Writing Fantasy
If you want to write a fantasy story or novel, you will have to do some planning. The first thing you need for your story is a setting. This is usually described as world-building. You will need a world for your story to take place in.
The most important thing about a world is the name. If you pick a name that seems silly or that is hard to pronounce it will throw off your readers. Go do a search for Seventh Sanctum on the net. There you will find hundreds of name generators. It is easier to sort through a list of possible names for one that sounds good than to use your imagination to think up good names. Look at Tolkien, all he could come up with for a name for his world was “Middle Earth.”
Get some character names from the generators while you are at Seventh Sanctum. You will need characters. If you are swift with a computer start a database of characters and cities. Write down all the information about these characters and write up some pages on what is in each of your cities. This will help you imagine your world.
Now you will need to think about a plot. Plucky adventurer saves world from evil magician is not a plot. That is a cliche’. Think up an original plot that you will not get tired of as you write your story. Writing is like reading, only it takes ten times as long and you have to make up the story as you go. Think of a good place and scene to start your story.
Now start writing. It doesn’t matter if your story is any good. It doesn’t matter if it is interesting. You want to have some words down on your computer or the page that you can work with. Write out a complete scene or chapter. Then set it aside for a day. Come back to your work the next day and read it, aloud if possible. How does your story sound now?
After you read your story is the time to start editing it. Cut out anything that does not move the story forward. Those flashbacks to childhood should be cut. That long description of the magic sword needs to be trimmed. The lame joke about the fat boy tripping over a rope is not needed. You want the reader to get into your story and move along with it. When you have a lively text, continue.
It takes a long time to write a story or a novel. You will not be able to finish one in a single sitting. Set aside a certain time each day to work on your novel and in a year or so you will have something to try to sell. Never pay to have your story published. People buy stories. Publishers make money off customers who are readers, not the writers they print. Get a copy of Writer’s Market and find out which companies publish your kind of story. There are hundreds of publishers. If you get desperate and are sick of rejection, publish your work on the Internet.
Writing a fantasy story is not something that takes tons of imagination or skill. What it takes is dedication and committing yourself to doing some work every day. There are lots of books and websites that will help you if you are totally lost, but the thing that will help you the most is actually doing the writing. Practice makes perfect, or at least passable.
