In writing any story, the name of the work is a crucial piece. The best names illuminate the contours of the theme while giving light to both plot and character. Often times, when I am hacking out stories, I will have no idea of the piece’s name. When the name doesn’t come after several rewrites, I know I am still looking for the soul of the work

I wrote around a hundred pages of A World on Fire before I found the title of this series. I’m not sure how it came to me, but one day, all my documents were stored in the “untitled book” folder, and the next day, it became “A World on Fire”.

It’s important to note that it isn’t “The World on Fire”, but rather “A World on Fire”. The “world on fire” is not referring to a whole, but rather, a part. In one perspective, you can view this as a different Earth undergoing a biological revolution. This Earth is different from our own in so much as the dead walk the earth and destroy the living like a fire destroying a forest. A World on Fire.

But to me, the scope of this series focuses on a teenager, Randell, abandoned by his mother at the time of his life he needed her the most. So this burning world is his world. All the good things in Randell take aflame and one wonders who the person will be at the end of the inferno.

There is an end to the story. There is a choice that quite literally changes the post-apocalyptic world. The question is … who is Randell when he makes such a choice? Can there be any compassion left in a person after he has been consumed with so much hate, loss, and grief? Can there be any hope in the world after millions die horrible deaths only to come back kill millions more in the same way?

There isn’t an easy answer. The question is: if your world burned to the ground, taking all you love with it — could you give yourself unselfishly to the whole? Could you help those in lesser pain than you? Would you set fire to those around you? Or would collapse upon yourself unable to think, love, or cry — becoming one of the dead without the malice or hunger.