Guest Post
By Alexia Purdy
World building in the YA scene
The dreaded world building! Okay, today I’m highlighting this from my series A Dark Faerie Tale series where a young girl named Shade stumbles upon the parallel world of the Land of Faerie and discovers not only does she have magical abilities, but she’s meant for greater things beyond her control. That’s if she can survive multiple attempts on her life and the affections of two very different warriors. In the end, it’s tough to be Queen.
When I first started writing this series, book 1 Ever Shade was my first novel length story and I hadn’t a clue on how to world build. Sometimes it felt like a huge info dump onto the readers of the book, which for me was hard to avoid. I had this incredible world floating about my mind’s eye where nothing was as it seems, tricks of the eye were played at every step, and magic reigned. How do you immerse a reader into this detailed world inside an author’s head? As a writer, I totally admit the first book was extremely difficult to get right. I had to cut out things that were repetitive, pounding such facts into a reader’s mind until they bled from the eyes. Then there was the trimming of the ‘fat’ as I chopped characters out and slimmed down their roles and scenes because it was just too much. But then…then there was the plumping up of scenes and characterization and descriptions which had me pulling my hair and up to my wits end to get it to work. It’s a struggle sometimes, yet sometimes it’s not.
No one said it would be easy…the mantra ‘you can do it’ was repeatedly pounded into my brain throughout this process.
‘But High Fantasy is super detailed’ you say? ‘The World building must be intense!’ Yes. I agree. I’ve always been an avid fan of Young Adult Fantasy, and though I can appreciate the intensity of High Fantasy where there is hardly a lick of reality in these books, I preferred to stick to the kinds of stories that were easy to read, easy to submerge oneself into and were not super drawn out to the point of taking months to read through. This was my goal and I knew readers of the genre who enjoyed YA Fantasy adventures would appreciate this set up.
So my point is…there is no easy way to get a world transcribed onto paper which exists solely in one’s head. It will never be painted out exactly the way the writer sees it. But, that’s okay. If it was painted out and drawn out to the point which nothing was left to the reader’s imagination, well, then it would be no fun reading it either. Now, knowing this and implementing it into my writing, I’m not afraid to leave out tiny details of things and give that responsibility to a reader. The story is theirs once I hit publish on Amazon, Nook or any other retailer selling my stories. It’s important to remember, an author is your guide through these fantastical worlds with their vibrant words and enticing details. The reader will see the story play out in their own head the way they want it to and take from it what they take. It’s different for everyone and letting go of the stringent expectation that I can make them see my world exactly the way I saw it, is liberating. I just hope I’m the best guide through it and get them coming back for more!
Alexia’s Bio:
Alexia Purdy’s Links:
Alexia’s Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/AlexiaPurdyAuthor
A Dark Faerie Tale Series Facebook Fanpage: https://www.facebook.com/ADarkFaerieTaleSeries
Reign of Blood Series Facebook Fanpage: https://www.facebook.com/RoBbooks
Blog/website: http://alexiaepurdy.blogspot.com
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/alexiapurdy
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A Dark Faerie Tale Series Book Trailer:
You-tube Trailer Link:
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