Monday, June 22, 2015

Fantasy Exercises


You can read “how to write – blank –” books until the end of the world and still feel self-conscious and unprepared to start your page one. So let’s remedy that with a few exercises. You can use an original idea or even fan fiction so you have full permission to got nuts.

Let’s start out with three prompts. You can write as many or as few words/pages as you want so long as you complete the idea. Or (if you know it’s going to be a large idea) you can write the pitch summary.

(Small reminder: a character who doesn’t have a challenge to over come is a shallow one. Said challenge doesn’t have to be huge, but it should be there even if you’re writing a one-page story.)

Since a majority of fantasy involves fantasy and creatures, I’m going to start with those prompts.

#1. Magic and/or magical creature (elf, orc, dwarf, ect.) is suddenly thrust into a contemporary setting.

#2. Magic and/or magical creature in the medieval setting we’re used to seeing but magic has to be hidden.

#3. Magic and/or magical creature in any other period of time (Roman Empire, Dark Ages, WWII, WWI, Victorian, ect.)

Stumped? That’s part of why we writers take prompts. Prompts get writers unstuck when writing or merely keeps up on our toes.  Prompts also help writers stay away from the genre clichés that have formed over the past century. Yes, we’re used to seeing fantasy worlds with a medieval feel but your readers may not welcome that cliché with open arms. By combined an original story idea with a prompt – such as science and magic sharing the same world or magic setting in any era that is not medieval – we’re both reviving the fantasy genre for a new generation of readers and creating an original that cannot be seen as Tolkin fan fiction or an oddity that gets question marks followed by squeals of delight as reviews.

Another side of fantasy writing is world building. Taking prompts while world building can fill a loophole in your universe that fans may have pulled apart or you cringe over when writing a sequel. Here are a few things to think of when taking a world building prompt:

1.     What is the Earth culture that inspires the fantasy culture you’re writing?
1.2  – What are their weakness(es)? Is there inspiration/technologies you can take from another culture?
2.     If you made one change, like make the social system a limited monarchy instead of absolute monarchy or even a democracy, would that make things easier or harder for your character?
2.2 What are the social challenges your character(s) have? Likewise, what are the social expectations of their position? Does it show visibly or in their mannerisms?
3.     What are the resources of this world? Label them and number the quantities. Would your figures cause wars? If so, who would be fighting who?

The above is three weak points that I have seen a lot in fantasy fiction, even in my really old never-will-see-the-light-of-day writings. Once you write the details of your world down in your author’s notes, the idea is to go through it with a fine comb. You want to find the strengths and weaknesses. Find the gray areas that could be future problems so you can research the dull pallor out of the story.

You want the story to be stable but unique. Stable makes every reader and critic happy, unique makes people want to keep reading after page five or ten.

On a closing note, study the masters of fantasy. Listen to review podcasts of fantasy movies, learn what works and what are on the “thou shall never do again” lists. Maybe even spend some time on Youtube learning some little known facts on fantasy and the authors of fantasy. Have conversations about the genre with other writers.

We can only learn from the best. However, that doesn’t mean we have to use all of their writings as a goal. Studying the masters means that we’re seeing what worked and what fans say didn’t work. It doesn’t mean that we’re going to make ourselves an exact copy of them. Developing a style takes time, studying what has worked in the past just speeds up the creation process of your own story voice.



Next up: Details writing (Ann’s writing foundation #1)



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