  Fantasy
This week: Edited by: W.D.Wilcox  
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| Wait—just a minute. I want to talk to you about fantastic worlds…and then show you how to make your own. Wait… |
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So many writers choke trying to create fantastical worlds. They get so involved in the scenery and the society, that the story becomes secondary.
It’s always about the story.
Time passed; and the air turned distinctly colder as they dropped down the far side of a raw pass into an enclosed depth like a pit of gloom, a clenched instance of winter. Descending from remnants of sunlight into shadow, they seemed to leave behind every vestige of spring and warmth and familiarity. Under the horses’ hooves, the ground became bitter and broken, old stone warped to shards and twisted out of cognizance by eons of unrelieved ice.
Creating a fantasy world is really no different than writing about what you see, hear, smell, taste, and feel everyday in the world around you. The trick is to be descriptive—flamboyant—and above all, similar. Show the familiar in a context of the new, the strange, and the wonderful.
Now they stood on a bluff overlooking a plain of rich life and awe-inspiring loveliness. The ground below undulated among hills and woodlands; luxuriant greenswards; streams delicate as crystal, cleansing as sunlight. Here and there, majestic gilded trees lifted their bows to the flawless sky, and vast oaks shed beneficent shade. Birds filled with song soared overhead while small animals and deer romped alertly among the woods.
Try to keep your fantasy world as ordinary as possible. Why? Because your reader needs something they can relate to—something believable and not just an unimaginable hallucination. [Although unimaginable hallucinations work wonderfully in shorter scenes, in a novel, a fantasy world needs a bit of commonplace—a point of reference.]
The slopes swelled into true foothills as the clouds frothed like spume overhead. The sky arching like a vault of crystal, chiming to the pounding pitch of the approaching storm.
Mix up your descriptions. In the above paragraph, the hills swell like an ocean, and the clouds froth and spume like waves—the land described as if it were an ocean.
Make your fantasy world sing by using descriptive sounds. This is really important—it’s like experiencing ‘surround sound’ for the first time or seeing the first ‘talky’. The world makes noise—make sure to write about it!
The rainstorm thudded heavily upon the roof, like a fist dropped on a coffin lid. The group sat huddled together listening to the thunder walk and talk outside.
Creating believable fantasy is not just about scenery, there’s language, culture, and history too. However you organize your fantasy world, make it as gritty and real and ordinary as you can; the more ordinary it is, even in its marvels, the more marvelous your readers will find it.
Until next time,
billwilcox
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Fantastical Picks
If you take writing Fantasy seriously, this is the Group for you:
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And for some really great fantasy stories check out:
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If you have a Fantasy story in your Port, you might want to drop in and check out this contest:
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| |  | Raven (13+)
A troubled girl looking for the truth finds more than she ever thought was there.
#1001589 by Miranda Foix  |
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Starr Phenix 
Submitted Comment:
Great article! Very often it is not so much what we say, but how we say it that makes the difference. (And I think 'thickening membrane of cloud' is an awesome description too!)
viper 
Submitted Comment:
I cant seem to find a good opening to my story. Any suggestions?
How about: This is what happened.
nomlet 
Submitted Comment:
I readed your newsletter and I learned how to make my verbs strong!
Puditat
Submitted Comment:
Bill, I totally enjoyed your examples from the book you bought. I didn't know 'spoffish' was a word, but are you just tricking us. Thanks for the education!
Eragondor
Submitted Comment:
Thank you so much, I've been doing the exactly the same thing writing down words I don't know or I would like to use in my story. It's reassuring to hear someone else doing it too.
Roselee
Submitted Comment:
I noticed in one of the fantasy newsletters (I'm not sure how long ago) that it said dragons do not make good main characters. Well, I hope that's not true, because my fantasy stories (some of which are novels) pretty much all have dragons as the main characters.
I can't see anything wrong with that--it's what you do with the dragon that counts.
ldylore
Submitted Comment:
Heebie-jeebies, thingamabob, okie dokie ... It's words like these that seem to give a piece character (or give personaility to the characters). Excellant newsletter!
nadjaanderson
Submitted Comment:
Great editorial! All too often in 'classic' fantasy, I think authors feel limited as to what language they can use--that is, they leave out all modern colloquialisms and don't add any new! The result is pages and pages of "doe-shaped eyes" etc, etc. It might have been nice to add a bit about creating your own set of 'expressions' for the world (i.e., ways they would have said things like "cool," "damn," "psychotic," etc.) but maybe that's a subject for another day...
sultry
Submitted Comment:
Thank you, Bill, for this weeks informative NL. Similarly to you, when I am reading, I write down the words I don't know. When I finish a chapter, I take those words, look them up and write the definition down. That gives me a better grasp of the word and tends to make it stick in this aging brain a little longer. I know this exercise has expanded my vocabulary immensely. I do, however, like your idea of purloining some of the strong verbs you've spoken of.
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Fantasy: November 30, 2005 Issue [#739]
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