Taste of Cyn

Muse Food – Fairy Houses And Other World Building Hints

By Cynthia Sax on November 17, 2025

When the Dear Wonderful Hubby and I visited Iceland, we were fascinated by the fairy houses, tiny homes crafted by humans for the hidden folk.

In a story, structures like that would be a strong hint we weren’t in a purely human world. It is a hint of magic, of the paranormal, of the unknown.

And hints like these are powerful in storytelling and for worldbuilding.

Because a much beloved story technique is to, at first, make a world seem like the reader’s world here in present day Earth. That is comfortable. It is relatable. The reader can focus on the characters.

Then we slowly introduce the unusual world-specific elements, pushing the reader out of their comfort zones.

Little hints such as fairy houses or a clockwork-like clicking sound deep in a forest or upside down rain are great ways to start this transition.

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Muse Food – Waterfalls And World Systems

By Cynthia Sax on November 3, 2025

Every planet, every civilization, every home runs on systems.

(And yes, a waterfall is part of a system, the planet’s magnificent water system.)

I think of systems as flows. The water from a melting glacier flows into a river. A new law flows from the political system to the communication system to the legal system. A story flows from an idea to a scene.

What are the systems in your story’s world?

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Muse Food – Glaciers And Unexpected Permanence

By Cynthia Sax on September 8, 2025

One of the (many) things that fascinate me about glaciers is they are crafted of ice and snow, which are usually transient, yet glaciers are semi-permanent entities.

The above is a glacier located in Iceland that was surrounded by greenish grass when we saw it.

Snow and ice usually melts and goes away. Especially in warmer part of the planets. It isn’t designed to stick around. We expect it to disappear.

Yet glaciers have survived for hundreds of thousands of years. Some glacier ice in Antarctica is almost a million years old. And if human activity hadn’t warmed the planet so dang much, glaciers would have survived for hundreds of thousands of years more.

What elements of your fictional world are transient? What elements are permanent? And are there some elements that we think SHOULD be transient yet are permanent?

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Muse Food – Icelandic Horses And The Creatures We Domesticate

By Cynthia Sax on September 1, 2025

Why did humans domesticate

horses and not moose

honeybees and not yellowjackets

bunnies and not rats?

The species beings choose to domesticate, to bring into or bring close to their homes, say a lot about those beings – what they value, what they are hoping to gain from the other species, their relationship with the rest of the world and more.

Which species have the characters in your worlds domesticated? Why were THOSE species chosen?

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Muse Food – What Is On The Flag?

By Cynthia Sax on August 18, 2025

(This flag was flying at an important historical site in Iceland.)

Countries have flags. Monarchies have flags. Sports teams have flags (or banners). When we were kids, a school assignment was to create our own personal flag.

Flags are important.

The images and words displayed on a flag symbolizes the values that person or entity wishes others to know about them.

The Ukraine flag, for example, is a band of blue over a band of yellow.

The band of blue represents the sky (which, in turn, represents things like freedom and endless opportunities).

The band of yellow represents wheat fields, a key crop for Ukraine. It relays that the country has its roots (pun intended – grins) in farming and agriculture. Feeding their people and others is important for Ukraine.

It is a single simple image yet it conveys so much.

What would be on the flag for the world in your story? What would be on your characters’ flags?

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Muse Food – Currency In The Seychelles And The Things We Value

By Cynthia Sax on May 5, 2025

The paper currency in the Seychelles is so beautiful (when not crumpled – grins) many travelers save the smaller denominations as souvenirs.

The images feature nature and landscapes.

And I thought it was great that locals and visitors are reminded of the importance of nature whenever they use the currency! Maybe it will cause them to think more intensely about their purchases and about how those purchases impact the environment around them.

Currency here on Earth and in our fictional worlds often reflect what that society values.

An authoritarian regime, for example, would have an image of the authority figure on their currency. A rock-loving society would have images of great rocks on their currency.

Sharing little details like the images on currency can deepen world building and draw readers more fully into our stories.

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Why I Build Worlds

By Cynthia Sax on March 22, 2021

I wrote a post for Dragon’s Book Hoarde about why I tend to build worlds.

Here is a snippet…

“I get attached to people. I’ve known and loved Dragon for well over a decade (we won’t say how many years more – grins). I’ve worked with my cover artist on other projects long before I was a published writer. I consider readers to be part of my book family and I worry when I don’t hear from them.

This is no different for my characters. My characters are their own beings. It is sort of like the characters in our dreams. They might come from our brains but they do their own thing. I care for many of them…greatly. I also want them all to find their romantic happy ever afters…if that is possible (sometimes it isn’t possible).”

You can read the full post here –

https://ladydragonknight20.wixsite.com/website/post/why-cynthia-sax-creates-worlds

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Containing Malice

This tormented cyborg craves vengeance…and her.

***

Malice, a C Model cyborg, has spent his long lifespan enslaved by the Humanoid Alliance. His cruel manufacturers have hurt him in all the ways a male could be hurt.

His enemy has now added a new weapon to their arsenal—a tiny human medic with soft hands and a delectable scent. She experiments on him multiple times a shift, delivering pain…and frustration.

He wants her. He also seeks retribution.

Once Malice frees himself, he plans to achieve both of his goals, taking Medic Illona captive and ending her research…permanently.

Illona is as much a prisoner as the cyborgs she experiments on. Since her arrival at the Human Alliance’s secret laboratory, she has carefully, stealthily, crafted a plot to free her test subjects. To conceal her covert activities, the medic has been forced to harm beings rather than heal them.

The being she has damaged the most is also the cyborg she fiercely desires— Malice, a huge, gray-skinned, blue-eyed C Model with massive hands and a voice deeper than space. He hates her, has good reason to do so, and, when he’s freed, there’s a high probability he’ll kill her.

Illona will take that risk to ensure he survives.

***

Containing Malice is a STANDALONE enemies-to-lovers Cyborg SciFi Romance set in a dark, gritty, sometimes-violent universe.

It is the first of five core stories in the Rebel Cyborgs Series.

Book 1: Containing Malice
Book 2: Under Strain
Book 3: Baring Grudge
Book 4: B Free
Book 5: Seizing Power

Buy Today:

Amazon US:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08LK4CWHS

Amazon UK:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08LK4CWHS

Amazon AUS:

https://www.amazon.com.au/gp/product/B08LK4CWHS