Monday, 15 April 2013

Living the Fairy Tale - World Building


Living the Fairy Tale - World Building


A few weeks ago I posted about the world building for my WIP, Journey to the Bone Factory. I spoke about the depth of research and about the methods I use to store all this vital information so that my mind is free to be creative and write [Press here to read].  This got me thinking about the differences between the world building between Bone Factory (YA SCI-FI) and my first book Through Mortal Eye's, and so I decided to post about the world building in Through Mortal Eyes.

Through Mortal Eyes, is a very different book; but it is still one that’s heavily reliant on world building for success. Its fantasy told in a duel narrative, but it’s a fantasy based in this reality and time. You’d think it’d make world building easier but that’s not easier it’s just different.

Through Mortal Eyes, is about Fairy tales, but not fluffy one ending with happily ever after, or ones set in different worlds. In the world of Through Mortal eyes, fairy tales are real, the characters moving around in the shadows, and eventually they get entwined with seventeen year old Ruby, who has to bring the all the tales to an end.

Of course I need not have to worry about gravitational pull, and the proximity of planets to their suns, or population density but I did have a whole lot of reading and world building of two different views and times within our world. But instead of the  physics of the world I was looking more at species of the world, and making a normal setting seem dark and fairy tale like.





So for the world building I looked at fairy tales, stacks of them. Then I also had species to work out so research veered in the direction of ghouls, beast and the un-dead from mythology and folklore across the world.  I noted down species profiles, much like character profiles, but with anatomy, and social histories.  I also researched actual history to slip things to make the species history more believable and add depth; researching the dog-headed Saint Christopher and the Hungarian Countess, Elizabeth Bathory who murdered and bathed in young maiden blood.




For places I used the little love town of my youth, using the oldest house in town, and the oldest church with the hollow tree.  Both these places in the right light with the right words look like they belong in a fairy tale. Also In the novel there is an abandoned town, which was burnt to the ground in middle ages, only leaving the church standing. This actually happened to a town about fifteen miles from the  in the novel, but not knowing what it was called I found a great web-site detailing all the lost medieval town of Berkshire Press here.



Of course sometimes a simple object can be enough to set your mind working, dictating to be used in the narrative and that the world is built to include it. This happened with my dad's old dagger that he dug up on a building site years ago.

All these notes were spread out over an array of notepads, ring-binders and stored virtually.  Coming together to build a disturbing yet scarily familiar world. 




Friday, 5 April 2013

Space on The Bookshelf; Celebrating Children’s Literature



I'm very excited to announce that today is the launch of a new blog, ‘Space on The Bookshelf’ which is brainchild of Nicki Thornton, Jo Wyton and Me, and is designed to celebrate our shared passion for children’s literature with reviews, views, and much, much more!

We at ‘Space on the Bookshelf’ believe that all children love reading, it’s just that some haven’t found the right one yet. We aim to help them find their breakthrough book, with an array of articles, reviews, and features including our Bookaholics features celebrating the unseen people that work to promote children’s books and literacy, our Going Global series looking at books from overseas, and our monthly 3D Reviews.

The 3D Review  will focus on a single book, where we will be featuring reviews, by one of us blog authors, plus one by a child of the target readership, an spotlight on writing and what makes the book stand out  plus author profile, and author and editor interviews – and of course a book give-away.

Our first Monthly 3D Review is of a very ‘…Big Fat Zombie Goldfish,’ so why not come over and see if you can hook yourself the give-away copy.

We are very excited about Space on the Bookshelf, and we hope you will be too, PRESS HERE to check us out, and if you like what you see please help us spread the word, by linking to the site from Facebook and twitter.


 You can also follow us on Twitter at @BookshelfSpace