YA Series and Chill: Creating Charlie Hanson's World

I write YA contemporary fiction—real stories about real teens living right now. There are many reasons why I write contemporary YA. One of them is because the world building fantasy and sci-fi writers do is hard, and I'm not ready to create and entire fantasy realm complete with its own natural laws. I'm still trying to figure out this one.

But contemporary writers still have to create worlds—just on a much smaller scale. Both Love and Other Unknown Variables and Life after Juliet are set in a fictional town in the southeast. A town that is an amalgam of many places in North Carolina in which I've lived, but isn't exactly like any of them.

I made that world. And it was awesome! The power coursing through my fingertips as I typed was...bwahahaha...bwahahahuh...powerful?! Yes! Powerful! Fear me, minions of...ugh. Never mind. This is exhausting.

World domination is never going to be my thing. I'm too much of a Hufflepuff. I just want to stay at home in my pjs and read.

Nevertheless, there was work to be done to create Charlie's world, and most of that work had to be done by learning math.

Ugh.

Math. Why do you torment me?

Charlie sees the world in a highly logical and scientific way. He likes for things to remain organized in their categories. He likes equations to be difficult, but have answers. He loves to have the one and only right answer.

Time and again, in writing Charlie, I'd have to pause and research some scientific or mathematical principle because I could tell Charlie was getting frustrated. He wanted to explain himself, but I didn't understand his language. So step one in creating Charlie's world, was for me to read all kinds of math and science theories so we could communicate.

Charlie's STEM academy, Brighton School of Mathematics and Science, was loosely based off two schools in North Carolina. The first was The North Carolina School of Science and Math, a two-year residential school in Durham, North Carolina. In High School, I knew a girl that went away our junior year to attend, and while I never really wanted to immerse myself in advanced math and science classes, I was always intrigued by the school. It just seemed so elusive and exclusive to someone who was often nauseated in math class.

The second school I based Brighton on was The North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston Salem. This school also pops up in Life after Juliet (but more on that in the coming weeks). While I couldn't understand what it'd be like to go to a school surrounded by math and science types, I had dreamed of attending a school surrounded by people passionate about art.

The more writing I did in the LAOUV world, the more I realized that these two schools of thought—math and art—were actually closely related. Once I understood that the passion that drives mathematicians is the same as the passion pushing artists, creating Charlie's world was simple. It was filled with science and art and literature and math—and most importantly, hope. Because kids that attend either of these schools are filled to overflowing with hope for making a difference in their fields. They are driven, determined, and passionate people. They demand excellence. They are overflowing with hope for their futures.

Hope is universal.

Charlie's world was built with hope.

And Swedish Fish. Let's be honest. There were plenty of pure sugar enhanced writing sessions I pushed through to make that world. So, thank you Swedish Fish. Bless you.

Now back to my world domination (ahem, reading).

And while I'm doing that, don't forget that there's still time to check out Entangled Teen's YA Series and Chill promo. Love and Other Unknown Variables is on sale for $.99 starting today!

And the big Entangled TEEN YA Series Starter Kit giveaway is still going on for a few days. Get your entries in now!






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