How to Create a Fantasy World

I’ve been an avid fantasy reader before I was a , and I’ve seen well-done fantasy worlds and some that weren’t so great.

There are a multitude of ways to make a good fantasy world, but I can boil it down to some quick basics:

• You have to decide if the really basic laws like gravity and physics apply only in certain locations or situations. This one is a huge point that most people don’t even think about. But, in a fantasy realm, anything can happen, including places that have no gravity, or a place where things are in continuous motion without wearing down. It’s okay to break the laws of physics and gravity sometimes, but you have to let a reader know. A good example of this is in the Harry Potter series by J.K Rowling. In her series, things can just float constantly. Why can they float constantly without needing more energy? Because a character cast a spell on it that makes it continuously float. That spell makes it disobey the conventional laws of physics, but it explains why.

• A good fantasy world has cities and compass directions. If you’re creating a fantasy world, you should be able to tell where a character is going. It can be as simple as heading west of a certain marked location. It can give a reader a sense of direction where they can start to figure out where things are. If you’re having it take place on good old earth, then you really need to do some research when you have characters heading places. A good example of this is found in the Fablehaven series by Brandon Mull. He states very early in the first book that Fablehaven is located in Connecticut. A reader can actually pull up where Connecticut is in Google. Giving a general idea of where places are makes a world that much more believable.

• The last basic tip is one that can really catch people off guard, and most of the time it occurs when a writer is actually making the world from scratch. Your knowledge of geography and maps in general should be solid before you make a world. For example, you need to learn how rivers in real life flow so you can duplicate that (unless you give a reason for defying the laws of physics that’s relevant). Weather is also another big factor. Rainfall can dictate plant life and settings. Mountains often can affect rainfall. Temperature can really affect the setting as well. Is a place cold? If you put a cold place in a tropical region, make sure you explain why.  The map from the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini is a good example. He placed a desert in the middle of his map, but it makes sense. There are no mountains to encourage precipitation or rivers running through it to encourage plant growth, so it would make sense that the place would be dry and sandy.

Remember that these are just the very tip of the iceberg. There are a myriad of other things that you can do in a fantasy. Culture, magic and politics can affect geography in some way as well, but those are mostly up to the writer’s imagination. And if you don’t have the basics down, how can you get down the more complex stuff?

There are of course, always exceptions to rules and basics. For example, did you know that there are gliding lizards on certain Pacific Islands?

I hope a few fantasy lovers and or writers found this helpful, and I’d like to know your reactions.

Until next time, keep reading what you love!