Have you ever become so immersed in a book that you lose track of time? The setting and sensory details are written so well that you can practically taste and smell the food, feel the sun and wind on your face, and feel the squish of the mossy forest floor beneath your feet as the crickets chirp in the night. I know I have, and quite frankly, it is one of my favorite things to experience while reading. When I was a little girl, I used to read any fantasy book I could for this exact reason. Books were my escape from my day-to-day life, and I grew to love the authors who were especially good at worldbuilding. My love for writing stems from the solace I took in the my favorite worlds, and it is something I hone every time I write, in the hope that someday I can give others the same feelings of solace and wonder that I had. Stories from authors like Rick Riordan, J.K. Rowling, and J.R.R. Tolkien shaped my childhood, and inspired my writing now. There are a few major distinctions I have noticed that they all do in worldbuilding that have helped me immensely.
First off, I realized you must be able to find a good balance between sensory details, settings, and dialogue. You must be able to find this balance without becoming too word-heavy—leave the filler arcs to the TV shows. Still, descriptions are and will be your best friend since it’s easier to enchant your readers with a world that they can mentally see and experience. To do so, be sure to include as many of the five senses as you can. We should be able to hear the village chatter below as a church bell tolls within the kingdom’s walls. We should be able to see the golden light dance upon the waves as the sun sets upon the sea. The more you rely on your senses to write, the easier it becomes. When I was growing up, Riordan inspired me to appreciate mythology because of the way he described the creatures, deities, and their fantastical worlds. The Percy Jackson novels and Red Pyramid books captured my attention and kept me engaged.
Regarding dialogue, I personally struggle to balance dialogue and sensory details in my writing. Something I have found that helps to create that balance is reading my work out loud to myself, and then having people I trust read my writing. By reading it out loud to myself, I not only know how smooth and natural my dialogue is or isn’t, but I also learn whether a reader would grow bored or tired of a section based on my own feelings after reading it. If it flows like a normal conversation, then I know I am on the right track; but if it feels like I go on too long without pausing or taking a breath, I know I might want to make some adjustments. I then have feedback for myself, and if I share it with trusted readers and they feel the same, then I know whether a certain section works well or not. You have to make what you write believable to yourself first. It makes it so much easier.
At the end of my senior year of high school, I started to write a novel – that I am still working on to this day. The longer I have written it, the more I have come to pay attention to my characters. I noticed a lot of my characters took inspiration from the people around me. I felt as though the more I paid attention to my inspirations, the easier it became to write some of the characters due to having real experiences. The best reference, in my opinion, is one that you are around often. I wanted to make my characters relatable and human in that way. I hope that not only this novel project, but the rest of my work in the future is written in a way that my readers become fully immersed in it, thus allowing me to channel inspiration from my favorite authors to create an ongoing spark of creativity.