Today, I welcome Jamie Magee to Immortyl Revolution! Jamie is on the Romancing Your Darkside Tour and has graciously offered a copy of the ebook versions of Insight and Embody to one lucky commentor! Winner will be chosen at random. Deadline to enter is Sunday 10/23/11 at 11:59 PM EST. Please become a follower of this blog and leave an email address where you may be contacted. In addition, any commentors on the RYDS tour are entered into a grand prize drawing for a new kindle. Please follow the tour link above for details!
It is a pleasure to be here today on Immortyl Revolution as a part of the Romancing Your Dark Side tour! My name is Jamie Magee and I am the author of the YA ‘Insight’ series. My series incorporates elements that have always fascinated me as a person: zodiac, past lives, soul- mates, alternate dimensions, and of course the classic battle between good and evil. When looking at the diversity of these elements I realized that the world my characters would live in would have to be much different from the one we live in. Which leads me to the topic of today’s post – how do I build a ‘mythical’ world in my novels.
Across time authors have taken each of us into their imagination and led us to worlds that we may never see in our reality. Some authors have even chosen to create their story in the ‘real world’, even that aspect allows readers to see a town or area of the world from a fresh perspective. With my novels I wanted to have that touch of reality, but also step into an element or world that is not known to us.
One of the core elements in my story is alternate dimensions. When some hear the word dimension they may think of another dimension that is full of fairies or dinosaurs, others might think of another world that has another them doing something completely different. I mulled over what I thought an alternate dimension would look like for more time than I could recall ( the idea behind this is to this day fueling the Insight series). I remember thinking that it would be amazing to create creatures that have never existed before, but that aspect did not fit the love story I was creating.
So, I looked at the other point of view, another world with another me, and altered it ever so slightly. The only thing I changed was the ‘other you’. I simply used that idea for the world as whole (instead of the individual) meaning, that my dimensions were different from ours only because of the decisions that were made as whole. That idea could send anyone’s imagination running in a thousand directions. The dimension could be altered by the simplest change, like driving on a different side of the road, when we declare our children adults, how we use natural power for energy , or even something as complex as how we educate our children or how we commit to another for life.
Using this idea I was able to imagine dimensions that ‘made all the right choices’ that were full of peace and love, and then I imagined others that were full of darkness and a controlling leader. In between these two ideas of worlds there were others I imagined into life as well. Ones that have simple changes like never allowing children to be in public without an elder (grandparent). The idea behind these dimensions is that we create the world around us by the decisions we make. When you really mull over that thought, that we create our world as whole, you allow yourself to feel the power or impact you have over this world.
The idea of the different worlds led me to daydream into life elements that would dance on the side of fantasy. Like the string, a glowing passage of energy that is used to navigate to new worlds. Or even the power that my characters find in the Zodiac and the energy around them. Then there is a dream aspect that as we all know can take a story in any direction.
I guess if I were to explain how I created my mythical world I would simply say that I do not – the characters in that world create that place. Much like we create our world.
If you could change anything about the world – what would you change?
Jamie, thanks for joining me today! You can follow Jamie at these links:
http://www.insightjamiemagee.com/
http://twitter.com/#!/insight117
http://facebook.com/
Insight on Nook
