How to Write Fantasy

by Greg Strandberg

  Educational Institutions

  So where can fantasy characters get their education? Here are some ideas:

  – Academies;

  – Colleges;

  – Universities;

  – Churches;

  – Temples;

  – Guilds;

  – On the Job.

  On the job – how about that? That’s the route many fighters take to get into the trade, when they see their parents killed and they have to fight off a bandit or two.

  Maybe a young apprentice really does become a full-fledged magician when he finally casts that ‘practice’ spell in battle, smiting someone’s ass good.

  Thieves often learn on the job, or maybe at the guild…and they usually screw up the first time too.

  Priests could learn on the job, but that might allow some hideous demon to enter the world, or at least someone to get the wrong blessing.

  Using Your Education

  What are your characters doing with their education? Just because someone went to one of those fancy academies, it doesn’t mean they’re using that learning. It could be they’re working in some seedy tavern at nights, or manning the castle gates in a down-economy that took all the

  ‘good’ jobs with it.

  Now I’m just speculating a bit, and perhaps getting more at what your NPC, or non-POV characters are doing. Still, all the fantasy characters in my book The Hirelings had regular jobs. Hell, the spellcaster was a stripper!

  The point is, fantasy characters do in fact eat, go to the bathroom, and sleep in places other than the ground. In other words, they need money and resources and an education is a sure-way to increase those…isn’t it?

  Maybe this post and this subject is boring. After all, don’t your readers want action and thrills and tension being ratcheted up? Yeah, but they want depth and nuance as well, and you can get that with characters that have been educated. Besides that, it adds to your worldbuilding. Think of one of those fantasy city maps, and imagine your places of learning on it. Wow, something like that gives you ideas and possibly a short novella right there.

  So go educated your readers about the joys of education in your fantasy world!

  7: Politics of Your Fantasy World

  What is the system of government in your world? How is society structured? What’s keeping things from falling apart…or coming back together again?

  These are all questions the fantasy novelist needs to ask themselves, and I’ve been asking them for years. I’ve been writing ‘how to write fantasy’ posts for more than two years now on this site, and I hope you’ll check them out in the How to Write Fantasy category.

  This post is one in a long series, a series that got kind of stalled there for awhile. Yeah, the last post was more than two months ago, but I’m sure you don’t mind. Most likely you wandered in off the internet and this post is super old anyways. That’s fine too – these are core tips that won’t change a lot with time.

  So what are they? Hey, let’s stop this yapping and get right into it, huh?

  Fantasy World Governments

  Something that might make things easy when you’re trying to figure out how to write your fantasy world is if you decide on one of the following:

  – A Corrupt System

  – A Just System

  After that, you need to determine what form of government you have. That might look something like this:

  – Monarchy

  – Democracy

  – Republic

  – Despotism

  – Anarchy

  That last one is really an absence of government, and that’s fine too. Lots of books have that, usually as one form is transitioning into another.

  So who does that transitioning? Here’s what a character hierarchy might look like in your political fantasy world:

  – King;

  – Nobles;

  – Courtiers;

  – Military;

  – Businessmen/Merchants;

  – Guilds;

  – Traders;

  – Shippers;

  – Peasants;

  – Outlaws.

  That’s just a rough list of the typical medieval hierarchy. There are more levels that could exist, and perhaps you even want to make up a few of your own. It’s a good place to start nonetheless.

  Adding Realism

  So how do you add a bit more spice, a little more realism, or a whole lot of headaches for your characters? That’s what it’s all about – headaches. You want to keep throwing problems at your characters so they keep doing things, keep the action moving, keep the reader from getting bored. Politics are a good way to do that, as fantasy titan George R.R. Martin knows well.

  Realpolitik in a Fantasy World: How George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire novels explain our foreign policy was a fun post on Foreign Policy in 2011. In the post, author Alyssa Rosenberg says:

  “the story has evolved from a dark domestic fairy tale of wicked queens and kings to a sweeping geopolitical mega-saga with complex and shifting rules of engagement — and a surprisingly large number of lessons for the foreign-policy-inclined reader.”

  The post gets into some interesting ideas, like:

  – State Formation;

  – Border Issues;

  – Diplomacy;

  – Trade and Banking;

  – Technological Warfare;

  – Religious Fanaticism;

  – Mercenaries.

  On Trade and Banking, Rosenberg has this to say:

  “National debt becomes an issue for the Lannisters. Cersei Lannister forces the regime to stop making its payments to the Iron Bank of Braavos, a move that leads the Braavosi bankers to start colluding with her rivals. It’s as if China intervened on the debt-ceiling debate, but the risks of default included not just a lowered credit rating but magically aided assassination.”

  There’s a lot more, and I highly suggest you check out that informative piece if you’re interested in making your world, oh…more politically ‘treacherous.’

  My Own Examples

  I write about politics a lot. In my fiction books, I do the same. Here’s a quick rundown of some of the things I’ve done:

  – The Jongurian Trilogy: This is epic fantasy that’s really political. In fact, many of the bad reviews say that it’s too political, something that makes the first book boring. There’s a lot of maneuvering, wrangling, and backstabbing…sometimes literally. Nearly all of the main characters are diplomats, royals, nobles, or rebels. Lots of politics indeed!

  – The Warring States Series: This is another trilogy of mine that’s very political. We’re dealing with Chinese nation-states in the 5th-century BC. They’re all jockeying for power, trying to become the one that rules the country. Most of the characters are kings, nobles, courtiers, and generals. Oh, that’s right – the army/military can be one of the most political entities you have.

  – The Hirelings: This stand-alone epic fantasy novel is all about politics and economics. The king is corrupt and using a dragon to prop up his economy. The main characters fight against this with the aim of toppling the unjust system.

  – Ale Quest: In this book the whole backdrop is the Earl’s Revolt around 1100 AD. There’s a siege of a castle, so you know things are political. What I did with this book, however, was keep all that in the background. So in that sense, you’re dealing with a political setting more than political characters or even a political storyline.

  – Tarot Card Killer: This novel of mine is set in 1973 Hong Kong, and the main character is under investigation for corruption. Here we have office politics and maybe even a bit of police politics. None of these people are really in political office, but there’s scheming and wheeling and dealing aplenty.

  Those are some examples of what I’ve done with my books. I could name off a few more, but what’s the point? I think you have a good idea of what it takes to have politics in your fantasy novel. Now I’d suggest setting your butt down and getting your finge
rs moving over those keys.

  Yes, it’s time to write your story!

  Part II

  A Step-by-Step Guide

  to Writing Fantasy Novels

  Let’s say you wanted to start writing a fantasy novel from scratch…no real planning whatsoever. What would you do?

  I attempted that back in 2013 and wrote a bit about it on my website. The process started with a map and then went into worldbuilding and character considerations. I was amazed at how quickly I had a living, breathing and viable fantasy world, one that I could actually work a book around.

  I never did, but someday…

  Yeah, that’s usually how it goes. I hope you can put that “someday” talk off for later, and use these next few chapters to find enough inspiration to finally start that fantasy book.

  9: How to Write a Fantasy Novel

  What’s your world? It’s an odd question, but one that fantasy authors and readers might ask each other quite frequently. Figuring out where your fantasy novel is going to take place is an important step in writing a fantasy novel, after all. You might already have an idea for your characters, and you might even have specifics laid out on what they’re like and what they do.

  But how will the fantasy world in which they live affect their choices and behaviors? Deciding on what your fantasy world will look like is therefore very important. There are many ways you can go about creating your fantasy world, and I’ll explain some of them by showing you a map I made:

  I don’t have a name for this world. Many fantasy worlds won’t have names, themselves per se, but they will have other place names that you can grab onto. After all, you might be like me and not give your fantasy novels a name until near the end. That can often be the case with your world as well. Just think of how many fantasy books you’ve read where the name of the world isn’t listed at all.

  I made this map in about 5 minutes in Windows Paint. You could tell, couldn’t you? I certainly wouldn’t want to put this map in my new fantasy book, but I would certainly use it when I’m writing my story, and especially when I’m planning that story. Let’s look at how you can make your fantasy world by looking at this basic fantasy map.

  Shape

  What is the shape of your world? In my fantasy world you can see it’s just one large continent, almost like a donut. Most fantasy worlds will be one large continent; it’s just how most books have always been written. Do you want to continue that trend, or break from the norm? As you can see, I’m sticking with the standard fantasy mold here.

  Terrain

  My fantasy world is round, and is probably surrounded by seas or oceans. In the middle is a large lake or inland sea. The continent is divided in two by the lake, as well as by the mountains which surround it. To the north is a vast desert, the Wo’dan Desert. To the south is an impassable swamp, the Swamps of Miletus. Where did those names come from? I have no idea; I needed a name so made them up. Those can be changed later, or you might just find that they start growing on you.

  Cities

  After I put in my as of yet unnamed mountains and lake, and the already named swamps and desert, I started in on my cities. I figured I had divided my continent in half with the terrain, now I needed to place at least one major city on each side of that continent. I’m a stickler for balance. The result is Finnegal in the West and Pa’dun in the East. Just judging from the terrain, it’s a safe bet that both cities are isolated from one another, and have been for some time. They’ve probably developed different cultures, and may have even gone to war with one another from time to time.

  I also decided to put two additional cities on the map, both near what I consider to be the only landward crossing from one side of the continent to the other. They’d also make good forts or outposts to ensure that people from one side of the fantasy world don’t go to the other side. Drubeck is at the base of the mountains in the West, and Slotaan is in a similar position in the East. I’d imagine those aren’t the last settlements before the lake; there’d have to be some small fishing communities, right?

  History

  And that takes us into our fantasy world’s history. Just by making this simple map I’ve already opened a floodgate of ideas. Let’s take the lake. It’s surrounded by mountains, with only two mountain passes leading to it. To get to one side of the continent you’d have to take a ship or a boat across. I’d imagine that there’s a lot of joint trade on the lake, and perhaps a good deal of the world’s resources come from it. Was it always that way?

  What about the Wo’dan Expedition that’s only talked of in hushed voices long after the kids have been sent to bed? It’s been about 60 years now, but many of the older folks of Finnegal haven’t forgotten their boy-king’s folly in sending the men, 5,000 in all. Their bones are still bleaching the fine white sands.

  Or how about the Slotaan Seven? They were the elite instructors to the Pa’dun army, but after the Fanatics publicly humiliated them, they chose to hold their heads high and make a show of what real leadership was. For nine days they walked over the rocky plains to the Swamps of Miletus, that much is known from the Swamp Kin that live in the area. What’s not known is what ever befell them those 40 long years ago.

  You can see that your fantasy world, and the terrain that it has, really have a big effect on how you tell your story, and really what story you have to tell. I wrote three fantasy novels this way, by making a map first. I’ll show you what you can do after you’ve begun making a fantasy world in future posts.

  10: The Setting

  We’ve already begun to write a fantasy novel with our last post. Now that we’ve got our world made, know a bit about its terrain, and have an idea of its history, let’s get some details in there about how the world functions today. That’ll be the setting for where and how our action takes place, and it’s critical for writing a fantasy novel.

  Shaping the World

  I still haven’t thought of a name for the world, but I’m not going to let that stop me from getting on with the basics of the people and places it contains. Let’s go back to the general shape. It’s round, and is clearly divided into two roughly equal halves. I’ve been thinking a bit about how those two halves affect the people living in the world, and have decided that it divides them, both geographically and culturally.

  The Setting’s People

  In the West the people are poor, and have very few prospects. In the East, life is good, and the people there are well-off. Everyone in the West wants desperately to go to the East, but the people in the East don’t want them. They’re afraid that these misbegotten people will ruin their economy, corrupt their culture, and generally destroy everything they’ve worked so hard to attain.

  The people in the West meanwhile believe that the East has been the cause of all of their problems, and they see getting to the East as their only way to get ahead in life, or really have a life at all. The life expectancy in the West is dreadful, probably little more than 30 or 40 years, while in the East people live well into their 70s and 80s.

  But the people in the East are also cultured, and have a sense of social justice that at times outweighs their sense of economic justice, which borders heavily on greed. The East has an open society that accepts debate, and many want to help pull the West up, while just as many want to leave it to its own devices. All however realize that life is bad in the West, and they also realize they can do quite a bit to help. But they don’t want to do too much. That’s why they have the Visa System.

  The Setting’s Conflict

  The Visa System says that each year a select number of people will be awarded a visa to the West. That visa pretty much ensures that they can stay in the West for the rest of their lives. They’ll have good jobs, a good home, and their children will have a future. You can see that getting that visa will be the overriding concern of most people in the West for the entire year leading up to the issuance of the visas. This will be a major plot line when it comes to writing a fantasy novel.

  There
are also plenty of people that take advantage of the Visa System, both in the East and the West. In the East it’s seen as a way to increase the power and influence of the powerful houses that rely on the cheaper labor that the West can give them. They can also make a lot of money in illegal and corrupt “Visa Lotteries” that spring up to cater to the growing visa demand each year.

  In the West people will do anything they can to get a visa, and that often includes selling themselves and others, theft, and even murder. And there are countless “Visa Sharks” that prey on these hapless people just trying to find a better life. Some even think that the corruption that has sprung up around the Visa System has done more to aid the shadier side of the West than the visas have done to help the people there.

  The Present Setting

  The issuance of the visas happens each year near the Western town/outpost of Drubeck. It’s right on the lake, and the boats are ready to take those lucky enough to get visas to safety right away. People are often killed when they get a visa, more often than not by their own extended family members who weren’t so lucky. Security is tight, but fights and worse still break out each year.