This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve discussed the genre of Romance and this week it’s Fantasy’s turn. Grab your cloak and broadsword and dive in …
There are several sub-categories within the realm of Fantasy, including Urban Fantasy, Historical Fantasy and Epic or High Fantasy.
Urban Fantasy (sometimes called Contemporary Fantasy) usually includes a familiar setting (such as a modern city) blended with fantastical elements – a hidden alternative world, the existence of fairies or magic or vampires in our world, a human character with supernatural powers and so on.
Epic or High Fantasy takes place in an entirely fantastical world such as Tolkien’s Middle Earth, and Historical Fantasy can use any or all of these elements but is set in an identifiable historical time period.
I adore reading (and writing!) Fantasy and books with supernatural elements, but there are a few pitfalls particular to the genre …
1. Unpronounceable names with random punctuation such as King X’thyqur’zzq. Yes, if you are creating a fantasy world you want it to sound ‘other’, but please don’t create words and names which are barely readable and utterly unpronounceable. It just looks like you fell asleep on your keyboard …
2. If you have magic or other fantastical element in your book, make sure the rules are fixed and make sense within the bounds of your story. Plus, make sure there are rules and restrictions. If magic is all-powerful, for example, then creating interesting conflict and suspense will be difficult.
3. Just because you are making up a world, doesn’t mean that ‘anything goes’. The people, political systems and culture must all follow some kind of logic and be consistent. You are asking your reader to suspend their disbelief: Help them do so by making your world as plausible as possible.
4. This follows on from the previous point: Use the familiar. If every single thing in your world is different to our reality, then your reader might find it difficult to connect to your story.
5. Finally, writing fantasy is no different to writing any other story. Character is key. If you make your reader believe in your characters and care about what happens to them, you can probably ride roughshod over the previous four guidelines and still have a successful story.
Can you think of any Fantasy books, which have been particularly well written?