Research and Start a Fantasy Story
Have you ever had that flash of inspiration to write a fantasy story but had no idea where to begin? You've come to the right place! This article is a detailed step by step on how to research and begin a detailed epic fantasy series.
Contents
Steps
Writing Help
Doc:Fantasy Outline,Fantasy Excerpt
Researching and Starting Your Own Fantasy Story
- Think about what you want to write. Nothing ever gets started without a little brainstorming. Write down any interesting ideas that you think might be interesting.
- Now once you have a few pages of ideas, it's time to scratch some ideas out. Put yourself in the reader's shoes, what are fantasy stories these days missing? What are the typical cliches?
- After you have skimmed your list down to a few it's time to expand these ideas. For example, if Jimmy put down that he wants dragons in his story he must ask himself a few questions.Think of our W's (Who, What, When, Where and Why?) and then our ever loving How. This is also where you will do your research.
- To research, ask yourself what you are researching. If Jimmy wants dragons in his story and he is wondering what these dragons look like, then he should look up Dragon photos and Dragon Lore.
- After many weeks of researching and expanding your ideas, you have no idea where to put them! Well, this is where you start the wonderful process of World Building.
- To build a World, grab your pencil and graph paper, draw random squiggle lines that have a non-uniform shape. Remember, South America doesn't have straight lines when drawn on the map!
- Think logically when you place your locations. If, for example, the elves you've created have tan skin and generally wear sleeveless tube leather corsets and short shorts with daggers made of bone, you would probably want to put them in a desert to the south or a wasteland where there is a lot of heat and sun.
- Try to avoid location cliches. For example, In a multitude of stories, Dwarves are living inside mountains or are completely underground or even both! Try to play it up a little and have them live in forests or even grasslands!
- As for naming your locations, be creative. A name of a continent or World should be fluid and have that worldly 'ring'. For example, in the book Eragon (written by Christopher Paolini) the name of his continent is Alagaesia, doesn't it have that ring that seems to scream that it's a continent? It's also something original and quite creative!
- You have your basic skeleton of a world, you have mapped out your ideas, but what about the plot line? Creating a plot is a difficult long process. Start by jotting down ideas again and fleshing them out. The difference between this step and step one is that you need to Try to stick to plot ideas and try not to go to much into the history of your world.
- Okay, you have your World, your creatures, your history, and even a plot line! You feel so ready to take on your big epic fantasy to span many books. Hold it, time to edit and revise! Look it over and when you're done looking it over, look it over again. Make sure you have everything you want and need.
- Now it's time to begin writing, but wait! How am I going to start this? It's now time to put our chapters together! Start by taking a piece of paper or typing out what you need to happen in the first chapter. This is your guideline!
- Now repeat the guidelines for the rest of your story, if you took notes correctly and have much detail in your history and lore in your world, refer back to these! Make sure that when you finish a chapter that you edit it multiple times!
Tips
- Have writer's block? Listen to inspiring music! Have a track list or playlist dedicated for your story.
- As always, think with the reader in mind! Ask around, look up things people are tired of seeing in fantasy stories. Pool these ideas and come up with something creative that will wow your readers.
- Working with a friend is a great help (and a lot of fun!). Just remember that it's a collaborative work.
- Have problems getting into your character's mindset? Interview your character! It may sound borderline psychotic, but it helps in fact when you are not sure what your character would do in a certain situation!
- Having trouble making your intelligent species (i.e Dragon, Elves, Dwarves) seem realistic? Base them off of realistic cultures! Just don't copy them completely.
- If you have a problem describing your character, draw them!
- When starting a story, sometimes writing a prologue attracts your readers in. However, you don't want a boring detailed history of your world! Be coy, subtle and try to hint that this story's plot is going to wow them!
- Use a vocabulary your readers would know. If you're writing a teen fantasy novel, most teenager's wouldn't know the meaning of 'Magnanimous'. Remember, just because you might know the meaning doesn't mean the rest of the world does! However, this doesn't mean grab a thesaurus, just write comfortably with the readers in mind.
- When developing characters, remember. Minor characters are flat, major characters are round. Be subtle in developing your characters!
- Name generators help! However, instead of using the name, Try to mix it with another word or combine two names. This is not the best or most creative way to come up with a name, but it's a good way none the less.
- Be realistic when possible. For example, just because there is magic doesn't mean you can revive the dead. If you have a tempting power, place a cost that blackens the tempting power. If your character heals wounds, Try to even it out by adding a cost such as, Joanne could heal cuts and wounds but the process would force Joanne to go through the pains that would have happened if she had not used the healing spell.
- Have fun, you may hear that writing can be a hassle, don't let it get to you! Just Try to imagine your story as you write!
- Remember, when making the physical features of different races, Try to make your species different. Don't make all your races inhumanly beautiful. Try to make some incredibly barbaric looking or lithe and strong looking. Or maybe even exotic and sharp looking!
- Read your story aloud if you have problems editing it by yourself.
- Have other people look at your story and edit it.
Warnings
- Be prepared for constructive critique.
- There's always a hater.
- Avoid the cliches if possible.
- Don't expect to hear back from publishers. They take their time. Just be patient.
- Don't fall in love with your character! He may be hot, he may be sweet. But bad stuff has to happen to him. You have to get your readers to sympathize!
- Try to keep everything on a thumb-drive. Many people have lost precious chapters due to their laptop or desktop computer breaking!
Things You'll Need
- Laptop
- Graph Paper
- Pencil
- Regular paper
- Notebook
- Thumb Drive
- Ipod/mp3/cell phone (for listening to music)
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