Learning to Dream, One Book at a Time

The books I read as a child and teenager shaped my perception of the world and molded me into who I am today. From those books I learned friendship. I learned to dream. I learned love. I learned sorrow. I learned happiness. I learned that no matter what happens, as long as there are still books in the world, I will never truly be alone.

Hopefully the books I write will create that same sense of yearning for adventure in other children. Even if I don’t accomplish that goal, my writing brings me back to those days of discovery.

I like the freedom that writing fantasy brings. I am able to create new worlds from my imagination. If I write in familiar settings, I can twist the details to fit my needs, I don’t have to worry about being accurate to the exactitude of the setting, because things have changed to fit the demands of my story. I also really enjoy world-building. I’m complete pants at writing description, something I really hope to work on in my edits, but world-building isn’t just in description.

Creating a new world, one that young adults can relate to, begins with understanding the type of people that live in the world. It involves creating a world that is believable for the characters to exist in. It would seem strange to drop a medieval knight in Central Park just as it would seem strange to have cell phones in feudal Japan. When world-building, these are all things I have to take into consideration. I either have to design the worlds in such a way that these things seem natural, or I have to have an excellent back story for why they’ve suddenly appeared in that world.

I suppose another reason that I write young adult novels is that the story is less complex. There is generally a main plot with only one or two hidden agendas. It is easier for me to keep track of that sort of storyline than one that branches out in every direction. I want to write my story, not have my story escape from me until the point that I discover I don’t know where I was originally going with it any longer.

Maybe once I’ve written more, I’ll graduate to more complex novels.

Maybe I won’t.

Maybe I’ll find that those types of novels have a place in young adult literature after all.