Ari Lewin is Executive Editor at G.P Putnam's Sons, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group at Penguin Random House.

Some of her titles include Rick Yancey's bestselling Fifth Wave Series, and she recently published Journey's End, a middle grade novel by Rachel Hawkins.

She gave a workshop on World Building. Creating an immersive world that is seamlessly believable keeps readers turning pages. "The world that you're building is going to create the stakes of your story and force your character arc."

She's come across a lot of worksheets for world building, but she thinks those are more useful to look at later in the game. She started us off with a sheet to jumpstart our brainstorming. Spoiler alert: animate teacups were an option (hooray!).

Some questions to ask ourselves when we are constructing worlds: Is this believable? Why does it matter? If the topic is familiar, how will I break it out and make it different?"

We chose elements and--working with a partner--created worlds with stakes, and thought about how make these things believable. This is where she pulled the rug out from under us, after having given us things like talking teacups and astronauts to work with.

Premises can't be 20 kinds of wacky, because we need readers to believe these things our wheel. when you take on elements that are too difficult to work with, "you can spin your wheels to infinity."

Humans are wired to pick up information at locations. Let's say you're at a bar. What are people wearing? What's being served? What drinks are on the menu? These things build atmosphere. This gives context for your reader and lets them slide in without having too many questions. The atmosphere is revealed as a reader watches what a character says and does. When the author steps out from behind a curtain, this turns into a book report—which isn't as exciting as a movie.

She gave us a story scenario and walked us through the process for creating a world that works using fairies, trolls, and a pair of purloined wings by considering a number of dynamics: power structures, the economy, the presence, rules, and limits of magic.

Generally, showing a character in a world is far more interesting to read than explaining and summarizing a world.

Follow her on Twitter: @ariannelewin https://twitter.com/ArianneLewin

Neal Shusterman: Lessons in World Building

Neal Shusterman won both the National Book Award and Golden Kite for CHALLENGER DEEP, his novel about mental illness.

"What I know about world building doesn't come from books, unless you count the books I've written. I was a bad world-builder when I first started."

World building is the hardest thing we can do as writers. We sometimes learn this the hard way. He's come up with 10 rules of world building (a few of which we'll share here).

1. There are no rules except for the ones you make. 
2. Be prepared to live by the rules you make. 
3. Logic, logic, logic. Story must follow logic and characters must act accordingly. 

When you're writing realistic fiction, you get to play god. When you're creating worlds, you're not just playing god, you're being god. There is increased responsibility. With world building, everything is up for grabs (including gravity).

You have to live by the rules that you've created.

You can't just throw something out there and not follow through the ramifications of that. So, if everyone disappears, that means planes that were in the air crash. How does that affect your story?

For example, what are five real-world implications of reading other people's minds?

1. You'd automatically know guilt or innocence
2. Everyone's head would be filled with noise
3. Romantic relationships would go upside down
4. We'd all know who you're really voting for
5. There would be no surprise

OK. What are two ramifications of knowing people's guilt or innocence? 

1. There is no need for a justice system. 
2. You'd change who you spent time with. 

So, you go through implications and their ramifications, and this is how you create a world bit by bit. Start with the simplest thing and look at all of the ramifications. Keep building on those ramifications and you will end up with a world that is extremely believable. 

"We need to approach the world from the inside out." 

When you create the world, the world becomes a character and you have to deal with that. When you're building a universe, the smallest changes have big effects. You have to be careful with that. 

YA Worldbuilding Panel: Veronica Rossi

Veronica Rossi

Veronica Rossi is the author of a NYT bestselling trilogy that started last year with UNDER THE NEVER SKY and picked up this year with THROUGH THE EVER NIGHT.

She joined Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Tahereh Mafi in a panel moderated by author Ransom Riggs about world-building in young adult novels.

The book is about a world fragmented into two groups. One lives in an enclosed city with technology, no disease, long lifespans. There's also a primitive, tribal society vulnerable to storms and hunger.

"I did not know what I was doing when I started out" with worldbuilding. "I went with where my interests were."

She started with the question about how dependent we are on our technology and devices. Where are we going to go with that? That became the underpinning of the series.

She also did lots of research (which included staring at walls). A key bit of learning: no matter how much pre-planning you do, you can't figure it all out beforehand.

Did she have any problems in her second book? 
The biggest challenge was to keep the enclosed city alive in the story even though it mostly focused on the outer world.

Her character had to feel at home in the inner world even though she wasn't there. She used the virtual reality device she created in the first book, where characters could really experience a place they weren't in, to keep it alive.

World-building pro tip from a wiser Veronica Rossi: Don't create a world with two distinctive cultures in your first attempt at world building.

Did writing through two sets of eyes affect things?
This was by design. She wanted to see how a girl from a protected society would look at people who lived a primitive, tribal existence. Playing with each character's lens was fun for her.

How do you suspend a reader's disbelief as you're creating a fantastical world? 

Everything that happens in her story is a leaping off point. Her characters love fiercely. They fight fiercely. They make mistakes. They betray people. That is the thing that allows people to relate to the story. Even though the world is not like ours, they are going through the same kind of hardships and stumbles, first love--"all those great things we experience"--and they relate to that. 

Did you start with setting or character?

They really came about at the same time. "I really started with opposites. Past, future. Male, female. I wanted to play with what happens when you put opposed things together."

For her, character is an elusive thing. It's as though the characters are already there, but she uncovers them or reveals them from the fog of her unconscious.  That's a process of just thinking about the story and planning as much in advance as feels good. "The writing is where it all comes to life."

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