Before the CAU
Before the Crimson Alliance Universe ever existed, I had already written and published four nonfiction books covering real estate, personal development, mindset, and entrepreneurship.
Writing those books required considerable time and effort. I spent nearly a year writing Designing Your Own Destiny. My fourth book, Launch!, brought together nearly ten years of seminars, lectures, and real-world business experiences into a single volume. That project also took nearly a year to complete.
After finishing Launch! in 2021, I made a decision. I was done writing books.
I hadn’t run out of ideas. I simply had other interests and priorities, and I knew how much time another book would demand. Writing fiction wasn’t something I had seriously considered, and science fiction was even further from my thoughts.
Little did I know that a few years later, experimenting with AI-generated character images would lead me back to writing and eventually to building a universe far larger than anything I had imagined.
An Unexpected Beginning
In early 2025, while creating courses for entrepreneurs and working on a podcast, I began experimenting with artificial intelligence to generate realistic images of fictional characters. I wasn’t developing a book or planning a storyline. I was simply curious about what the technology could create.
Over the next couple of months, I developed characters with different appearances, personalities, and backgrounds. Some were human, while others belonged to alien races from worlds that existed only in my imagination.
Eventually, I began asking questions about them. Where did they come from? What experiences shaped their personalities? What would happen if their paths crossed?
Those questions inspired a science fiction adventure involving seven very different individuals who would eventually become a team.
The project became A Demon’s Rebellion, the first novel in what would become the Crimson Alliance Universe.
For someone who had decided four years earlier never to write another book, I was certainly heading in an unexpected direction.
The Characters Had Other Plans
About halfway through writing A Demon’s Rebellion, I found myself imagining adventures beyond the main storyline.
I had already developed ideas for Cold Front, featuring Freija, Kimiko, and Frigid, and Sunlight & Shorelines, featuring Adrian and Grilka. Both would explore what happened after the events of the first novel.
The opportunity came from a decision within the story itself. Lilith would give the Crimson Alliance three or four months off to pursue their own interests before the team’s next major adventure. That created an opening to explore their individual experiences.
My original vision was somewhat similar to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with major Avengers movies bringing the team together and individual films exploring their separate adventures. I planned to follow A Demon’s Rebellion with six or seven Interludes (also known as interquels) before reuniting everyone for a second full-length ensemble novel.
I’ve discussed this approach further in my article about why I write stories of different lengths.
At the time, that seemed like a reasonable plan. But I hadn’t anticipated how many other stories would begin demanding my attention.
Exploring the Past: The Birth of the Tales
While developing the Interludes, I ran into a problem with Whispers of the Totem, a story centered around Rainstorm, her estranged brother, and their Navajo heritage.
I attempted to write it about five different times, scrapping each version because I couldn’t get the story to develop the way I wanted. Eventually, I set it aside.
That frustration led me in another direction. Instead of concentrating exclusively on what happened after A Demon’s Rebellion, why not explore events from the characters’ earlier lives?
The idea became the Crimson Alliance Tales, shorter adventures consisting of ten chapters plus an epilogue.
I began developing Smuggler’s Gambit, exploring Adrian’s earlier adventures; The Tournament of Snowfall, inspired by the approaching Olympics and featuring Frigid; and Old Wounds, which would take readers deeper into Grilka’s past.
These stories would allow me to explore particular events and relationships without turning every adventure into a full-length novel.
The Tales were still planned projects rather than published books, but they had already expanded the possibilities for what I could write within the CAU.
A New Idea: The Micro-Tale
While those Tales remained on my list of future stories, I began considering something different.
A reader unfamiliar with the Crimson Alliance Universe might hesitate to purchase a full-length novel, especially without knowing whether they would enjoy my characters or storytelling style.
What if I created a much shorter, lower-priced adventure as an introduction?
That idea became the Micro-Tale, a story consisting of five chapters plus an epilogue.
I already had a storyline in mind. Freija and Adrian would return to Japan to join Kimiko in a traditional ritual. It would allow me to explore Japanese culture while bringing together characters from very different backgrounds and planets. It would also be the first time an alien visiting Earth played a major role in one of my stories.
The result was The Night of One Thousand Lanterns.
Unlike the larger conflicts of A Demon’s Rebellion, this adventure offered a more intimate experience involving familiar characters in a different setting.
And shortly after publishing it, another idea began taking shape.
Going Back to the Beginning: The Origins
I’d always enjoyed how franchises such as Marvel and Star Wars explored the histories of individual characters. Their experiences before joining larger adventures could be just as interesting as the events that brought everyone together.
That got me thinking about the Crimson Alliance.
The Tales explored earlier adventures, but what about the experiences that shaped these individuals long before they became the characters readers encountered in A Demon’s Rebellion?
I decided to create eight Origins, each focusing on one character.
My initial intention was to keep them relatively short and affordable, maybe around 7000 words. However, as I began writing, some developed into more substantial adventures. The characters had histories, relationships, and conflicts that needed room to unfold, and I wasn’t interested in forcing every book into an identical length.
The result was an eight-part series featuring Lilith, Freija, Adrian, Grilka, Kimiko, Nefertari, Tala Redhawk (Rainstorm), and Frigid.
Each story offered a look into a different character’s past, often taking place years before the Tales or the first ensemble novel.
By this point, what had begun as a single science fiction adventure had expanded into several distinct types of stories.
And that development led me to consider something beyond the creative possibilities.
One Book or Multiple Opportunities?
One of the biggest challenges facing authors isn’t necessarily writing a book. It’s finding readers.
An author can spend months or years creating a manuscript, getting it published, and preparing to promote it. But when there’s only one book available, every marketing effort ultimately leads back to that single title.
If someone isn’t interested in its characters, subject, length, or price, there may be little else to offer them.
Looking at the Crimson Alliance Universe, I realized I was developing a different situation.
I had full-length novels, Interludes, Tales, a Micro-Tale, and Origins. They featured different characters, settings, relationships, and types of adventures, but they all belonged to the same fictional universe.
Someone interested in Grilka could begin with her Origin, Tuff Enuff, continue into Old Wounds, discover her adventures with Adrian in Sunlight & Shorelines, and eventually read A Demon’s Rebellion.
An Adrian fan could take a different route, beginning with his Origin, exploring Smuggler’s Gambit, or jumping directly into the main novel. Similar possibilities existed for Freija, Kimiko, and Frigid.
Readers wouldn’t have to discover the Crimson Alliance through the same book or follow an identical path.
I also began recognizing how these different formats could support my marketing efforts.
At traditional bookstore signings, I could emphasize the full-length novels and Interludes. At comic book stores, the lower-priced Origins might appeal to someone curious about a particular character. The Tales could provide another option for readers who wanted a more substantial adventure without purchasing a full novel.
Of course, publishing more books doesn’t guarantee additional sales. Every title still needs to attract attention, and each reader has to find something that interests them.
But instead of promoting one book to everyone, I could introduce different stories to different audiences, with each providing a possible pathway into the larger CAU.
That was when the bigger picture became clear.
I wasn’t simply writing more stories.
I was building an interconnected universe.
Building a Universe That Keeps Growing
Even now, the Crimson Alliance Universe continues to surprise me.
Recently, while expanding Kimiko’s Origin, I developed a storyline that grew beyond what I originally intended. It became substantial enough to deserve a Tale of its own, so I separated it from the Origin and added it to my list of future projects.
That’s one of the things I’ve come to enjoy most about creating an interconnected fictional world. A supporting character can inspire a new adventure. A brief reference to an event can develop into an entire story. Even a relationship that initially seems minor can become something worth exploring further.
I still have plans for the next ensemble novel, along with additional Interludes and Tales. But I’ve learned that some of my most interesting ideas emerge while I’m working on something else entirely.
When I started A Demon’s Rebellion, I thought I had a reasonable idea of where the series was going. Today, there are far more characters, stories, and possibilities than I could have anticipated.
And I suspect I’ve only begun exploring what the Crimson Alliance Universe can become.
Closing Thoughts
When I finished my fourth nonfiction book in 2021, I was convinced my days as an author were behind me. I certainly never imagined that a few years later, I would be creating an entire science fiction universe.
What I’ve discovered is that building a universe offers creative freedom I never anticipated, while providing readers with different ways to discover the characters and adventures that interest them.
There’s nothing wrong with writing a standalone story. Every author has different goals, and not every story needs to become part of something larger.
But for me, the possibilities became far more exciting when I stopped thinking about individual books and started seeing how they could connect.
After all, why write just one story when you can build an entire universe?
