Fiction: Stories, Worlds, and the Craft Behind Them

Most of what I write as a physician is meant to be clear and calm. Fiction lets me do something else. It lets me ask "what if?" and follow the question wherever it goes. This section collects that side of my work: notes on my novel, essays on worldbuilding for the games we make at Mirrorshard Studios, and, over time, some original short fiction of my own.

Swarm 700

Swarm 700 is a techno-thriller, published on Kindle under my byline J. Wayne Saul MD. I've always been drawn to stories where technology and human judgment collide, where the question isn't only "can we build this?" but "what happens when it works, or fails, in the real world?"

If you want to know more about why I wrote it and how I approached it, read Swarm 700 behind the scenes. That essay is spoiler-free. It covers why I chose the techno-thriller genre, the questions about technology and responsibility that interest me, and the craft decisions involved in keeping technical detail readable and the pace moving. If you haven't read the book yet, you can read the essay first without anything being given away.

Worldbuilding for games

Storytelling at Mirrorshard Studios looks a little different from storytelling in a novel. In a book, the author controls every sentence. In a game, the player is a co-author. Our job is to build a world with clear rules, a consistent tone, and enough room for people to make their own stories inside it.

The studio's projects each have their own flavor. Sky Bandits, live on Roblox, is about raiding floating islands, riding rockets, and building a crew among the clouds. Legendary Tail, in development, is a storybook adventure. The World's Worst Adventurer's Guild, a working title, is a comedic fantasy RPG planned for PC on Steam and still in early development.

I write about the thinking behind those worlds in building worlds at Mirrorshard Studios: how tone gets set, why the rules of a world matter, how humor fits in, and what the studio tagline, "Shattered worlds, reformed," means to me. You can see the current lineup on the games page.

What you will find here

This section will grow slowly, and on purpose. Here is what to expect:

• Behind-the-scenes essays about how my books and games came to be, written without spoilers wherever possible.
• Craft notes on pacing, structure, research, voice, and the small decisions that shape how a story feels.
• Worldbuilding essays about the settings, tone, and design thinking behind Mirrorshard Studios projects.
• Short original fiction in the future, when I have pieces I'm proud to share.

I'd rather publish a handful of things worth your time than fill this page with filler. If a piece shows up here, it's because I think it says something real about how stories get made.

Why a physician writes fiction

People sometimes assume fiction is a break from medicine. In some ways it is. But in other ways it is a continuation.

Medicine trains you to pay close attention to people. How they talk when they're scared. What they leave out. How small decisions add up to large consequences. It also trains you to think about systems: how one failure leads to another, and how people respond under pressure. Those habits turn out to be useful for writing stories. A good thriller is, in a way, a study of systems under stress and the people caught inside them.

Fiction also gives me room to think about ethics without a deadline. In clinical work, hard questions often have to be answered quickly and in the moment. In a story, I can slow those questions down, look at them from several sides, and let characters live with the results. That's one of the things I value most about the form.

And frankly, I write fiction because I love stories. I love the moment when a reader can't put a book down, or when a player stops and just looks at the world around them for a minute. Making those moments is one of the most satisfying things I know.

Where the fiction connects to the rest

The fiction and the nonfiction on this site come from the same person, so they overlap. If you're curious about the bigger picture, the nonfiction essays explain why I write for patients, why I started a game studio, and how I try to keep all of these projects in balance. The books page lists everything I've published, fiction and nonfiction alike.

Start here

• If you've read Swarm 700, or are thinking about it, start with the spoiler-free behind-the-scenes essay.
• If you play games, start with building worlds at Mirrorshard Studios.
• If you want the book itself, visit the Swarm 700 page.

Thanks for being here. Stories have always been one of the ways people make sense of the world. I'm glad to share a few of mine.