Fantasy – R. Leonia Shea

When I first started imagining the jinn realms, I didn’t want to lean purely on folklore because if jinn were around in the time of Alexander the Great (as they were), then surely they would have evolved just as much as the human world did, right?

I love legend as much as the next fantasy writer, but I also love grounding my magic in something that feels like it could be real if the stars aligned, and well, magic really was running rampant. Enter science – the salvation and bane of my existence.

So – trick question – what’s abundant in the regions traditionally associated with jinn?
Sand.
Endless, shimmering, heat-blasted sand. And camels, but more on those in a later post.

Sand means silica, and silica has hi-tech potential. Years ago, I saw this video, and sometimes a spark of inspiration isn’t recognized as such until SUDDENLY IT IS! I had the seed of a civilization whose technology wasn’t based on metal or electricity, but on heat-shaped glass, crystalline structures, and silica-based energy systems. A world built from the very substance that humans have access to as well, but the jinn are way ahead of us. I wanted the world to feel familiar and possible, and glass gives me that.

The next question was: Keep the flying carpets?

Of course, when you’re drawing inspiration from a region filled with deep folklore, you bump into those classic motifs: Flying carpets. Bottled spirits. Mischievous wish-granters. I’ve already accounted for the last two, but those carpets were a hurdle…because some legends slide naturally into a fantasy world and others…can feel trite.

But that’s what fantasy writers do. We make those hard decisions: Keep what readers expect, or let it go if it doesn’t serve the story?

Flying carpets have a certain charm — portable, whimsical, and instantly recognizable. But in a silica-tech world? Did they fit? Would they feel too easy? Too literal?

Then I realized something that Pops has told Ari dozens of times:

Stories don’t appear out of nowhere. They’re rooted in some real observation, however distorted.

Which got me wondering…

What If the Flying Carpet Myth Started With the Jinn Themselves?

Maybe humans glimpsed something extraordinary and explained it the best way they could.

A distant shimmer.
A figure gliding over the desert.
The mirage-like wave of dunes moving under something that shouldn’t have been able to move that way.

“Flying carpet,” they might have said, because what else is flexible enough to float and glide over terrain?

But what if they weren’t flying?
What if they were surfing?

Not on water, but on sand. Using what was available because of their magic and affinity with fire?

Suddenly, the origin of the flying carpet makes perfect sense (if you can get over that whole magic thing – which I have no problem doing). Remember – magic was once the default answer for anything that didn’t make sense!

Humans saw a silhouette moving across dunes fast and smooth enough to defy belief. Imaginations did what imaginations do – related it to something familiar (carpet) and then it got a little magical glow up – poof! – genies on flying carpets!

Science + Myth = My Favorite Kind of Magic

At the end of the day, that’s the sweet spot for me in worldbuilding: the place where science deepens myth rather than replaces it – and somehow makes everything seem possible.

It’s also pretty cool that I can make surfing jinn a thing.

I’ve spent this month knee-deep in the Jinn Realms and unexpectedly discovered why I almost never finish high-fantasy novels.

As you might know, I usually write contemporary fantasy (“low fantasy”), where the magical world is familiar and I don’t have to re-invent physics just to get Ari through a doorway. But the next Relic Hunter book takes us into Egypt, and that’s where Sidaffri can slip back home and orchestrate our first adventure in the Sand Fire series.

And when Sidaffri’s sister kidnapped us, I had to start describing the Jinn Realm.

At first, I did what any history geek would do: I dove into ancient lore from the surrounding region, conveniently tucking the gateway to Na’har somewhere near Egypt. That research was fun, but as research generally does, it began multiplying.

Place names. Magical systems. Cultural structures. Mythic hierarchies. Suddenly, I had a cheat sheet to help me remember my own notes.

Which is when I realized something important:

That’s EXACTLY why I rarely make it through a high-fantasy book.

So… I U-turned.

The second draft (which is technically still a first draft) is cleaner, lighter, and far more “me.” I’ve been listening to Brandon Sanderson’s brilliant lectures on worldbuilding, and while some writers have the patience to spend years constructing a universe, I absolutely do not. I admire that level of detail from a respectful distance – with a cup of coffee and no pressure to write that sort of book.

For me, the Jinn Realms need to stay familiar, with just enough magic to twist reality in fun ways without requiring a glossary. And technology – because when the realms divided, the jinn certainly didn’t stay stuck in the dark-ages. Think sunlit sandstone archways in Na’har with cool tech that makes life better in the desert.

The goal is simple:

Names you can remember.
Magic that feels exciting, not exhausting.
A world that sweeps you in without ever making you feel lost.

It’s been more challenging than I expected. But challenge usually means growth, and this world has definitely made me a sharper writer. Everything I add has to serve double-duty: deepen the world and push the story forward. If it doesn’t, it gets cut.

(And yes, there’s been a lot of cutting.)

But all that trimming is so I can deliver a book you’ll disappear into without actually getting lost.

In my next post, I’ll bring you into Na’har and introduce you to the Court of the Enira – Balsara, Sidaffri’s sister and queen of the Jinn. There’s one reveal in particular that made me smile and think, “Oh. So that’s who she really is.”

And keep an eye on my sidebar and Instagram because I’ll be sharing some Jinn-Realm eye candy very soon.