Part of Your World: Character-Focused Worldbuilding in YA

Young adult novels require world-building finesse — you want a world that’s rich and developed, without bogging down your readers with an epic history lesson. The key to building a wide world with a narrow word count is identifying ways to connect your characters’ exterior worlds to their inner ones (and vice versa).

We will explore how tight world-building can help shape character arcs and introduce natural points of plot and friction, plus dive into simple ways to apply this to your work in progress. We’ll use exercises to focus your world-building through character point-of-view, motivation, and conflict. By focusing on the details most relevant to your characters, you can make your world pop off the page.

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