fbpx

Hello Inklings!

This month’s Ink Splat Author Interview features Justin Minkel: educator, author, and Inklings mentor!

Recently, we’ve been talking about world-building at Society of Young Inklings. Justin loves immersing himself in the world he’s creating and takes time to develop world-building details. Check out his process in the interview below.

 Writing Challenge

In his interview, Justin invites us into his world-building process, which includes making a field guide to show the geography, flora, and fauna of his story-world. Your writing challenge this month is to give that strategy a try!

A field guide can be extensive, but you can create a miniature guide formatted as a top ten list. What are the top ten things someone might need to know to survive in the world of your story?

Consider weather, terrain, possible dangers, plants and animals, and even social situations. Have fun, and be creative! Remember, you can use sketches along with your text.

Whether you’re starting a brand-new story world or looking at the world of a story you’ve been working on for a while in a new way, your Top Ten Survival Tips Field Guide will help you bring your story-world more fully to life.


Tell us about yourself and your work.

I’ve wanted to be a writer since 2nd grade. When I was a kid, the characters in the books I read were real to me. I’d wander the woods beyond our house with Taran and Princess Eilonwy from The Book of Three. I’d ride my bike along our gravel road with Tom from The Great Brain books.

Grownups don’t always understand that children aren’t confused about the difference between the imaginary world and the actual world. It’s just that the imaginary world is real to them, too.

Now I write fantasy novels for readers in the middle grades, and I still love venturing into that imaginal realm. I write stories about friendship, adventure, and kids going on journeys to discover what lies beyond the world they know.

 

This month, we’re talking about world-building at Society of Young Inklings. How do you go about crafting the world of each of your stories?

Before I ever write the first sentence of a new novel, I spend weeks or even months discovering the world and the characters who inhabit it. I draw maps of the mountains and coastline. I make a field guide with sketches of the plants and animals in the forest. I figure out what kinds of tools and weapons and art the people there make, what kind of bread they bake, what legends they tell.

For me, it feels less like creating a world than unearthing a world that always existed. It’s archaeology. You discover the foundations of a stone fortress buried beneath the earth, or dig up the bent blade of an ancient axe, and keep digging to find out what else is down there.

This whole world unfolds that was there all along.

What part of the writing process do you enjoy most? 

I love it when a character does something I wasn’t expecting. I was writing a scene once where a group of friends who want to start their own school of magic meet with a crime lord named Slake to exchange a chest of pirate gold for regular money.

When the kids handed over the treasure chest, Slake took out a gold doubloon and fed it to his dog. The dog wagged his stump of a tail, then slobbered the coin back out into his hand. I had no idea why Slake had done that. It took me a second to realize he’d trained his dog to know by the taste whether a piece of gold was real or fake.

When a character does something of their own volition, that’s when you know they’ve become real. They’ve begun shaping their own story, not just playing a part in the story you set out to write.

It’s a kind of sorcery.

A special thank you to Justin Minkel for sharing with us! 

Justin Minkel has known he wanted to be a writer since 2nd grade. He grew up surrounded by the woods, creeks, and hollows of the Ozark Mountains, where he’d go on rambling adventures with characters from whatever fantasy book he was reading at the time.

Justin taught elementary school in New York, California, and Arkansas. He has an MFA in Creative Writing for Children and Young Adults from Hamline University, and he loves working with young writers as their imaginations flourish and their stories unfold.

Justin’s most recent novel is a fantasy story inspired by the Icarus myth about kids who build their own wings and fly beyond the mountains to discover what lies “beyond beyond.” He lives in a forest-colored house surrounded by trees with his 13-year-old son, his 16-year old daughter, his wife, too many books to fit on the shelves, and a tender-hearted black cat named Smudge.

Check out Justin’s book here.

INKLINGS CONNECT

Enter the Inklings Book Contest!

Writers in grades 3-12 are invited to submit their short stories and poems now through March 15, 2025 for this free-to-all publishing opportunity.

Winners are paired with a professional writer/mentor who works with them to revise their stories and poems for publishing; and ALL applicants receive personalized feedback on their submissions!

Keep your creativity flowing with our upcoming community events:

SUBSCRIBE

Subscribe to stay in touch with Society of Young Inklings. You’ll receive our monthly Ink Splat newsletter and be the first to know about upcoming events and ways to connect with Young Inklings.