Fantasy Fiction

Ah Fantasy! The realm of warlocks and goblins, superman and Bilbo Baggins. I often feel like my parents forced me into becoming a consummate fantasizer by throwing all those Cinderellas and Snow Whites at me. Fantasy fiction just loves magic. It will throw it anywhere into the plot, the characters or the setting. Unbelievable? – even better, the point is to stretch the imagination of the reader to the point where eyes have widened and the mouth is slightly open. The supernatural is just another word for normal.

Fantasy is more setting driven than any other genre of literature. Writers revel in plunging their characters in worlds unknown where the laws of physics are suspended; Your world can be upside down and stars can be people. The most successful writers will first create awe-inspiring worlds even before writing because a neglected world breeds an awful fantasy book. Narnia, Oz, Middle Earth, Hogwarts all have their own geography and social setting. The world becomes another character of your novel that needs to be rounded out given a physical appearance, a history and a personality to match. It cannot be relegated to the background.

As opposed to world building you may choose to base your setting on medieval cultures or an alternate world. King Arthur, Game of Thrones and Camelot are all based on medieval Europe. Throw in some south American customs. Throw them back into Julius Ceasar’s reign and create a little village that survives the plunder (Asterix and the Gauls). It’s all in the details.

Fantasy fiction prides itself on having well developed, vivid and gripping characters with vitues and flaws.  Strange characters will roam your country. Werewolves will appear from nowhere. Elves will curse and giants will trample. Every character trait will be exaggerated. Tall will be ‘eleven feet’ tall, courage will be ‘run into a blazing’ building courage and strong will be ‘pull a tree from the ground’ tall. Create races and species that have unique physical features and behavior.

Traditionally, plotting for the fantasy novel involved an alpha male who is ‘the chosen one’ in a strange world on a quest to rid the world of a larger than life villain using a magical object. However Fantasy has evolved into the one genre where other genres go to pick some points. Romance, mystery, young adult, children’s and adult novels can all be set in fantasy worlds as long as the writer recognizes that the fantasy world and its strange characters is the most important element of the story. As long as some supernatural element is involved have a lovely time writing the story Yuvek of Thigmajavulia…