Miranda Newman is an author and editor based out of Toronto She’s co-editor of AFTERNOON, a yearly arts and letters publication, and publishes Life as a Lunatic, a monthly newsletter about coping with symptoms of mental illness. She is also author of The Girl Who Fell To Earth, the first story being told from the Future Now universe! Here she answers some questions from our community about the story she’s telling, her reasons for telling it, and her many inspirations!

Read The Girl Who Fell To Earth on Wattpad

Fundamentally, what do you think this is a story about?

This is a coming-of-age story about a woman wrestling with her identity and agency in an environment that severely limits it. I wanted Mirela’s story, despite being set far in the future with obstacles we might not be able to relate to in the present, to be rooted in an internal struggle any reader can relate to. I think most of us have experienced trying to balance what our loved ones expect of us, what society expects of us, what gender norms dictate we should be, and what we want from ourselves, particularly as we age into adulthood. Mirela is 19 and is struggling with all those same questions—albeit she’s from Venus and on her way to Earth to enter into an arranged marriage. My hope is Mirela will ultimately make choices that will put her and her loved ones on the path to fulfilment, but we’ll see what readers think she should do.

Why Did You Write This Story?

I’ve always really loved dystopian fiction and high fantasy—definitely a guilty reading pleasure of mine. Though I had never considered writing sci-fi before (I tend to skew more toward nonfiction and institutional fiction), when the Future Now team approached me with this accessible futuristic universe, I thought it would be a really interesting way to incorporate dystopian and high fantasy storytelling into a pre-existing sci-fi universe.

Given my writing background, the Future Now team directed me to the Venus portion of their universe. Initially a penal colony for political dissidents, the early colonists and its guards had quickly rebelled against the structure in the deep vacuum of space where they had to collaborate to survive. Since it was so far away, already surveilled, and ultimately a well-run functioning society, Earthlings largely left them alone and the prison colony transitioned into an Off-Earth colony that anyone could journey to if they were daring enough. During what would become Mirela’s teenage years, an eager-eyed colonist noticed an uptick in viewers tuning into the surveillance stream. Sensing an opportunity, the colonists declared the President and her husband “Queen and King” - and their daughter, Mirela, a princess. Streamed back to Earth, the monarchy became a highly-managed entertainment spectacle bringing in much-needed revenue and increasing awareness of the Colony. It wasn’t enough though, and ultimately, Mirela’s family made an arrangement that would save the future of the Colony, but it meant marrying her off to an Earthling, after which she would embark on a year-long tour of Earth.

I was really excited at the opportunity to explore how a former penal colony might survive in deep space, how a person might function when removed from that highly-controlled environment, and move Mirela through Earth in 2084 to learn how the planet has changed through the eyes of someone experiencing it for the first time. It was also a really unique challenge to try to create a deeply-relatable character in an unfamiliar environment.    

What do you think of the process of receiving direction on the story from fans?

As someone who writes a lot of nonfiction, I’m not completely unfamiliar with other people informing the direction of my stories; however, typically I get all that input before the story is ever published. What’s unique about writing on Wattpad is the direct ability to engage with readers and hear what they want to see in subsequent chapters, which requires a high level of flexibility. I have a general sense of the bones of Mirela’s story, and am deeply familiar with her as a character, but I get to be adaptive in the choices she makes and how the story unfolds based on feedback. These can be small suggestions from readers like, “illustrat[ing] more of the penthouse” Mirela lives in, to story arcs I had never considered before, like a possible relationship between Mirela and Roza. 

Who do you think the audience is? do you have in mind as the audience? 

I think this story is definitely written with people who are at the precipice of adulthood in mind. It’s really meant for anyone who has made that, at times, painful transition. As Mirela is a female character dealing with concepts like agency within heterosexual marriages, it might be more relevant to readers who identify as female but my hope is everyone will be able to enjoy the narrative. Without giving away too much of the story, I also intend to explore 2SLGTBQ+ themes, nontraditional relationship structures, and the delicate dance of balancing what the heart wants with what the head tells you to do.

Why do you think the audience will enjoy this story? 

Hopefully, audiences will enjoy this story because it’s relatable. Ultimately, if you removed the setting, The Girl Who Fell to Earth is really about finding one’s place in the world. It’s about the moral and psychological growth Mirela has to make in the transition to adulthood in order to meet her goals of saving her planet and finding a sense of personal contentment. Beneath Mirela’s personal journey, there’s elements of a love story, a whole bunch of Game of Thrones-esque social engineering, and a rich and futuristic setting to explore. I’ve tried to offer up something for every type of reader to enjoy, and I’m hopeful they will.  

What will the audience learn by reading this story to completion? 

Audiences will learn that personal growth can be incredibly painful but is necessary to move forward. Mirela is caught under the weight of a lot of conflicting responsibilities. She’s never going to be able to please everyone she cares about while also finding some sort of happiness for herself. She’s going to have to take risks to lead a life that aligns with her personal values, and the stakes of those risks are very high—her planet’s future rides on her choices. But my hope is this story will encourage readers to draw on their own resources and well of inner power, like Mirela has to, to confront the fears that are holding them back in their own lives.

who are you as a writer and how does this story fit within your own trajectory? why is telling this story important to you?

​​I’m telling this story for the same reason I write anything: to help people feel less alone. I moved around a lot as a kid and didn’t have a great family situation so spent most of my childhood feeling pretty lonely. Books were my friends, my teachers, my adopted parents, and my escape. They helped me realize I wasn’t alone in my experiences—that there were lots of weird kids like me out there who were going through what I was—and that was very comforting.

My hope is that through The Girl Who Fell to Earth and Mirela’s personal struggles with her sense of agency, ability to grow, and her sense of herself, readers who are experiencing similar issues will find some sense of hope. Maybe it will even encourage them to face some of their own fears around their future.

If your audience likes [blank] they will like this. 

If readers like stories with strong character arcs in rich settings—think Games of Thrones, Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, etc—then The Girl Who Fell to Earth will probably interest them. Sci-fi, dystopian, and high fantasy readers will probably also enjoy this narrative as it owes its existence to books like the The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien, A Song of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin, Alice’s Adventures Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll, The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood, and The Giver by Lois Lowry.

What excited you the most about this setting? 

For me, one of the most intimidating elements of sci-fi is world-building. Through Mirela, very much like readers of the Future Now series, I’m able to explore this well thought-out, accessible, and adaptable pre-existing world. In a sense, I’m taking the same journey the reader is, which is a unique opportunity for a writer. It feels a bit like I’ve been dropped on Earth in 2084 and am allowed to explore it to my heart’s content. 

Do you see yourself in any of the characters?

There are definitely elements of myself in all of the characters but because this is a first-person narrative, it’s hard not to bring large pieces of myself to Mirela. We come from very different circumstances but, like Mirela, I’ve spent a lot of time learning to control my emotions and adapting to unforgiving environments so I definitely bring that aspect of my personality to her character. I think we also share a general social anxiety, though for very different reasons, and a tendency to put the needs of others before our own. But, Mirela is also younger, more mechanically-inclined, less cynical than I am, and crucially—has a lot more power, even if she doesn’t realize it. 

What would you like to see by 2084? 

I will be 94 in 2084 so, preferably, nothing. The dirt? In all seriousness, just the usual: eradication of capitalism, poverty, hunger, inequality, the destruction of the environment—a world that works for everyone who lives in it. In the Future Now world, I definitely identify with the Paradisian movement and aspire to it. It would be incredible if Earth was on some version of the path to Paradesia by 2084. That said, I’m deeply skeptical that humanity could pull something like that off. 

You can read the Girl Who Fell To Earth on Wattpad now and help resolve Mirela’s journey in the comments.