Building Spotlight / M Pax / June 9, 2026

Trust, secrecy, sacrifice, and life beside the rift.

Becoming a Rifter is not a childhood dream. It is not glory. It is not adventure. It is an invitation. Not everyone receives one.

A Rifter must be intelligent, quick-thinking, and capable under pressure. They must know how to fight, how to endure pain, and how to face fear without freezing. Monsters do not care about speeches or noble intentions. When the rift opens, hesitation can kill not only a Rifter, but everyone standing beside them. If the Rifters fail, Earth is vulnerable. They must not fail.

That is why trust matters above all else.

Rifters work in small groups, often only six to ten people. Every member must trust the others completely. When a creature emerges from the rift in the dead of night, there is no time to question whether someone will hold the line, watch your blind spot, or drag you home wounded. A single weak link can dooms everyone.

That kind of trust creates bonds stronger than friendship. But it also creates distance from the rest of the world.

Only Rifters know the truth about the rift.

To everyone else, strange noises in the night might be blamed on volcanic vents or shifting earth. Missing livestock becomes bad luck. Odd tracks are dismissed as tricks of weather and mud. The Rifters protect that secrecy carefully. Panic helps no one. Fear spreads faster than monsters.

But secrecy has a cost.

A Rifter learns to lie convincingly. Sometimes to neighbors. Sometimes to friends. Sometimes to people they love. “No, there was no monster.” “It was only steam from a volcanic vent.” “You worry too much.”

The lies protect the town, but they also build walls between Rifters and ordinary life.

Most people spend their summers celebrating warmth, festivals, and long evenings beneath the stars. Rifters spend theirs on guard duty.

From the summer solstice until the fall equinox, the rift opens at night. During those months, sleep becomes precious. Rifters keep watch in darkness while the rest of the world rests safely unaware. They learn to function exhausted. Hypervigilant. Listening for sounds no one else notices. Seeing auras no one else sees.

And every summer, they surrender a part of ordinary life again. That may be the greatest cost of becoming a Rifter: existing between two worlds. For part of the year, a Rifter can laugh at gatherings, rejoin the world with regular concerns, and pretend life is simple. Then summer comes, and they return to the edge of the rift where secrets, monsters, and responsibility wait in the dark.

But despite the burden, people still accept the invitation.

Because someone must stand watch.

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How to Build a Monster (That Actually Belongs in Your Story)

World Building Spotlight / M Pax / May 5, 2026

A monster isn’t just something scary. It’s a function of your story. So before you decide what it looks like, you need to decide what it does.

Start with Purpose

What role does the monster play in the story?

Is it an obstacle? A mirror? A consequence? A catalyst?

If you don’t know what it’s for, you’ll end up designing something that looks interesting but doesn’t actually belong.

Decide How It Can Be Known

Can the monster be seen directly? Touched? Studied?

Or does it only exist through effects such as missing people, broken systems, altered environments?

This choice controls how your reader experiences its presence before they ever meet.

Tie It to the Character Arc

A good monster doesn’t just exist in the world. It pressures the protagonist’s development.

What does it force your character to confront? What skill, belief, or limitation does it expose?

This is where the monster stops being decoration and starts becoming story structure.

Shape the Appearance Last

Once you know function, visibility, and narrative role, then you decide what it looks like.

Familiar? Symbolic? Entirely alien?

The design should serve meaning, not the other way around.

Define the Emotional Impact

What is this monster meant to make the reader feel?

Fear? Awe? Unease? Curiosity? Disgust?

Even more importantly, does it reinforce that emotion through form, behavior, and consequence?

Example: The Albino Tree (The Reader: Rifters Book 3)

In The Reader, I needed a monster that could emerge after the Rift closed. That immediately created a constraint: the Rifters wouldn’t have been able to detect it in the usual way. There is a hard world has rule for how monsters can be detected in the Rifters. So I couldn’t just cheat and say they missed it. I had to design something that could logically stay hidden. That limitation shaped the solution, and I came up with a seed that grows into a monster tree.

From there, I built outward.

I wanted the creature to feel misunderstood rather than purely evil, so it developed the ability to create pod people, distorting reflections of the environment rather than traditional victims.

I also wanted scale and presence. Trees already carry that sense of ancient weight, and there’s something inherently unsettling about them when they move beyond natural boundaries (think Wizard of Oz trees).

Finally, I needed the tree’s existence to matter to the protagonist’s development and the increasing tension of something being off about the rift. The encounter had to push the MC deeper into their Rifters abilities and force growth both in her own estimation and others.

So the monster wasn’t just designed, it was derived from story constraints, emotional intent, the series arc, and character progression.

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The Outlaw Who Disappeared…

Character, Fantasy, World Building Spotlight / M Pax / April 7, 2026

Worldbuilding from the Rifters universe…

Earl Blacke in The Rifters has a fascinating real-world inspiration: the legendary outlaw Black Bart, born Charles Boles. Black Bart wasn’t your typical bandit. He lived a life full of twists: a gold miner, a soldier twice promoted in the field during the Civil War, sometimes a farmer, husband, and father. Later, he mingled with San Francisco’s high society, posing as a wealthy gentleman. According to the people who considered him a friend, he was charming, personable, and well mannered.

A posh life needed money. When funds ran low, he turned to the open spaces of California and to the Wells Fargo stage coaches. His methods were original:

He wore a flour sack with holes cut for eyes.
Carried an unloaded shotgun.
Robbed only the mail and Wells Fargo shipments.
Left passengers unharmed and untouched.
Occasionally left poems at the scene.

A dropped handkerchief during one heist finally led to his capture, and he served time in San Quentin. He confessed to only that one robbery despite suspicions of at least 28. When released in 1888, he vanished, leaving the world to speculate about the “gentleman bandit’s” fate.

I read multiple biographies about Charles Boles and thought long and hard about what kind of man he might have been. I tried to get into his head and imagine his psychology. Here’s what I came up with:

The war really messed him up.
He likely took his failures to find gold as failures of character.
Whatever Wells Fargo did, it surely made him angry.
He was an adventurer at heart.
The death of his son shortly after he returned from the war may have been the last straw

I don’t think he was cold-hearted. I think at that point in his life, he was just incapable of giving more of his heart and needed to cut ties with those he knew, including his wife and children. He was probably in survival mode. His real life disappearance was a mystery I couldn’t resist.

The name I use in the series comes from his real life middle name and his outlaw name. I loved the idea of taking someone so complex and sending him through a rift into another time. In Settler, Earl Blacke arrives forty years younger with a chance to atone. However, the rift has other plans for Earl.

The Outlaw Who Disappeared… Read More »