How to Start Writing a Fantasy Book
Imagination has no boundaries, you can think of anything in the whole world. You can make spiders sing, aliens talk to people, lions talk like human beings, and fight for the kingdom and other things that might seem absurd. However, that’s why the phenomenon of “Fantasy” lives well, because, you don’t know how your imagination will sit in with the people, but the general outcome of a person's imagination, or fantasy when it is written or filmed comes out great. In this blog, we’ll look to explore how to start writing a fantasy book, and how you can turn your imagination into a fictional reality where readers enjoy your piece of imagination.
Exploring Fantasy
Writing Fantasy can be a very hectic, yet very enjoyable task for you. Your answer to “how to write a good fantasy story” lies in the story itself, what you’re thinking, how far you can go with your story, and how much of your imagination is involved in it. Your fantasy stories will determine the fact of how creative you can be in your own world. For example, look at Batman, or maybe Superman, People with supernatural powers with a quest to change the world. Your characters may not be the same as these iconic fictional heroes are, But looking into these stories, and comics will give you an idea of how far you can go with your imagination and fantasy. Looking at The Lion King, You’ll know that the imagination of a person can exceed beyond just human beings having powers that are supernatural, you can even look into maybe animals and other creatures, and for that matter, it can be cars as well. So, the boundaries are not drawn anywhere. We’ll now look into some of the subgenres, or subtypes of this form of writing, where you can expand your imagination and create a story.
Historical Fantasy
Historical Fantasies involve stories that have a flavor of history, fiction spiced up with a person’s fantasy. These sorts of books are usually based on the times that have gone by and involve a great level of imagination.
Dark/Horror Fantasy
Although most of the horror stories are written, and filmed on the basis of fiction and unrealistic things, a touch of fantasy will enhance these sorts of stories to bring in a taste that is good and goes well with the viewers/readers.
Grimdark Fantasy
These fantasy stories have a very unique flavor to it. These stories have a character, or set of characters that will have morals and goals that might look and sound questionable to the audiences, adding more to what people think when they are looking to write.
Here’s how you can brilliantly pull off a fantasy book, or a novel where you can fully express your creative side, and make sure that your audiences are getting the exact work of art they’re looking to read.
Choosing The Right Audience
When you look to produce something that is purely based on your imagination, you should always spare a thought for what sort of audience you’re looking to target, Because the fact is, not every fantasy story would end up being like Alice in Wonderland, the problem with many creators is that they assume their imaginations will sit in well well the audiences, and they just keep on writing stuff. Winterlands by Barbara Hambly is an example of how your fantasies can be a disaster and not fit in with your audiences, on the contrary, Batman and Superman, two individuals of supernatural powers who were initially made for younger audiences, is now a craze amongst the adults and how they’ve transformed to be what brilliant characters they are. You have to set up an audience inside your head, which age group, people, and community (if there’s a special angle in your story), and maybe you can have it expanded over the course of a few years like the above-mentioned heroes did.
Start Building Your World
Once you know to whom you have to write, now you have to start building a universe according to that. You have to set up scenarios, create sceneries and build narratives that solely belong to that world. Creating a universe of your own will help you think more precisely regarding the story you are about to craft through your pen. Writing Fantasy isn’t just about the story that is doing rounds inside your head, it’s also about granting those stories the right world of possibilities, and surroundings where the story finds itself to fit in, and where the real story finds enough sunshine to grow and expand.
Explore
Exploration doesn’t mean that you have to go into deep thoughts, this time, the word explore means to look into other fantasy flicks that you may find to be intriguing. The moment you start reading other fictional, fantasy-related stories, you will get two main benefits, number one is that you’ll get a chance to explore how much people emphasize their imagination to carve stories for people to read, and number two, you’ll get an insight of how to write a good fantasy story. This will indeed be a very big plus point for you, as you’ll now have some grounds to craft stories that will most probably blossom the moment they are launched into the market, creating writing opportunities for you in the future.
Characters
Your characters will be the backbone of your stories. The examples we’ve given you above had characters that were attractive right from the start, and they’re still relevant with audiences these days as those characters were adaptive, and moving forward with time. You can write characters who are one-off success stories, but the problem will begin when you start to write all over again and you now have to create characters all over again, If you write adaptive characters, you can later add in your storylines, and create your own multiverse of imagination, that has multiple characters and people with stories and backgrounds you’ve already told people.
Learning From Other Writers
If you are new to the arena of writing your imagination into a book and wondering what it takes to write a writing a fantasy novel, you must look into other works from writers. You may not choose a specific genre, or maybe a certain writer, but this piece of advice, or tip can go a long way for you to ensure that you end up being the best writer in the town, or at least the best version of yourself. Here’s a list of some of the writers you must look to read and learn from in order to carve a story that is creative, attractive, and shines bright among the readers.
- B.B. Alston
- V.E. Schwab
- Tasha Suri
- Leigh Bardugo
- Patrick Rothfuss
- Sarah J. Maas
- Neil Gaiman
- Brandon Sanderson
- George R.R. Martin
Plot that stands out
If you have a plot that stands out, there are chances that your story will always be on the verge of success since it was created in the way. To carve a plot that meets the demands of your audiences. The structure, the story, and all the elements, and events in your story should be lined up in a way that is eye-catchy for a reader. When you imagine, you may connect dots far away from each other, but you finally decide to write it down, with the target audience inside your head, you must make sure that your story looks and reads organic to the readers and not something that’s just come straight out of your head.
Conclusion
This blog explored what is fantasy writing, and how you can get better at it. We looked into the different genres of fantasy writing and told you how you potentially write and learn about writing your fantasies and imaginations into a book, and where you will potentially fall behind if you don’t look into it. We, for further help, also let you know some of the giants of writing fictional and fantasy stories. This blog was an effort made to enhance your writing in the vast field of imagination, where you can let your readers to Mars and back in a span of few days in the comfort of their homes. The blog was researched and written solely by the writer, and anything in the blog that is found to be incorrect is a human error. Follow Book Writing Online for more blogs on our Facebook, Instagram, X, and Pinterest.
