world building

Wow, world building is complicated! I have been doing research, pretty much all day now! Here's the funny thing... I've never had so much fun in front of the computer. It's funny how things work. I had decided my direction before and had written several pages of notes, but I really didn't have a cohesive idea. Well, today I chucked all those notes and started over, and I feel like I'm really getting somewhere! So today, I established a name for the world and names for the different regions. My villain has a name now (based on something my nephew said the night of the Harry Potter party) and I have a pretty good idea of what should happen in each of the 5 planned books. Not exactly what should happen, but the big picture of it.

I'm going to draw a map in a few minutes, just so I'll have something to reference when I start writing. I still need to name the two kids, a boy and a girl. I had thought about using two sisters first, then I thought three kids, then I reconsidered that since it's too similar to the trio in Harry Potter. I named the world Draha, which means "pathway" in Czech (my ancestry) it also means "life history," which I thought was appropriate. So now I'm faced with a name for the series. Draha Adventures? Draha Chronicles? I'm not sure. Writing juvenile fiction is very new to me, and fantasy is completely uncharted territory. I'm thinking each book is going to be in the 100,000 - 150,000 word range. I might be over estimating here, but I think it might require that much. Basically, that means when the series is finished, I will have written over 500,000 words, even if I write the lower end of that range. I'm getting a much better sense of the story now. I think I've finally landed on an overall theme and several other themes to weave throughout the story. Okay, back to the planning. So much fun!