Creating Fantasy

What I love most about fantasy is the ability to create your own world, and that is also probably the most difficult bit to writing fantasy.  There's the world, the country, political systems, not to mention races, and magical capabilities.

I read somewhere that, in creating a fantasy realm, you must make sure if a character is in possession of something--necklace, sword, shield, glass window--that the means for creating such an object is possible in the grafted world.  While that is sound advice, I don't think one should entirely focus on the means and hows when initializing such a project.  Those details can be hammered out later.

Photo Credit goes to someone
definitely not me

There's also the danger of copying another person's world.  I would imagine gamers have problems with this.  I struggle to draw lines between video games and my own creativity.  I can only imagine the difficulties for tabletop or RP gaming like D&D.  It's so easy to mimic those type of general kingdoms.  It's like medieval Europe plus magic, or that's (what I assume) the general consensus for fantasy.  And then of course Tolkien with his Hobbit and Lord of the Rings trilogy.  I know I get inspiration from him.  He's like. . .the master of fantasy.  Or maybe that's fan worshiping.

When I created my fantastical realm, I did a very clear-cut process to develop it.  Or, maybe not.  I'm all about vague generalizations and abstracts, then I sew and stitch the specific details.

What I did first what to establish the one magical need in my world.  Elves--there had to be elves.  There's also a sorcerer and a seer, so there had to be magic in this world, which one would think would already be assumed in the case with the elves.

But the sorcerer and the and seer weren't in the initial list.  They came after I had somewhat-marginally developed the skeleton of the basic plot.  So in turn, when doing this--creating the plot, that is--the needs of your world shall arise.  Besides the sorcerer and the seer, I also had a wandering elf who roamed outside of little elf country.  Which meant, I had to at least draw a basic idea of what the entire world was like .  I suppose the good thing about sticking to one race is that, dependent on their level of interaction among outsiders, you can initiate isolation among them and only develop within elven country.

But my wandering elf needed a list of his adventures, so I made a brief list of other races and classes.   I had to create a few names, sketch a map of sorts and establish political systems and national boundaries, factions, wars, and so on.  The frustrating part of this was that out of this vast arsenal of "fantasy world" I had created, less than ten percent of the information will make it into the book.  Of course, I can use it for later stories--which I plan to--but often times, for the sake of the effort I just put into it, you'll see a lot of dropped names.  It's like, "HERE I SPENT HOURS DEVELOPING THIS, ENJOY IT."

I think that's largely behind Tolkien's problems with his tendencies to explain and detail everything.  Similar to how they release director commentaries and special editions of everything--with all the special features and behind-the-scenes footage--so you can appreciate the work that goes into it.  Except, the difference is that people actually care seeing footage of their favorite actors.  Readers may or may not be particularly interested in swallowing a random name that's difficult to pronounce.

Speaking of random names, I think it goes without saying that creating unique and believable names that aren't corny are essential to fantasy.  I pick my names through various methods.  There are name generators on the Internet.  Some valid, many ridiculous.  Admittedly, I've pinched a few names or sounds from them.  I also study various languages quite extensively.  Most of my elf names are derived from Old English.  I use German for places, Latin for another race, and French for others.  Occasionally, I take names from mythology.

Or history.  Reading up on history and mythology can help develop a fantasy world, at least in my case but I enjoy those subjects.  Including references to such things can build one's fantasy work, make it dynamic, and in some cases legitimize your authority in the field of writing to some readers.

But this is how I do things.  Ultimately, to each their own.  What might work for me may not work for another person.  And, I've found that through many boring pages of writing tips I've perused throughout the vast Internet, that not everything is for me.  Perhaps I'll go on about this in another blog post.  But, the ultimate, most important part of fantasy is making sure it's a world that you--the writer or the reader even--enjoy it for its mystical wonder.

In other news, I've jotted down a rough outline for my next project--dystopian.  I'm excited by this. I  meant to do it earlier but never had the willpower to do it.  It's currently not much.  It needs fine-tuning and further developing, but I am proud, nonetheless.  Perhaps I'll do a blog on creating dystopia, but I'll wait until I've actually developed my own until then.