{Guest Post+Giveaway} The Man of a Thousand Faces by Jay Stritch

Item: The Man of a Thousand Faces
Author: Michelle @ Book Briefs

Posted March 6, 2015 by Michelle @ Book Briefs in Giveaways, Guest Post, New Adult / 1 Comment

The Man of a Thousand Faces by Jay Stritch
Published by Createspace Independent Pub on March 3, 2015
Series: The Eight Worlds Trilogy #1

Nineteen year old Achill has never left his training camp on Mars. With the revelation that his mother was exiled from the strict system after he was born he feels even more pressure to prove his loyalty and status as a fearless warrior who doesn't think before he kills. That is until he, who has never been taught of love or freedom, is sent on a secret mission for which he must travel through the other seven planets and fight for survival. As his journey unfolds he will discover unknown truths, potential love and face the strangeness of the lives and culture of those raised so differently to him. He may even uncover the timeless mystery of the man of a thousand faces. As tensions rise and the stakes are higher than ever Achill must decide who he is actually fighting for as he tries to understand both conflicts between the planets and also within himself.

A story that will take you to another world...many in fact, it has antiheroes, romance, strong adventure and unforgettable characters. Overall it is a rip roaring ride in a world where each of the eight planets has a different idea of civilization, a ruling god and where travelling between these contained worlds can spell extreme danger, conflict and in some cases unexpected insight.

Today author Jay Stritch is here to talk about:

Where the inspiration for her books and worlds comes from

This is a great question because world building is where you really have to start when writing a fantasy series. It’s from the world which you’ve built the foundations of that your characters grow as they have to be a product of this imaginary environment and the rules and way of life which flourishes there.

With this book the inspiration came (as inspiration often does) from an otherwise unremarkable moment. I was killing time with some friends and we were reading out each other’s star signs of that week in the back of a magazine. We were all different ones and this meant that different qualities, futures and interactions were supposed to befall each of us. I looked around and suddenly thought what if we were actually governed by this? What if our star sign actually depicted the rules that we would live by and the qualities we possessed? What if we were marked by our signs, separated and raised in separate worlds according to our birth sign? And then I just kept on asking these questions, each star sign has its own planet so that came next, it seemed a logical follow through that those marked with the Sagittarius sign should thus be raised on Jupiter. I started scribbling notes (my desk is a mess of scraps of paper with unintelligible ranting about Saturn’s government on them) and slowly characters began to form and demand to be written down.

And bippity boppity boo the bare bones of the idea were formed. Of course it grew a lot from that point, but the idea for a story is very much like a skeleton. Once it can stand alone then you can do the fun bit, you can flesh it out, give it life.

So to try and put my very round about answer in a nutshell I think the key is to ask questions continually. Enjoy being curious. And then once you have an outline ask the deeper questions like what goes on beneath the surface of the world you have created? Allowing it to mirror our own world and have layers and alliances and variations is a key aspect of bringing it to life. And when world building is done well I think it can be one of the best ways to address real issues from our own world through an accessible fantasy escape.

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The Man of a Thousand Faces is on sale today, so be sure to check it out. Thanks so much for being here Jay!

Jay is offering up a print copy to one lucky reader of my blog.