![\"deborah-sheldon_author-photo\"](\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Deborah-Sheldon_author-photo-300x225.jpg\")
<\/a>Deborah Sheldon is a professional writer from Melbourne, Australia. Her short fiction has appeared in well-respected magazines such as Quadrant<\/em>, Island<\/em>, Aurealis<\/em>, Midnight Echo<\/em>, SQ Mag<\/em>, and Tincture Journal<\/em>. Her work is also found in various anthologies. Upcoming titles include the crime-noir novellas, Dark Waters<\/em> and Ronnie and Rita<\/em>, the horror collection, Perfect Little Stitches and other stories<\/em>, and the contemporary crime novel, Garland Cove Heist.<\/em> Other writing credits include television scripts such as Neighbours, stage plays, magazine articles, award-winning medical writing, and non-fiction books for Reed Books and Random House Australia.<\/p>\nDeborah also has a new-out Horror novel, Devil Dragon<\/em>,\u00a0 from Severed Press<\/a> and I’m very please to be able to host her here today, sharing some of the worldbuilding aspects of the story.<\/p>\n Welcome, Deborah.<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n by Deborah Sheldon<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n My novel, Devil Dragon<\/em>, is built around its setting, the Australian bush. The story is about Dr Erin Harris, a scientist who has an unscientific obsession: to find a living Varanus priscus<\/em>. This giant Australian reptile, which cryptozoologists call the Devil dragon, became extinct some 12,000 years ago but, like Bigfoot or Nessie, there are occasional sightings. Spurred by a credible witness, Erin cobbles together an expedition party consisting of herself, the witness, and his deer-hunting neighbours. They travel into the unexplored heart of a national park. Erin, believing the Devil dragon to be a larger version of the Komodo, is confident she can outwit a specimen. However, the monster that lumbers out of the bush is a savage and unpredictable predator the size of a campervan. To escape, Erin must transform herself from genteel university lecturer to die-hard survivalist.<\/span><\/p>\n Devil Dragon<\/em> required the most intensive world-building of any fiction I\u2019ve written so far. The plotting and research tended to occur side by side, with each one informing the other. For example, I discovered that Australia\u2019s state and national parks teem with feral animals, which led me to include an action sequence that I would otherwise not have imagined. The characters use a range of firearms. Since I\u2019m not a shooter myself, this took me on another in-depth research bender, which then prompted new plot points and fresh character conflicts.<\/span><\/p>\n By late 2014, I had decided that the bulk of the novel would take place on an escarpment. There, Erin and the members of her expedition party try to lure a Devil dragon with baits. However, Google Images can only take an author so far; I needed to stand atop an actual escarpment to feed my imagination. That Christmas, my family and I took a holiday to north-eastern Victoria so I could \u2018location scout\u2019 for Devil Dragon<\/em>. We drove to the very top of Mt Buller, a mountain in the Victorian alps of the Great Dividing Range. With one glimpse at the view, my fictitious escarpment came alive in my mind\u2019s eye, and I could \u2018see\u2019 the expedition party\u2019s campsite.<\/span><\/p>\n Imagery from the peak of Mt Buller infuses my novel:<\/span><\/p>\n “Cautiously, she approached the edge. <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n She had expected a sheer drop in a straight line to the ground. The cartoon clich\u00e9 of a cliff, she realised, chiding herself. Instead, there was a long, gentle gradient comprised of granite boulders. The boulders were colossal, the size of houses, and stacked together higgledy-piggledy as if a careless giant had thrown them by the handful. Jammed into every fissure and crevice along that wide and deep gradient were plants: eucalypts, shrubs, grasses, even lichen wedged within the tiniest of cracks. At the sweeping hem of the escarpment lay a sea of trees. Beyond that, hazy and blue on the horizon, sat a long line of hills that resembled ocean waves caught in freeze-frame.”<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n I had the most fun creating the Devil dragon itself. Palaeontologists don\u2019t know much about the actual Varanus priscus<\/em>, but believe it was related to the modern-day Komodo dragon. I was free to conjure up my own terrifying version… a thrilling prospect, although I had to make this reptile seem genuine.<\/span><\/p>\n I used a variety of world-building techniques. Firstly, I embedded the animal within a vividly described and ordinary world, spending weeks researching the flora, fauna and geology of south-eastern Australian bushland. Secondly, to keep my monster realistic and credible, I immersed myself in Komodo dragon biology and behaviour, and consulted with various herpetologists. This allowed me to develop consistent \u2018rules\u2019: how does the dragon look, move, sound, smell, act, hunt, eat? Lastly, on a family trip to Darwin in 2015, I spent time observing live crocodiles, both in zoos and during river cruises. And I touched every piece of tanned crocodile skin I could find. These first-hand experiences fuelled my imagination and helped me to dream up the gruesome, ferocious details I needed to complete my monstrous creation.<\/span><\/p>\n —<\/p>\n To find out more abut Deborah and her writing, you can find her on:<\/p>\n https:\/\/deborahsheldon.wordpress.com<\/a><\/p>\n https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Deborah-Sheldon-936388749723500\/<\/a><\/p>\n https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/author\/show\/3312459.Deborah_Sheldon<\/a><\/p>\n![\"devil-dragon_cvr\"](\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/devil-dragon_cvr-200x300.jpg\")
<\/a>Worldbuilding In Devil Dragon<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n
![\"devil-dragon_cvr\"](\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/devil-dragon_cvr-683x1024.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"