Fantasy books have stories created in a different universe that is completely made up or it can be a similar one to the earth with some changes. The truth is that fantasy books are quite fun to write and read. Remember that your fantasy book can significantly change depending on the target audience, especially when it comes to demographic age.
In most cases, the story conflict and adult content can influence your target audience. You need to make the content and language right for your target audience. In this post, you will learn how you can write a fantasy novel.
World-building
The three key elements when it comes to creating a fantasy world are the political system, the magic system, and religion. It’s worth noting that there are still many others that go into it, though these three elements are the key ones. And, they tend to manage the other elements of your culture and world.
In most cases, these three elements can work together to influence each other. Therefore, as you develop each, you need to figure out how they can influence each other.
Your magic system can include several magical elements, such as abilities, objects, and laws. The amount of magic can depend on the type of fantasy. For instance, an urban story may be a contemporary fantasy where everything can be exactly the same as in the real world.
When it comes to a high fantasy, you can decide to create the whole world from scratch. You should remember that even a high fantasy may not have the right magic, though magical elements are there.
The crucial thing in developing a magic system is to have the rules and stick to them. You can choose to do anything you desire with the magic, but it needs to be consistent.
Another form of a magic system is called learned magic that happens in an academic setting and has specific worded potions and spells with recipes. While some people can have natural magical abilities, you need to learn the rules.
If you are creating a world, then you should also set up the political system. This system can be a monarchy, anarchy, oligarchy, or anything you choose to invent.
To develop your political system, there are a couple of things you should consider. These include how leaders are elected, how long the leaders serve, their outreach system, their currency, and many more.
Like your political system, you also need to have religion, especially if you are creating a world from scratch. But if there is no religion, this can be an intentional option with reasoning, so it should have an impact on the world you build.
Some of things you can consider with religion are the religious leaders and whether it’s monotheistic or polytheistic. You can also have deities, so you should identify them and make sure to mention their roles, how they rank or interact with each other, and many more.
You can also show how the political system interacts with the religion, and demonstrate whether they are separate or they depend on each other. Also, mention how the religion interacts with the magic system.
The religion , political system, and magic system can have a significant impact on the culture, but you can develop it based on other factors. These are the living environment that affects their houses and clothing, geography, species that live in your world, and resources.
Characters and outline
The characters in your story can be greatly affected by your world-building, so you need to make sure that you develop them as well as their arcs together with your world-building. You should remember that developing characters for a fantasy book can be a bit different from a contemporary novel. This is because you need to consider cultural differences that you create, morality, and magical capabilities or the lack of them if they are not magical. Besides, you should see how living in that world can affect them.
Outlining a fantasy book can be helpful because there are many things you have to remember. But the fantasy genre may also assist because when you develop your universe and its rules, you just have to create interesting characters. It can be easier to simply drop a few certain characters in that universe and see what they do. On the other hand, in contemporary novels, there are usually fewer interesting things when it comes to a character reacting to something or interacting with it.
Write and edit
Once you complete the world building and you have outlined the characters, you can be ready to write the story. Writing a fantasy book is a similar basic process to writing any novel, though you need to keep track of a few things, so you need to keep on hand the notes on the universe and systems while writing.
With revisions, it makes sense to use beta readers to get feedback. Beta readers refer to volunteers who can read your fantasy book and offer their interpretations and feedback. They can be quite helpful during revisions. Just any other type of book, you need to get feedback from fantasy book cover artists for your fantasy book for effective book cover. With a fantasy book, you can ask them more questions than other books.
And, when you polish up your manuscript, it can be a good time to look for a professional editor. A book editor for fantasy novels can sometimes cost a little more than an average novel. This is because fantasy books tend to have more word count.
Also, a fantasy editor needs to keep track of many more things because there are higher opportunities for plot holes, especially when you invent the world yourself. Therefore, make sure that you have a budget during the drafting process to help you hire an editor once you complete the book.
In conclusion, fantasy books can be the best way you can show your creativity. This is especially true if you have a big imagination. You just need to be organized so that you can create a universe that makes sense and allow the various elements to interact with each other.
